Watching the number of real visitors to your site increase in real-time is pretty awesome.
But visits alone do not equate to a successful business. To make money, you’ve got to convert some of those visitors into customers and accelerate sales. Thankfully, there’s plenty you can do to get the ball rolling and start turning your website into a profitable website.
Quick Takeaways:
- Getting visitors on your site is a great start, but converting them to customers is the goal
- With consistency and a good plan you can exponentially change your conversion rate
- There are several unique options for increasing conversions on your website
Here’s a quick video from Shopify to get you started:
We’ve listed 10 growth hacks you can use to help turn your visitors into customers:
1. Implement Live Chat
The last few years have seen the adoption of live chat by both companies and consumers expand exponentially. Why? Consumers love it because they can get their questions answered almost immediately, with minimum hassle.
Companies love it because it’s so cost-effective.
Live chat is an excellent tool for turning visitors into customers, primarily because it allows you to intervene before an undecided customer abandons their purchase.
A key feature of most live chat software is page tracking, which enables you to create “triggers” that will initiate the conversation with a customer when their activity signals they’re having a problem with the site or their purchase.
2. Offer Something for Free
We get it – you started your company to make money, so it might seem counterintuitive to give away something for free.
But if your business is built on a subscription model, offering a freebie could be what’s needed to give your visitors the confidence to become customers.
A free trial achieves two things:
- Answers those questions that a customer might not think to ask, but that are preventing them from buying.
- Demonstrates the confidence you have in your product or service – a confidence that will rub off on potential customers.
- Implement Signs of Social Proof
3. Implement Signs of Social Proof
People like to follow the herd. If they think plenty of other people are buying your product, they’re more likely to do so as well.
Testimonials
Testimonials are an excellent form of social proof because not only do they show that yes, other people are buying this product, but they show how wonderful other people think the product is too.
If you can bag a testimonial from a well-known face, do so (perhaps by giving free samples to industry bloggers). But even a glowing review from an average Joe will still have a positive impact.
Logos
In B2B companies, displaying the logos of your current clients shows potential new clients that they’ll be in good company. Make sure to seek permission from any clients whose logos you wish to use, of course.
Source: Gainsight
4. Create Product Demo Videos
Selling and marketing online can be difficult, especially compared to selling in a brick-and-mortar store. Technology is helping us to bridge some of the gaps – live chat allows us to emulate the effect of helping a confused-looking customer in a store.
One issue that can’t be mimicked, however, is the ability to pick up and closely observe a product. Product images are a key part of this – especially if they’re large and allow the customer to zoom in on points of interest.
InlineVision says, “the single most important part of any product page is the product image,” further arguing that “great product images can increase your ecommerce conversion rate by as much as 30%.”
Of course, creating a product video will come at an expense. Ideally you’ll want to:
- Hire a professional company to shoot the videos. You might think any video is better than no video at all, but a poorly-made video could actually hurt your conversion rate.
- Show the product from every angle and make sure to highlight its best features.
- Employ someone to actually be in the video and talk the customer through the product.
5. Leverage Your Visitor’s FOMO
FOMO, or the “fear of missing out” is that nagging feeling that if you don’t do something, you’ll miss out on something great.
To buy or not to buy
There are lots of reasons a customer might choose not to buy, but a big one is because they say, “I’ll do it later.” In theory, that’s absolutely fine. I don’t care whether a customer makes their purchase now, tonight, tomorrow, or next week.
The problem is that – a lot of the time – later never comes.
We simply need to show the customer that if they don’t complete their purchase now, they might miss out on the chance to complete their purchase at all, (or, at least, at that price).
Let’s take a look at an example:
Amazon shows you how long you have to order if you want to receive your purchase by a particular date:
6. Implement an Exit Overlay
Exit overlays are those messages that pop up as you try to leave a website. Chances are, you’ve been annoyed by them. Chances are also that you’ve been intrigued by the message displayed and have converted.
The reputation these pop-ups hold for being intrusive and annoying means that many site owners are afraid to use them. They’re missing out though, because the data shows that they do work.
There are a few different ways an exit overlay can be used to do this…
Grow your email marketing list:
Source: Optimizely.com
Or offer a freebie:
Source: Divvy.com
7. Steal Your Competitors’ Customers with a Comparison Page
If you’re in a competitive market, your potential customers are already comparing your product against your competition before making their purchase.
By creating a landing page that’s specifically designed to capture “you versus them” related search terms, you can show potential customers why they should choose you over your competition.
Pages that are optimized for your competitors’ brand names could actually drive up SEO results from potential customers that weren’t initially searching for you.
Some ways you can implement this strategy are:
- With a comparison blog post
- With a comparison chart, similar to this example from Formstack:
- With a “price comparison calculator,” like the example below from SugarCRM:
A price comparison calculator only compares products based on price. Most consumers will be swayed by much more than just price, so use this calculator as part of a multiple-pronged comparison page.
8. Redesign Your “About Us” Page for Conversions
Most about us pages feature jargon-heavy blurbs about what the company does, alongside a series of staff profiles. If this description hits too close to home for your website, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.
Check out this page from Lateral!
There’s so much more that can be achieved with an about us page. Namely, you can use it to sell.
In addition to the obvious – your company story, mission statement, and team profiles – you could also include:
- Social proof
- Testimonials
- Statements that illustrate why you’re the best
- CTAs and/or an opt-in form
9. Track Your Visitors Movements
Don’t worry, this isn’t as creepy as it sounds. It involves using a tool like CrazyEgg to track how your visitors move around your website – primarily, what they click on and what they ignore.
The insights gained from this tactic can be priceless and lead the way to changes that can drastically up the rate at which your site converts.
Conversion Rate Experts let their visitor’s movements drive changes to the site and saw the conversion rate of their online store and saw a 25.9% increase in opt-ins.
10. Always Be (A/B) Testing
A/B testing is one of the easiest ways of identifying what changes you can make to your website to turn more of your visitors into customers.
An A/B test involves pitting two slightly different versions of a webpage against each other – for example, version A might have green CTAs, while version B might have red CTAs.
You’ll then send 50% of your visitors to version A, and 50% to version B.
Before long, you should be able to identify which version of the page results in more conversions.
Source: Pitstop Media Inc
Whichever version performs best “wins.” At that point, you might make the winner a permanent fixture on the page or perform another test to find out if another variation on the page could perform even better.
Formstack changed just three words from their main menu – “Why Use Us” became “How It Works” – and saw a 47.7% increase in clicks.
Wrap-up
Smallbusinessbc.ca says:
The key is to be realistic in terms of goals and to see your web marketing as an ongoing project with different priorities over time.
Getting conversions takes time, but using the write tools and practices over time can turn your visitor to customer ratio up exponentially. The trick is consistency and a good plan – so get to it!
Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.
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