7 Ways to Boost Your Conversion Rate When Designing a Website
Create a persona of your target customer
It helps to take an even further step back. Creating effective web design properly, you need to know what your audience is.
If you don’t know what kind of customer you’re trying to attract, how can you build a website that will convert those customers to paying customers ane expect them to buy your products or services and in turn increase website sales?
Creating a persona of the kind of customer you want to attract is a great first step to understanding your customer.
Knowing the persona of your ideal customer means you can target that customer more intently. Your site will “speak to them” because it’s built around the kind of content and resources they want to see and ultimately …obtain.
If you know the kind of customer you want to attract to within as exact a specification as possible, then that knowledge will help you to meet the needs of that specific people and increase website sales.
Think about who these people are. Use some of the ideas below to help you profile your ideal customer.
- What Gender are they predominantly
- What age group do they fall under
- What job do they do
- How do they use the Internet
- What is their financial standing
- What expendable income do they have
- What products or services do they typically buy
- What free products do they seek out
And there are many more indicators than I’ve listed here.
Here is one excellent sample from Digitalmarketer.
Get to know who they are, even right down to how they spend their free time – and even give them a name.
Doing this means you can create a complete customer profile.
From this customer profile, you can understand what they need …and in turn – how your website can meet those needs.
Setting this profile against the design of your website enables you to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer as they travel through your site.
You can then aim to design your website around that customer’s desired experience.
Applying this demographic and other information against the backdrop of what you want the website to achieve, will help to ensure you meet the expectations of your ideal customer.
Apply this approach and you should see an increase in conversions. And remember, even a 1% shift is a big difference in the conversion stakes.
Clearly communicate the benefits
When a user enters your site, the site needs to be clear what it’s about, the problems it addresses and the benefits of engaging with the products and services.
They need to know that the site understands their problem, and what solution the site will provide for them.
This may be a product or information that will make their life easier. Well-chosen words define this benefit. Don’t beat around the bush and praise the product. A specific product is supposed to solve a specific problem.
Navigation will help your customers find out more information, make it easy for them.
Even the best laid out text communicating the benefits, designed to convince even the greatest skeptic, will not help if they cannot get to the information.
Failing to be easy to use can cause user-fatigue and frustration.
Easy access to pages where the user can be satisfied you have the right solution, and applying the “call to action” button is a great way to convert visitors to sales.
So improving the readability of the website will help gain more conversions and increase website sales: a good and transparent design that supports the achievement of the website’s goal will help to increase conversion.
Customer Reviews
If you use websites to sell products or services, then gathering a fan base of satisfied customers is really helpful.
Future customers are often convinced by existing customers.
That’s why, in some instances, it’s worth having ratings, feedback and comment areas on the website.
According to a study from iPerceptions, 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has user reviews
They create social proof, which is a great recommendation on what you offer. Opinions of others and support for the brand provides credibility.
Sometimes letting satisfied customers speak for you is the best sales conversion tool you can get.
Be proactive. Actively ask satisfied customers to write a few words about your product or service. With their positive input on the site, you’re more likely to get more customers, even encourage feedback and referrals with further tempting discounts.
And respond to questions, interacting with a potential customer provides greater confidence to others that you are customer focussed.
Even negative feedback can be positive. Any comments you receive on the Internet can help you gain new customers. If you solve the problem of a dissatisfied customer or user, their “thank you” will be a superb advertisement.
Well-composed Forms
In addition, not everyone wants to give a phone number on the Internet, and even unnecessary *Required fields can turn customers away.
Don’t give them an excuse to close the browser window if you don’t have to.
People’s attention span is short. So extensively long forms also have a negative psychological effect, cause user fatigue and potential barriers.
Keep the required information to a minimum, enough to provide you with the sales information you need. You can always reach out to get some of the “less important” information afterward…plus it’s a way to keep in touch!
A/B Testing
This is another must-have when you look at optimizing your website conversion.
You can check whether any change in design or text to a page brings expected, worse, or better results. In other words: if you change something, even minor – does it create improvements on the final percentage of conversions.
You can test page creations, element layouts, forms or texts on the page. Start by selecting one element that might be having a negative impact on the conversion, change that and gauge the results, then alter another element and so on.
The result of an A/B test should be aimed at improving conversion further. Not all A/B tests turn out as expected, so be prepared for a decline. If it proves detrimental, then change it.
Typical A/B testing should last over 7 or more days to get a reasonable sample.
Now, let’s end off with a video for today’s article:
Conclusion
Optimization of your conversion rates is one of the most important tasks a website owner can do to increase website sales. Without measuring this, you will not be able to assess whether the website actually fulfills its full potential.
Design your site to meet your customer’s needs, make it easy, and test it and refine it to make improvements.
