When people first land on a website, studies tell us that 92% of them aren’t there to buy, at least not right away. You’ve done a great job generating traffic to your site, but that doesn’t mean that every person that lands is going to convert. In fact, if your site isn’t optimized for conversions, there’s a good chance that you won’t see most of those 92% of visitors again.
Many businesses spend a great deal of time, and money, building a website design and an SEO strategy that generates a ton of traffic. After all, you can’t convert them if they never land on your site. The only problem is there often isn’t enough effort put into nurturing traffic to the point of conversion.
It isn’t enough to have a great looking website. Businesses that optimize their sites for conversions are going to benefit from a huge bump in sales. Are you ready for this to be you? Great, let’s talk about the 5 ways of elevating your website design to a high performing conversion machine.
Let’s say you own a physical retail location. You’ve spent a ton of time setting up and decorating the inside so that it wows every person that walks through the door. You’ve made it inviting for people to come in and browse, while feeling completely comfortable in the surroundings. This is like what a good website design does for your business.
But, while wandering around your store, people start to notice that there isn’t a cash register in site. There’s no direction as to how to actually pay for anything. If they tried hard enough they could probably track someone down and ask, but maybe they’ll just wander around a browse a little more before leaving.
This is what happens when you haven’t created a clear path to conversion.
When a visitor lands on your site, they shouldn’t need to do any work at all to understand the value of engaging with your brand. A value proposition should be front and center, with a clear call to action attached to it. You’d be amazed at what this one small change can make.
For example, Hubspot points out one case study where a business restructured their homepage to answer the “who, what, where and why” questions and benefited from an awesome 105.9% increase in their rate of conversions. They kept the value message above the fold and made the CTA feature impossible to miss. In other words, they designed their homepage with the end goal in mind and it paid off huge.
You probably have the goal of generating traffic from as many sources as possible. The more people that visit your site, the more conversions you’ll get because it’s all a game of playing the odds.
If you’ve been following this philosophy, it’s time to stop treating your lead generation strategy like a game of Vegas Roulette. It might pay off big, but the odds are stacked against you.
Your entire marketing strategy should be built around a funnel that lands high quality leads at your door. These high-quality leads aren’t going to want anything to do with a generic site that isn’t targeted specifically towards them. People that land on your site are going to have different motives, so you want to tailor your design to those that are most likely to convert.
For example, let’s say you own an athletic shoe company. There’s all sorts of different people who might be interested in your product, but you’ve probably noticed that your actual customers fit into a specific niche. Maybe it’s high performance runners, or you’ve noticed that most of your customers are female. It’s fine to carry products designed for other users, but the main strategy of your web design should be focused on the ones who are going to spend the most money.
We’re at a point where mobile searches are outnumbering searches completed from desktops. This means that more and more of your potential customers are reaching you from their mobile devices. Being optimized for the mobile user by leveraging responsive web design is no longer an option for your business, at least if you actually want conversions.
Google says that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a site if they had trouble accessing a mobile version. Since generating conversions is usually a multi-step journey, it’s crucial to not do anything that will stand in the way of a return visit to your site.
Plus, it used to be that most purchases were made from desktops, but this is another trend that’s changing as we speak. Without a design that works across all devices, you’re never going to capture the conversions that you’re capable of.
What if you’ve read every blog on generating conversion and even sought some professional advice, yet your numbers still aren’t where you think they should be? It’s time to start testing everything.
Features like a well-designed home page, strong headlines, use of white space, short lead capture forms and strong CTAs are all hallmarks of a high converting site. But, that doesn’t mean that these things can’t be improved upon. It could be the smallest change that makes the biggest difference in conversions, so testing is crucial.
Visitors are more likely to convert when they feel they can trust you. Trust is gained through repeated exposure and familiarity, but also through details like having testimonials and credibility badges on your site.
It’s also smart to consider the language you’re using on your site. Does your CTA read “submit” or “contact”? These short, one-word commands hardly sound natural and do nothing to add relatability to your image. Take a more natural, conversational approach and you’ll generate a 25-40% increase in conversion rates.
Are you ready to spruce up your website design? We’re the web design agency that knows how to generate the conversions you deserve. Contact us at Knowmad and let us introduce you to the conversions you’ve been missing.