Agencies and companies providing website management search engine optimisation (SEO) often refer to “website conversion rates”. While you might be used to thinking in terms of metrics like new customers, sales, or even sign-ups, in a world that’s only becoming more and more technologically oriented and internet-focused, understanding what website conversion rates are, why they are important and how to leverage your company or e-commerce website design to increase conversions is essential.
What is a website conversion rate?
While some websites–such as educational websites, databases, and similar online resources–may not be geared towards prompting their visitors to take action, just about every business and especially every e-commerce site built by professional web development agencies centres around a “call to action.”
This call to action is the particular activity that you want your website visitors to complete. It can range from calling your business to purchasing a product or even signing up for a newsletter. No matter what the call to action is, the percentage of visitors who actually take the desired action is referred to as the website conversion rate.
Working out the website conversion rate
Conversion rates are most commonly expressed as a percentage, such as 5% or 20%.
All this means is that for every 100 visitors, 5 or 20 people will ‘convert’ i.e., answer the call to action.
Is a website conversion rate important?
As a local digital marketing agency in Brisbane, we understand as well as anyone how important a good website conversion rate is.
After all, the conversion rate metric signifies how effective your website is at achieving its goal, whether that’s sales or enquiries or donations. The more people who take the action you want them to, the more your business or organisation is likely to succeed.
More and more businesses are incorporating websites into their sales funnels, and their online presence is pretty highly placed in said funnels. If your website is in the top 1% of visited websites in a particular industry or niche, but your conversion rate isn’t sufficiently high enough to put you in the top 1% of businesses in terms of turnover, your website’s popularity isn’t going to translate into success at all!
Low conversion rates may indicate one of many things: Perhaps the site’s content or design needs to be changed. Perhaps the user experience is preventing otherwise potential customers/clients from converting.
Monitoring your website conversion rate gives you actionable direction towards how to best use your online presence to its maximum potential for your business.
How do you boost a website conversion rate?
The bad news is that there is no digital silver bullet that a web design company can provide to ensure conversion rate success. The reason? Simple: Every website and business is unique and requires tailored solutions that match their goals, their audience and their website’s current deficiencies.
If you’re interested in receiving custom, professional advice about improving your website, contact GO Creative!
However, the good news is that, in the meantime, we have 5 tried-and-tested methods for boosting website conversion rates that can be applied in most cases.
1. Focus on simple but effective design
Ready for another common industry term? User experience. Otherwise shortened to just UX, user experience refers to the process of designing and developing a website (or any product for that matter) to ensure a satisfying experience for the end user.
In the context of your website, this means that visitors can easily navigate around your pages and from webpage to webpage. It means they can find the information they need and easily take action when they choose to. This all boils down to the overall design of your website.
Keeping the website design clean and simple, instead of cluttered and complicated, will allow users to more easily find what they are looking for. The smoother and more seamless the experience, the more likely they are to take the desired action.
Of course, making your website design intuitive and easy to use is absolutely necessary, even for customers/clients right at the point of sale. After all, if they want to buy your handmade pillow covers on your e-commerce website but can’t figure out how to add their selection to the online cart, they’ll be physically unable to complete the transaction, and you’ll lose the sale.
The better your design works for your target audience, the higher your conversion rate will likely be.
2. Use persuasive copy
It’s not just the design of your website that needs attention and consideration. To boost conversion rates you should also consider the copy and content on your website.
Persuasive, compelling and well-written content can turn a visitor on the cusp of making a sale or subscribing to a newsletter into a customer or subscriber hook, line and sinker.
Copywriting is not a science; it’s more of an art form. It can take skill, experience, and insight to know how to highlight the benefits of your company’s products/services, connect emotionally with your target market, and successfully close the sale.
If you’re serious about boosting your website’s conversion rate, looking into professional copywriting services is worth it.
3. Include social proof
Social proof refers to the trend of people looking to others in their social circle (or beyond) for cues about how to behave or what to choose. As social creatures, humans of all persuasions are more likely to act in a certain way if others are doing the same thing.
Regarding your e-commerce website or business’s online presence, there are various ways of using social proof to help convert visitors into customers/clients. While some forms of social proof will be more relevant and applicable to your business than others, the important point to remember is that they need to build trust and confidence in your audience.
Testimonials and reviews
Displaying testimonials and reviews from existing customers and clients who attest to their satisfaction with your offering can go a long way toward convincing otherwise hesitant visitors to take your desired action.
Media appearances
If your company was featured in a newspaper, newsreel or other form of media, it can be very effective to display those positive promotional samples. People like to know that they are purchasing a product or using a service that has the credibility of mainstream acceptance and promotion.
Referrals systems
Word-of-mouth referrals from family and friends are one of the best ways to grow a business. Encouraging your website visitors to share your product or service on social media or with their own personal network can be a great way to establish social proof for your brand.
Statistics
Sometimes even cold hard facts can melt even the most stubborn of consumer resistance. Including true and impressive statistics can be a great way to establish confidence in potential customers/clients’ minds. Include information such as the number of products sold, countries operating in, number of businesses signed up, or even potential cost savings.
4. Make it mobile-friendly
More people are increasingly using their smartphones for internet and e-commerce site browsing. In fact, as many as 70% of people use their phone to make online purchases.
If your website isn’t designed and optimised for mobile usage, you’ll alienate and turn away many potential customers and clients.
With a professional web development agency, making your website simple and well-designed for use on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone isn’t difficult. But it can go a long way towards boosting your online conversion rates.
5. A/B testing
This is the last jargon term for the article. A/B testing is an important concept in many different arenas and areas. It basically means that you’re testing different versions of the one website, advertisement, product or service to find out which works and performs better.
In the context of your website’s design, you might not be 100% sure how visitors will react to certain design choices, navigation styles or copy.
By employing A/B testing strategies, you can more easily compare different versions and use consistent, accurate metrics–in our case conversion rates–to determine which is best. Armed with that knowledge you can make further improvements and choices to highlight those effective features even more and more.
Implement A/B testing: A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your website to see which one performs better. This can help you to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to optimise your website and boost your conversion rate.
Please note that the effectiveness of these strategies may vary depending on the specific website and target audience.
Why we’re Brisbane’s #1 SEO & digital marketing agency
GO Creative does a lot more than just provide web development to Brisbane-based organisations and companies around Australia.
We also offer a range of ongoing website management services, which means we don’t set and forget your website. Our search engine optimisation team aren’t just experts in bringing organic traffic to your site. We also monitor its performance and compare it to competitors to ensure that your web traffic and conversion rates are as high as needed to succeed.
Intrigued but not sure? That’s not a problem!
Why don’t you contact our team today for a no-cost, no-obligation, and no-pressure conversation about how we can improve your business website?
