The primary goal of any business site is to increase sales. While steady traffic and click-throughs are great, you want people to make a purchase or take the next step.
To boost engagement and conversions when people land on your website, you’ll need the right strategies. That’s why we asked the members of Forbes Agency Council how to turn website visitors into loyal customers. Follow their tips to help your business earn more sales.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Make Customers The Hero
Most websites talk at prospective customers, telling them how great the brand is rather than starting a conversation with them. Start by asking how your brand makes your customers the “hero” in their own stories and then use your website to demonstrate an understanding of their challenges and how your experience and processes can guide them to success. Sales will grow from authentic connections. – Brian Handrigan, Advocado
2. Use Remarketing To Bring Them Back
By setting up remarketing through Google, you can continue to reach out with display ads to those who did not convert or abandoned the cart on your website. Some customers may not be ready to buy and are only researching, so remarketing keeps your brand or product top-of-mind. – Rebecca Kowalewicz, Clearbridge Branding Agency
3. Invest In Video
The demand for video continues to rise. It is estimated that 80% of Web traffic is now coming from video alone; it is the No. 1 source of content. There have been studies that have shown that video not only improves your searchability and increases your average time on site but also increases conversion rates. If your website does not have videos you are missing out. – Nathan Hall, Simple Story
4. Offer Money-Back Guarantees
Giving your customers the comfort of knowing that if they are not fully satisfied with your product they can get their money back removes a lot of their fears. Some may think that this is a short-term fix, but putting yourself out there will build trust, which will up your conversion rate in the long run. – Zachary Binder, Bell + Ivy
5. Create A Digital Path To Purchase
One factor contributing to low conversion rates is an information architecture that doesn’t factor in the customer’s ideal path to purchase. To efficiently turn visitors into customers, it is critical to first know your target customer and the specific stages of their decision-making process. Design your website to lead visitors down that path, serving up the right information at the right time. – Keri Witman, Clever Lucy
6. Add Opt-In Forms
Even if your business doesn’t sell directly on your website, you can still convert your Web traffic into sales by having opt-in forms that allow visitors to fill out their contact information, often in exchange for a piece of value, thereby becoming a contact in your database. Teams can then follow up with the leads at a later date with an upsell proposition and convert the initial Web traffic into sales. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc.
7. Communicate Value
Make your value proposition clear from the get-go on your website. It’s a quick pitch that tells them why they should bother sticking around and buying from you. You can take action by using headlines that communicate why something is worth purchasing, crafting copy that supports the value proposition with benefit statements and using images that tell a story that supports the benefit statement. – Aaron Agius, Louder.Online
8. Change The Conversation Completely
When traffic, conversions and sales are being discussed in presentations, my one tip is to change the conversation away from numbers and towards the customer. There is a human behind every click. Have your team learn about design thinking methods and develop a new level of empathy with your audience. Understand why conversion is not happening, then prioritize the optimizations. – Kashif Zaman
9. Work To Share The Value
One of the biggest issues with website traffic that does not convert is that most people do not understand the sale. What this means is that the conversion piece is critical to the success of the sale. It is important to know that you are going to be able to share the value to that audience and ensure that there is a conversion. – Jon James, Ignited Results
10. Don’t Neglect The User Experience
A well-designed website should do more than promote services or products—it should guide the customer journey. Including tons of options in the main menu, for example, might seem like a good way to keep customers’ interest when in fact it can create confusion and lower conversion rates. Use carefully placed design elements and messaging to direct customers toward your highest-priority offerings. – Hannah Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions
11. Have A Strategy For Staying Top-Of-Mind
The industry standard for a conversion rate is between 2% and 3%. It means that the majority of your visitors aren’t going to convert on the first visit. Despite this information, focus on the effort that would make them your customers over time. One thing that’s especially effective is remarketing and retargeting. It helps you make sure your brand stays on top of people’s minds. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
12. Optimize Design Using Data And Psychology
Humans engage based on emotions. If we can track behavior and correlate the actions of a visitor, we can also alter the page and test. A/B testing allows us to optimize a page to convert at a higher rate. There are many ways to boost conversion, including proper use of layout, white space, contrast, wording, style and imagery. – Zamir Javer, Jumpfactor
13. Get As Specific As Possible
While a website is technically about the company, it really needs to speak directly to the person who’s visiting at 2 a.m. with worries and concerns. How can you reassure? Create landing pages that speak directly to defined audiences, and curate their narrative journey with precision. Remember, you can’t be all things to all people. The more you specialize, the more business you inspire. – Lynne Golodner, Your People LLC
14. Give Them All The Information They Need To Continue On The Path
Landing on the website is just the start of any customer’s journey with a company. While the goal is to get the sale, this is not going to happen immediately with a site visit. To get visitors closer to a sale, you need to make sure that the rest of the path is already laid out for them. Give them all the information they need and get their email so that you can reach out with the next step. – Dmitrii Kustov, Regex SEO
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Author: Forbes Agency Council, CommunityVoice
