Five quick ways to boost your website's conversion rate

Five quick ways to boost your website's conversion rate

If you run an online shop, sometimes it can feel like you’re always trying to find the next big sales boost. What can you do to get more people buying from you on the web?

But when you’re throwing big ideas around, it’s easy to overlook the quick wins. Here are five things you can do in the short term to improve your conversion rate and boost your bottom line.

1. Stop relying on guesswork

When businesses are seeking to improve their conversion rate, the biggest mistake they make is to assume they know what will work.

You probably have access to lots of information that’ll help you determine what to change on your website. Use Google Analytics to try and identify where people are dropping out of your purchasing process. Are conversion rates markedly lower for people using mobile devices?

Use these insights to plan some simple tests. Run these past colleagues or trusted customers to see what they think, before you go to the trouble of implementing them.

2. Get feedback from your users

You might assume that it’s difficult to get people on your website to tell you what they think of it. But actually, it can be quite easy.

Tools like Qualaroo Insights, SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang let you ask users specific questions, giving you feedback straight from the people that matter most.

(You will, of course, get useless and sometimes abusive responses. That’s the internet for you, so be prepared to take the rough with the smooth.)

3. Build credibility and trust

Studies show human behaviour is advancing and the conversion funnel is getting longer, which means users are taking time to understand how much they can trust your business before they part with their cash.

There are lots of ways to appear more trustworthy on the internet. One of the easiest options is to show some online reviews of your company on your website.

You can also check key competitor websites to see what they do to boost credibility.

4. Write your call to action

The actions and psychological triggers that customers are exposed to can drastically affect conversion rates. So why not try testing some new call to action text? Here are some ideas:

• Inject some urgency by labelling buttons ‘Buy now’ instead of ‘Add to cart’.
• Incorporate hard facts and supporting information, like ‘90% of people prefer our product’.
• Make sure you’re reinforcing your strongest unique selling point when you want users to take that action.

5. Get rid of unnecessary steps

Long checkout or signup forms are unnecessary. Make sure there’s a concrete reason you’re asking for each piece of information.

For instance, do you really need the customer’s phone number or date of birth? Reducing the length of a form can significantly increase the proportion of people who complete it.

Also make sure your account signup process happens after the customer has completed their purchase. After all, getting the money in the bank is more valuable than the registration details. 

• Turn visitors into buyers with web analytics
• The cost of poor website performance
• How to track your website visitors

This is a post from Chris Turton, managing director of conversion strategy firm ClearVolume.