7 Tips for Increasing Conversions
by Mike on May 11, 2009
in Internet Marketing
Today’s article is written by guest author Joel Ohman of DomainSuperstar.com. Joel offers some serious tips for increaing your website’s conversion rates…
Unless you have a website that you operate purely for your own enjoyment without any type of interactive or profit incentive then chances are you are like me in that you are constantly looking for ways to make your website convert better.
Many people associate the term website conversion with a sale and often that is exactly what it is but a conversion can really be anything at all. For all intents and purposes a website conversion is when the website visitor does what you want them to do. This could be buying a product, subscribing to your RSS feed, joining your newsletter, clicking on an advertisement, downloading an eBook, or any other number of things.
As the owner of a domain name tools website and close to 1,000 other domain names I am constantly tinkering with little things to try and help my websites convert better. Here is a list of 7 tips for increasing conversions:
1. MDA – The MDA or Most Desirable Action is something that you should always focus on for each of your websites. Your graphics, page headers, page copy, and everything else on the page should be focused on persuading people to do this most desirable action. A common mistake for many webmasters and internet marketers is to offer too many unrelated offers on the same page and effectively confuse or even annoy visitors to the site.
2. Tracking – Even before you start to get a lot of traffic to your site you should install and use tracking software. Free website analytics software like Google Analytics or Stat Counter is more than enough for most new sites. Advanced software packages like Hit Tail, Click Tale, Crazy Egg, and others can add some additional value once your site really begins to take off. Pay close attention to metrics like bounce rate and visitor paths to determine why visitors are leaving your site. Are visitors arriving at your site from a search engine and not finding adequate information for the keyword phrase that they typed in? Can you add more detail to some of your page copy to encourage visitors to stay longer on your site and give you a better chance to funnel them towards your MDA?
3. Domain Name – Your domain name is a strong signal to website visitors and can either help or hurt your credibility. If you design and sell website templates online then which domain name would visitors think is more trustworthy: 123-online-websitez-templatez.net or websitetemplates.com? Obviously, websitetemplates.com is the better choice. Choosing a strong keyword domain name can position your website as the authority site for that niche.
4. Design – Do you have a site that looks like it was designed in 1989? A clean and professional design can go a long way to make your website visitors feel safe inputting their email address and other personal information on your site.
5. “Realness” – Adding an about us page, a contact us page, a privacy policy page, terms of service page, having a physical address and phone number listed on the site, and other indicators of company legitimacy and “realness” will do wonders for increasing conversions.
6. Testimonials – Adding testimonials to your site either on a dedicated page or on a sidebar can reinforce positive beliefs about your site/company/service/product and can also work as a force for positive peer pressure. This is especially true if you can manage to get some testimonials from high profile people in your niche.
7. Testing – One thing is for certain when it comes to increasing website conversions: constantly testing conversion is critical. No two websites are exactly alike. Different things work for different websites and different niches. Maintain an open mind and constantly test what does and does not work for you.
Hopefully you enjoyed these 7 tips for increasing conversions. What additional tips would you recommend?
While it’s possible to increase website profits by increasing the amount of traffic to your website, an even smarter way is to increase the conversion rate of your website. It goes without saying that better website conversion means higher sales and subsequently, more profits. Any strategy that increases the website conversion therefore means more profits for your online business. Thats why its important that you optimize your seach engine marketing campaign for your site to have better online visibility and higher SERPS ranking.
although not applicable to all websites… our conversions soared when we revamped and highlighted our guarantee/return policy on some of our e-commerce domains.
Scott5430s last blog post..CDL Test
Good tips Mike. Many website marketers try to market a website that doesn’t convert well. They may be getting a lot of traffic, but they are losing so many sales by not focusing on satisfying their visitors. You need to grab them by the hand and show them where to go and convince them why they should buy from you. If you just make your website a boring catalog, you are losing money. Connect with your visitors and you will be rewarded. A human face goes a long way. Testimonials is something every e-commerce website needs.
First of all, the site should be created for people. And if your site is like the people they will long remain on the site and click on the advertisement. Advertising should be relevant subject site.
Have you used Google’s Website Optimizer? Supposedly, it works like a gem, but I’m not too sure what to think of it.
Conversion is the most important thing! I often laugh at people that brag about having thousands and thousands of unique site visitors daily yet get no profit. What does that mean ? Well, they did something wrong on the way.
These 7 tips are the basics you need to cover to earn a buck in this business and while to some it might sound obvious, many people skip the basics and go straight to “secret techniques” and we all know how that ends
Great post
Only one thing you need to know,
its to prioritizing the location and content of the advertisement
if you tweak it good you can have up to 50% more revenue then you ever thought possible