Gaining qualified traffic to your website is only half the journey. The other half deals with the conversion of traffic into paying customers – to yield revenue.
In recent years, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) has gained even more popularity across various online industries. Probability, it’s going to be the most prominent leverage point for any business, in 2017.
However, driving conversions seems a little difficult and daunting task.
The reason behind – Ever-increasing competition on the web that made it challenging for marketers to succeed in their conversion dreams.
This has made imperative for marketers to look out for eminent conversion rate optimization strategies.
Some Important Facts
Given its significance, conversion rate optimization or CRO is a jet-fuel to drive the present-time marketing machine, yielding optimal revenue.
A survey from Venture Beat incorporating 2,938 marketers shows that conversion rate optimization remains a recommended practice for any business vertical aspiring success and growth.
Below is the list of excerpts introduced from the survey:
From the findings of Venture Beat study, it’s easy to comprehend – why marketers are so fixated with conversion rate optimization? And why companies opt to spend a significant opulence on conversion rate optimization. But, conversion rate optimization – is easier to say than done.
You might doubt? Read the following statistics:
Many websites acquire enormous traffic – but, almost every website in the world lag behind the conversion.
Most of the businesses encompass conversion rate ranges from just 1 to 3%.
A lot of companies spend about $92 to acquire customers but pay out only $1 to convert them into paying customers.
About 22% of businesses seems to be satisfied with their conversion rates all across the globe.
Approximately 85% of marketers decided to focus more conversion rate optimization in 2016.
Hopefully, you believe conversion rate optimization remains a big challenge for most marketers. But the big question here is – how can you shape your optimization strategies to remain ahead of your competition?
Just relax, we’ve got you covered!
Here, we present some best conversion rate optimization practices, helping you to maximize your conversion rate in 2017.
Attractive Words and Phrases
Content matter. Visitors take few seconds to make a decision about your brand. These few second creates a difference between exit and conversion.
If your website reflecting meaningless and sometimes awfully negative words throughout – you probably kiss any chance of sales goodbye.
Generally, visitors scan whatever they read. A lot of studies found – the most subtle of variations in the text have a massive impact on psychological behavior. If positively-focused, they result in enhanced conversion rates.
On the other hand if you include vague, “scammy,” dull, and/or pessimistic words or phrases in your sales pitch they possibly put an end to your conversion — replace them immediately.
Words and Phrases like:
Submit (to what???)
Learn More (“Discover”)
Synergy (cringe!)
Spam (negative signals)
Best of Breed (bigger cringe!)
Click Here (be descriptive instead)
Save Time & Money (not exactly a unique sales proposition)
No Hidden Fees (now I believe there are!)
We (make your sales copy about them — use “You”)
Your (in CTAs, use “My”)
Static Banner Design
A lot of studies are against banner sliders. These kind of website additions are among the worst conversion-killers around!
Hence, a static banner design is an ideal choice. Whereas, if you include too many excerpts in your organization that is necessary to display – integrate dynamic personalization to aid continuity and image, including CTA, elaborating your product or services for which your visitors have arrived.
In a very skillful way, you can present variations of pages for each campaign purposes – as similar to display different landing pages for traffic from ads. Use unique URLs for each marketing campaign while ensuring canonical tags to avoid duplication of content.
Also, there is variously paid conversion rate optimization tools that personalize banners on the basis of visitor’s behavior and how they arrived.
Refer to the above slider: only 2 percent of the audience saw the original sliding version. Whereas, a whopping 43 percent of audience clicked through on the personalized version! Making It
Easy to Purchase
The major focus of a website offers an unbroken experience for visitors so that –
They enjoy visiting your website
They buy from your website
This means eliminating barriers and distractions that conflict with the above points. No doubt, the internet is filled to the brim with websites, but very few offer such experiences.
Some examples of painful obstacles are:
Annoying ads
Intrusive pop-ups
Irrelevant content
Compelling visitors to register and confirm details before purchasing
Not using cookies to remember their details
Redirecting visitors to the beginning of a blank transaction form if they make an error
Forcing CAPTCHA (and asking if they are human, to really make them love you)
Making them click through 10 unnecessary pages before arriving at their destination
Dysfunctional search bars
Omission of common payment platforms
Unclear call-to-action
Multi-colored CTAs
Incorrect implementation of translated pages
Clear Call to Action
Most of the business owners believe that their website is brilliant, entirely because it’s theirs and the layout influence them. But, it’s not perfect until your users prove it’s a good website, taking the desired action.
Being said that 9 out of every 10 visitors don`t visit a website to approve its design perfection. Not even, they make a purchase decision on the basis of designs. It`s your job to convince them through a website which is designed to convert traffic into sales.
This probably can be done by developing a clear CTA that made visitors take action instantly once they land on your website. It could be anything – buying a product, hiring your services, inquiring for additional info through a form, or subscribing to your newsletter — to name a few.
As shown below – If you are using 101 different colored buttons for visitors to take 101 diverse actions, none of them are going to work. Visitor ends up taking any action at all.
No Trust Signals
In today’s world of hacking, scams, and fakery, trust is increasingly prominent. Users are more aware and smart than ever before. Before targeting your audience, ensure your visitors trust your website.
If your website doesn’t portray trust, probably your sales are going to suffer. In order to circumvent this scenario, it’s significantly important to comprehend tricks that make a reliable website.
One of the major trust signals is – SSL certificate. With its higher-level version available, you can easily proceed through a stringent validation process, earning the green bar and padlock – you might have seen on all reputable e-commerce sites. Although it’s not only for an e-commerce store, you can also buy an SSL for your brand.
Recently, Google has also made modifications to its process – Chrome browser labels non-HTTPs sites that transmit passwords and/or ask for credit card details.
Another massive indicator of trust comes with social proofing, including:
Testimonials (especially videos)
Case studies
Partner + client logos
Press coverage
Years served
Social Media profiles + comments
Awards
Revenue
Total customers
Customer feedback stats
In addition to the above, Nielsen report also shows the most significant form of advertising – recommendations from friends and family.
Word of mouth is also a powerful tool for marketing. As per the stats, 83 percent of consumers from 60 countries trust more on recommendations as compared to other modes of advertising.
Therefore, it’s significant to gain the complete trust of your visitors, clients, and/or customers at every touch point throughout the buyer journey.
Use security signals and social proof in your website to drastically improve conversion optimization tips to boost your conversion rates.
After reading the above 5 tips, you can use to convert a greater number of customers in 2017. So which of these tips did you find the most valuable?
Digital marketing is an extensive term that includes – website design, social media, online advertising, email advertising, SEO and more. Perhaps, the term seems to be confusing for small business owners, who are simply looking to attract more eyeballs on their site.
Because their day-to-day business activities keep them too busy in running their operations. In an effort to avail small businesses such as a small consulting business, run a local consignment shop, or opened a cafe, we have put together an ample number of ways to attract business without breaking the bank.
Here are some simple, yet effective digital marketing ideas to market your business.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is one of the important digital marketing strategy framework that you put into your business to increase returns. There are two major components of Search Engine Marketing – SEO (Search engine optimization) and PSA (Paid Search Advertising).
In simple words, search engine optimization can help you get more organic visits from search engines for free. On the other hand, PSA can get you visits from search traffic, but the difference is – you will have to pay for it.
Your Goal With SEM
To drag more visits from search engines, either it is from organic search or through carefully designed and targeted PPC campaigns.
Method
In order to get more visits from search engines, make sure that your website is optimized for search. Some important things such as page titles, descriptions, web page speed, Google authorship, design and structure, incoming links, content freshness, ALT text for images and much more are essential.
Local Search Marketing
As we are talking about small businesses, therefore it is important to have local SEO listed as a separate strategy. Local SEO is a must for businesses like a doctor or a florist, a mechanic or retailer that have a physical address. This helps them in finding more consumers online.
Tour goal with local SEO
The target is to get higher ranking for searches related to your area. Whenever people search for long tail keywords with the addition of a location in the query (for example “Criminal lawyers in California”) your website needs to be listed in the top positions.
Methods
Well, there is no forthright answer because it depends on the type of SEO practices that you follow, ensuring that Google will not penalize you for trying to cheat on their algorithm and optimize your website for local SEO.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is considered as the foundation of this strategy. Publishing high-quality, feasibility, and useful content is not an option anymore, it’s essential. In case, you want to be perceived as a company with in-depth knowledge and expertise of your industry, you need a high-quality content that can benefit your potential readers.
For creating such content, considering the following:
1. Target High Search Volume Keywords
Find long tail keywords that helps in enhancing your ranking.
2. Avoid underdone or outdated content
Google is more likes to deliver the most accurate, up-to-date results in search results. Therefore, if a topic related to your niche has been covered but not recently, that will skips the opportunity to rank well in search.
3. Target topics that resonate
You need to create content that avails in broadening your brand reach, not just search results. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to topics and content types that people are seeking for. Content that resonates can help you get a lot of social shares and more backlinks.
Goal with content marketing
To create a source of information for reads and try to convince readers to become customers or execute a call-to-action, i.e. register to a newsletter, follow on social media, vote in a poll etc.
Methods
Whether it is an article, a video, a table or an image, make sure that the content will benefit your readers or customers. Avoid creating and publishing, irrelevant content.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is also an effective digital marketing strategy for your business. All you have to do is manage great content and spread the word out. The best way to do that is through a well-designed social media marketing strategy.
Goal with Social Media Marketing
Your Social Media Campaigns Should Serve Two Purposes.
1. To increase targeted followers, so that your content and brand gets attention as much as it is possible
2. To get visitors from social channels that eventually get converted into customers.
Method
By creating an excellent presence in all major social channels such as Facebook, Google+, twitter, Pinterest, sharing useful related content and engaging with people interested in your website, products or brand.
The most important feature of social media is to practice it to strengthen your customer base to make repeat sales.
Source: https://websettersblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/infographic-how-long-tail-keywords-can-boost-your-website-conversion/