5 Top Tips to Convert Your Website Visitors into Paying Customers

Following on from our last article ‘How to Increase Website Traffic’ we will explore some of the basic elements required to turn this traffic into paying customers.

The primary goal for any website is to convert visitors into customers, it is also essential to raise brand awareness, improve your search rankings and drive traffic to your website through your social media channels.

However, once on your site you have a short timeframe to capture the user’s interest and make the conversion. Follow our five step formula to increase your websites conversions.

1. Know Your Target Audience

Research is the key to any successful online venture and this is required to build a clear understanding of your target audience. Through your research it is very beneficial to develop a profile of your target customer and include their demographics such as age, gender, marital status, income and location. Now the focus shifts to their underlying motivations; what is the major problem they are experiencing and how does your website solve this. It is essential for you to understand how you can solve their problems and highlight this on your website.

2. Make Your Website User Friendly

Internet users generally have a short time frame to conduct their search. They also have a short attention span, therefore if you have managed to get them to click onto your website it is imperative that your site is clear and they can navigate to the page they want with ease.

Some basic features that should be on your website include a logical menu, clean design, clear calls to action and simple functionality e.g. add to cart features, request a call-back etc. The primary goal is to make your site so user friendly that your users become customers in the shortest space of time. It is also worth researching why your customers are visiting your site and in turn giving them what they want in a clearly designed format.

3. Focus On Your Customers’ Pain Points.

Back to research, through effective research you will understand your target audience’s pain points. You must then use your website to present the ideal solution to their problem. Using this approach can help direct your overall marketing strategy and keep you focused on the needs of your visitor knowing that when they land on your site, they feel like they must take action and have your product or service to resolve their issue. By understanding your customers pain points and integrating this into your marketing strategy your website will attract customers and answer their most urgent needs.

4. Use Clear Language.

Regularly assess your marketing campaigns, look out for poof talk or buzzwords in your ad copy or technical lingo on your landing pages. If this is the case it’s time to rework your marketing strategy. The best advertisements and landing pages present a clear, concise message about your products that encourage customers to click through.

A simple question to ask at the beginning of any marketing campaign is “what does your product do, and for whom?” then provide a simple call to action.

5. Make Sure Your Products or Services Are Competitively Priced.

Where you are selling products online clearly communicate your unique selling points. This brings you back to research, make sure that your products or services are competitively priced. The chances are that visitors coming onto your website will be comparing you directly to your competitors. Ensure your website clearly communicates why your products or services are better than your competitors. This will help you convert visitors to customers.

Driving traffic to your site is the first step towards converting them into customers. Don’t lose them at this point, follow the steps above to improve your conversion rates. Is your website driving conversions? If not, contact us now at WebResults on 01-2071872 or visit our website and fill out a contact form to get more information or a FREE WEBSITE REVIEW at www.webresults.ie.

Why you Should Track Sales Through Google Analytics’ Goal Funnel

Tracking sales through a goal funnel:

Google Analytics is a great tool for analysing all aspects of your digital marketing activities. Within Google Analytics there is tool called a “Goal Funnel”, which allows you to view each stage in the process of a visitor completing what you have decided is a goal. This is a very effective tool when tracking the sales or leads that are generated through your site.

 

Google Analytics Goals Funnel

This funnel is set up for each of the pages a visitor goes through before they complete a transaction – in the able example, there are 6 pages. You will see in this case, 8,098 visitors have added an item to their cart; however 5,705 (70%) people have changed their mind and decided against purchasing this item at this first stage.

 

Of the 2,393 visitors who continued to the billing stage, 719 (30%) visitors decided against the purchase. This goes on through three more stages until you get a final figure of 1,371 visitors who completed a transaction on your site during this particular timeframe.

 

By tracking sales through a goal funnel, you can see at what stage people are leaving the funnel and in turn you can work on identifying why and putting measures in place to avoid people leaving. If a large amount of visitors are leaving at a page which requires personal information, then maybe you’re asking for too much unnecessary information. This funnel can help you optimise your online checkout to suit your customer’s needs.

 

Tracking your sales as goals through Google Analytics is a great way of measuring the ROI of your online market. For example, you may discover that referral traffic from Facebook buys more than your referral traffic from Twitter. This kind of information can be vital when determining which strategies to focus on in the future.

 

For more information on goals and funnels in Google Analytics, check out our info centre.
If you would like to find out how to maximise your use of Google Analytics or if you have any questions regarding Google Analytics or any other form of Web Analytics then please contact us at WebResults.ie.

Optimising Your Online Checkout to Increase Sales

How to Make the Payment Process Easier for Customers

 

Making it as easy as possible for your customers to pay is essential for increasing conversions and sales. Your checkout page is of vital importance, where you are converting visitors into paying customers, so ensure that it is the smoothest transition possible. Here are some tips to making the payment process as simple for the user as possible.

Provide a Number of Payment Methods:

Restricting yourself to only one available payment method will likely see a large bounce rate from your checkout page. You don’t have to include every payment method available, but you should accommodate payments from all major credit cards and debit cards.

Allow Transactions for Those Who Don’t Have an Account on Your Website:

Forcing people to register an account with your site can be seen as unnecessary and intrusive by many of those who just want to purchase an item.

While having them register with your site can provide you with opportunities, the onetime customer may view it as an unwanted distraction. Which prolongs the completion of a payment, allowing more time for a customer to decide against purchasing said product.

If a customer completes their first transaction with ease then they may view your site more favourably and opt to register with the site voluntarily.

ITunes address this problem with a guest checkout option;

Don’t Redirect People:

After browsing through your site and deciding to purchase a product, your customer will become familiar with the layout and branding of the site. When it comes to the final step of parting their money with you, they may feel slightly uncomfortable with being transferred to a different website to input their card details.

This is one of the disadvantages of using a service like PayPal, which takes customers to a generic checkout page. Using a solution which allows more branding and integration can reassure the visitor and thus increase your conversions.

 

Make Errors Easy to Fix:

Having input all the necessary details, a customer may add an extra number to their card number or forget to fill in their zip code. Where this happens, highlight the mistake clearly with the rest of the details still filled in, like Spotify do in the example below, rather than leaving the customer to guess what the issue is.

A customer may become irritated if they have constantly re-enter their details because of a small mistake.

Ask for Essential Information Only:

When it comes to completing a checkout, the customer’s card details are obviously essential. After that then keep the required information to a minimum, maybe their email address for confirmation purposes and receipt.

A lot people will drop off the process if they feel they are being asked for too much personal and unnecessary information.

If you are asking for more information, then offer an explanation as to why you require this information.

Keep Distractions to a Minimum:

Having brought your customers this far in the buying process, you do not want them to get distracted by an advertisement at the top of the page. Don’t offer any other calls to action on the checkout page other than completing their checkout.

Have Clear Calls to Action:

Throughout the buying process, you should make it clear what a customer has to do to buy a product. When a customer clicks on an item, make it easy for them to “add to basket” with options to “continue to checkout” or “continue shopping” etc. Don’t leave the customer guessing as to how they can actually purchase this product.

These are just some quick tips as to what you should include in your checkout page. If you would like to find out more about how to maximise your websites conversion rates or how to go about building an effective checkout system on your website, please contact us at WebResults.

You don’t want your users to have to go through this!

Tips on Increasing User Signups

How to Increase user signups:

 

There are many different changes that can be made to one’s webpage to try to increase your signups, such as free newsletters or free trials. These kind of signups are easy to include on WebPages, and don’t require extensive coding changes.

 

Here are 5 simple tips that will boost your signups and in turn increase your conversions.

 

Make Your Call to Actions Obvious:

Within a signup page, a clear call to action is vital. Without it, the process becomes redundant as visitors don’t want to spend time trying to figure out how they go about signing up.

 

Webresults Call to Action

 

Differentiate your call to action from the rest of the page. Use contrasting colours, a larger font and prominent positioning for the best results.

 

Keep Your Signup Form Simple:

You will know yourself from past experiences, when faced with a long and complicated signup form; you are more than likely going to leave that page. Try to stick to essential information only, if no money is involved then just look for their name and email address. With money involved just ask for the bare minimum required by your credit card processor.

Simple Form

 

Offer a Guarantee:

Offer a guarantee on the product or service the customer is signing up for. If it is something a free newsletter then show a guarantee that you will not share their email with anyone else and also tell them that they can opt out of the newsletter at any time. This can help build trust between your brand and customer.

 

Signup Guarantee

 

For paid products, offer a guarantee of 30 – 60 days if possible so that customers will feel more secure about purchasing your product.

 

Use Popup forms:

Short and simple popup forms can be a great way of having a visitor sign up to your service in a quick manner. By producing a short form through a modal window, the visitor may see how easy it is to sign up and opt in there and then. This also takes out the hassle of having to navigate their way through your site looking for a signup form.

 

Offer Incentives:

Let’s face it, we all like free things! Offering a small incentive for users to sign up to your subscription can greatly improve conversions. Even small incentives such as a free trial or consultation can be enough to entice a visitor to sign up.

 

At Webresults.ie we offer a wide range of digital marketing services such as PPC and SEO. If you have any questions on how to increase signups on your site or ways of improving traffic to your site, please contact us.

 

How To Make Website Navigation Easy

Do you think about your website navigation? It is a hugely important part of your website and something so many people overlook. Have a look at our tips on how to make it more user friendly!

To read the full article, visit How To Make Website Navigation Easy.

For more information on website usability and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.