Marketing

How Can I Increase My Conversions?

Conversions are the end goals of every page on your website — that’s why so many businesses invest in conversion rate optimization (CRO). You want to convince your visitors to progress in the sales funnel so that they’ll perform an action that turns them into a customer, whether that’s buying a product, downloading software, or donating to your non-profit.

No matter what your conversion goal is, there are some foundational ideas that you can use to increase the likelihood that someone will convert on your site’s pages.

Strong headlines

Headlines aren’t just informative — they’re your first opportunity to catch the attention of your customers.

This age-old journalistic principle is the same for writing on the Internet. In order to start site visitors in the sales funnel, your headline should be captivating, eye-catching, surprising, compelling, or a combination of those qualities. Fortunately for beginners, there are lots of different techniques for writing good headlines available online.

The format of your headline is up to you, and if you’re really curious as to what performs best, you can A/B test the same pages under different headlines to see which works better.

Attention-grabbing starts

Since you’ve drawn a site visitor with your headline, now you have to deliver on your promise and provide an exciting start to your page.

Again, this is an old journalism principle, called a “lede,” that carries over into Internet copywriting. This is the place for you to further interest your readers and tell them what your page is about. Good ledes are written concisely with active voice, and they’re focused on one or two ideas at the most. In addition, ledes that attempt to be clever almost never work, so it’s good to stick to interesting information.

That doesn’t mean ledes have to be dry, though. In fact, your lede is your opportunity to set the tone and mood for the rest of your writing. So if you want readers to laugh, make a light-hearted introduction; if you want them to cry, make it heavier; and if you want them to trust you, be persuasive.

Calls to action

Strong calls to action are some of the best ways to encourage your readers to convert. This is your chance to tell customers directly what they can do to solve their problem, whether it’s purchasing a product, downloading a free trial, or contacting one of your sales representatives.

There are lots of different styles that you can use for calls to action, though the most successful tend to offer a personal appeal, list the benefits of converting, and use active verbs. However, calls to action aren’t something that you can copy by example — in other words, a call to action that works for one business won’t necessarily work for yours. But you can still learn from other websites’ successes and use those as inspirations.

After you have a call to action, don’t call it quits just yet. Calls to action require extensive A/B testing to determine which one is the best for your business. If you have a lot of ideas, just test two at a time and test the winners against one another — kind of like a March Madness bracket — until you have the optimal winner.

Remember, even the design of your calls to action can influence conversion rates. Following best practices for user experience design, like using contrast and supporting accessibility, can all help conversion rates.

Easy conversion

Regardless of what your goal is for your customer, you have to make it easy for them to convert or they won’t do it. Reducing the number of clicks, screens, and loading time for a visitor all make it easier for them to become your customers. It’s also helpful to have clear signup fields, easy-to-read instructions, and attention-grabbing buttons that help users complete conversions.

Using these four standard tips, you can increase the conversion rates of your most popular pages. However, if you’re not seeing the results you want, like a higher LTV, you might want to consider getting feedback from a third-party, like a digital marketing agency. Fill out our contact form below, and we’ll contact you and talk about how you can improve conversion rates for your business!

P.S. Securing your site is another fantastic way to improve conversions — you’ll need the help of your development team, though!

 

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