In the first instalment of this three-part series, we provided some tips to help your website fly up the Google organic listings by targeting niche traffic through relevant search terms and applying these terms to your site in the most effective places.
This issue we are looking at the visitor experience once they find your website and the conversion tactics that can be applied to create an enquiry or sale.
If you have invested time and effort in raising your profile online through keywords and optimisation and you now have a flood of visitors banging on your website door, it is critical that these visitors convert to sales or enquiries.
Converting web traffic
Do an analysis of your current website asking yourself the following key questions:
- Can visitors really understand what I am offering within three seconds of landing on my home page?
- Is my website enticing?
- Will they want to delve further?
- Is it obvious immediately how to make an enquiry or purchase when they land on the homepage?
If you answered yes to all of the above, then well done. Your site should be generating a great deal of business for you. If you answered no to any of the above then there are some tips you can apply to your website to increase the conversion rate of visitors and make sure they return again to buy.
Tip 1:
If it is taking you over three seconds to understand what you are offering on your landing page, then this is not quick enough.
The product or service needs to be described within five words. Using too much text on a landing page can confuse visitors.
What they want to see is concise information featuring key headings and clear direction for them to proceed further into the site to make a purchase. Airline websites are a good example of how a landing page should work in the buying process.
They have an area for visitors to search for flights in a highly visible spot as they realise that most people when they land on that page want to purchase a flight as their primary reason for being there. This is quite simply the quickest route to purchase.
The over-use of images and flash can also be frustrating for visitors as they wait patiently for the page to load. The idea would be to use images to show a product or convey a message that quickly allows visitors to decide if they want to buy from you.
Tip 2:
You have the landing page working wonders. Visitors understand what you are offering and they click through to the next page on their journey through your website. However if the following pages are not up to scratch then you will lose them.
You need to make sure that these follow-on pages provide content that enables them to move through the purchase process or encourages them to make an enquiry.
If you do not provide enough clear direction and information on the process, they will leave. If you provide too much information, they will also leave.
Q. So what information should you provide on your site to encourage people to buy?
A. Talk to your existing customers and find out what information they needed to make a purchase from you. Find out what their buying process really is.
Tip 3:
The path to a purchase or enquiry should always be a quick one when a visitor lands on your site. Ideally, there should be a purchase point on each page. Make it obvious and repeat the call to action in visible areas on the page. Do not place a ‘contact us’ button at the bottom of a scrolling page. Most people will not bother to scroll down. The idea is that anyone landing on your site needs to find a sales or enquiry mechanism at any point in their purchase process.
In the third and final instalment in this series, we offer advice on building on these foundations and how you then monitor your visitors’ site behaviour to drive an online strategy.
Kirrily Dear is development director of Eyes Wide Open, a management consultancy specialising in companies with up to 50 staff. For more lead generation tips visit www.eyeswideopen.com.au
