Do you have a steady stream of visitors but not a lot of customers? People come to your site, but they never end up buying your product or booking your service. It’s the worst, right?
In today’s post, we’re going to stop the bleeding. We’re turning those views into customers through proven conversion strategies. While you don’t have to do everything on this list, just doing a few will positively impact your conversion rates: guaranteed, or your money back. Let’s get started!
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It All Starts With Trust
I’m going to be blunt with you, if that’s okay. [Tweet "The reason people don’t buy from you is because they don’t trust you."]
But don't take it personally. Most of us are hardwired to be suspicious and cautious - especially with our money. In order to get someone to buy from you, get them to trust you first.
You’ll notice this as a running theme throughout the following conversion strategies. In each of these strategies, you’ll learn how to build trust with your visitors so they feel confident about buying from you. So, based on trust, step number one is:
Give Away Something for Free
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No matter what your business is, you can afford to give away something for free. It can be:
A physical gift
A 30-day trial of your product or service
A digital product related to your industry niche, such as a downloadable ebook
Look at how Olive Garden Italian Restaurant hooks visitors with a free token:
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Image Courtesy of Olive Garden Italian Restaurant
By giving away a free appetizer with the purchase of two adult entrees, they’re converting site visitors into customers.
The people who visit your site are already interested in your product or service. Get them over the hump by offering something they can’t refuse - and who can refuse free?
Educate Them
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Your site visitors may be in fact-finding mode. This means they don’t know enough to actually buy, but they’re actively researching to figure out what they need.
This is your chance to teach them everything they need to know. The result? They’ll see you as an expert. But not only that - they’ll also want to buy from you because you seem to know what you’re talking about.
There are a lot of ways to educate your site visitors. You can do it via a blog, a free ebook, a podcast, or an email course. Let’s discuss a few of those below.
Create an Email List
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of your site visitors just aren’t ready to buy yet. Plus, once they leave your site, odds are high that they’ll never return.
Solve that problem by getting them to join your email list.
First, create a “lead magnet.” This can be a resource, a free guide, the promise of a discount code, or some other carrot that you dangle. Whatever it is-- be sure that it’s valuable. No one wants to be duped. That’s a quick way to get unsubscribes.
Then, create an email marketing campaign where you continue to educate your subscribers. You can also sprinkle in promo codes and exclusive email subscriber-only sales.
All of this builds trust (there goes that word again).
Give Social Proof
People trust other people. You want your site visitors to know that you’ve won the popularity contest. They should know that other folks have trusted you and succeeded.
Now’s not the time for modesty. Proudly display your testimonials, share success stories from satisfied customers, and offer case studies galore. Create a page dedicated to testimonials and even include photos of your happy customers to further grab your visitor’s attention. Don’t forget to add these testimonials to your homepage and landing pages.
Create a Blog
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You’ve resisted, you’ve procrastinated, you’ve hesitated, but you can’t escape it: you need a blog. Blogs are great for search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines love to display fresh content. So, you’ll bring in more organic traffic with a blog.
Concerning conversions, a blog will help you educate the site visitor. In each blog post, add internal links to other content on your blog. This will turn your blog into the reader’s definitive resource on the subject.
Also, a blog gives you multiple opportunities to push your calls to action, whether that’s “buy my products” or “sign up to my newsletter.”
Offer Multiple Packages
Are you a service-based company? If so, do you have multiple tiers for your service?
If you’re just offering a one-size-fits-all product, you’re missing out on the customers who may want to try your service before fully committing.
Not everyone’s ready, willing, or able to spend hundreds of dollars on your service yet. They may be more cautious and willing to spend a smaller amount to see if you’re worth it (you totally are - they just don’t know it yet).
Give your customers the luxury of choice. Rethink your service model so that you can cater to multiple budgets.
Focus on User Experience
Is your website cluttered with ads everywhere? Not only is this ugly, it also decreases your credibility. You’re telling site visitors that you’re willing to sell out their user experience for pay per click pennies.
Yikes, it sounds bad when I say it like that, right? But that’s the message you’re consciously delivering with all of that clutter in the background. It’s also distracting your visitors from actually making a connection with your content.
Another major problem to look out for is slow loading sites.
Studies show that 47% of site visitors will abandon your site if it doesn’t load in three seconds or less. That’s right - in less time than it takes you to read this sentence, would-be site visitors will get so frustrated by your slow loading site that they’ll head for the back button. We’ve come a long way since the days of dial-up.
Promise me that you’ll make a fast-loading site your top priority. Pinky promise. Otherwise, you’re losing customers before you even have a chance to get them.
Optimize Your Footer
If you’ve managed to get a site visitor to scroll down the page and make it all the way to the footer, don’t just squander that opportunity with a copyright notice.
Optimize this space with a contact form so that the visitor can reach out to you - kinda like I do here on this site. (Made you look!)
Optimize Your Contact & Sign Up Forms
Speaking of contact forms: don’t settle for generic forms that don’t work for you or your site visitors. Focus on creating a strong user experience targeted to your specific site visitors.
Your contact page is the perfect place to answer frequently asked questions and coax prospects out of their reluctance.
Moving on to sign-up forms: Make it easy to subscribe, join, or download. When it comes to sign-up forms, the fewer fields, the better. Ideally, just ask for the first name and email address, but there’s an even simpler way: social logins.
In addition to an email field, you can include a social login button (such as “Sign Up with Facebook” or “Sign Up with Google”). Because all it takes is a couple of clicks, visitors are more likely to choose this option.
The bonus for you is that you’ll get a ton of information about the users who opt for social login. This information includes their name, age, gender, and other social demographics you can use to better target your marketing.
Plan for Abandoned Carts
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Do you sell products or services on your website? If yes, do you have a plan in place for those abandoned carts? Approximately 68% of online shopping carts are ditched and that’s sad. But here’s the good news:
You can actually recover these carts and increase your sales.
That is, if you’ve created an infrastructure that sends out an automated email within minutes of the abandonment. You see, people abandon carts for all sorts of reasons, including site crashes, shipping cost surprises, and “just looking.”
You can woo them back with discount codes and free shipping. Test to figure out what type of offer performs the best.
Get Them Before They Go
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Last, but certainly not least, hit ‘em with a pop up as they’re leaving. Offer the visitor something of valuable (this is a lead magnet like we discussed earlier) in the form of an exit-intent pop-up.
You have nothing to lose (because they’re leaving anyway), and you may just increase your mailing list. This also means you’ll increase the chances of converting this site visitor into a customer.
The Final Word
Use one or all of the above tips to convert site visitors into customers. Make people trust you, and you’ll have a customer for life.
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