The internet is a powerful tool for getting leads, increasing brand awareness and increasing sales. However, if a site is not working properly or efficiently, it can turn customers off and result in lower conversion rates. There are quite a few steps that companies can take to figure out why customers are not making purchases in an effort to increase their sales figures. While you may not see sales numbers spike overnight, constant attention to online properties can yield significant growth over a period of several months or years. Below are just a few tips.
Highly Visible CTAs
If your goal is to entice someone to make a purchase, it is important that you provide both motivation and incentive to do so. For instance, you could have bold text telling a customer to click on a link to make a purchase or to redeem a coupon. Ideally, this text will be on the top of the page to ensure that a site visitor sees the call to action (CTA). You should also include it on the bottom of the page as well to provide another opportunity to capture a sale.
Click Reduction
Customers want to get through the process of finding a product, paying for it and confirming their order in as few steps as possible. Ideally, you will allow customers to purchase goods directly on your site through a digital shopping cart. It may also be worthwhile to allow customers to simply click on a product and pay for it at the same time.
This could be done by integrating a PayPal account or another online wallet tool to your website. If you make the process of buying an item too complicated, you run the risk of customers getting confused or frustrated. To keep people on your site longer, you need to make it easy to navigate.
Mobile Optimisation
An overwhelming majority of customers are transitioning to mobile as their primary means of interacting with businesses. Yet most businesses still are not capitalising on this opportunity. Companies should be doing whatever it takes to make the shopping experience an easy and enjoyable one. Part of creating a positive shopping experience is allowing customers to browse for goods on their own terms. Therefore, it is critical that your site looks great on a desktop, laptop or mobile device.
Use Heat Mapping Tools
To determine what customers like or do not like about your website, make use of heat mapping tools. These tools will show you where customers spend the most time on your site and where they spend the least. It can also show you where customers are clicking or otherwise taking action on your sales page.
If you find that most activity is focused on the top of the page, it could mean that they do not see a reason to keep looking for more information. It could also be a sign that you want to keep a CTA or other important messages on that portion of your site. In the event that customers seem to be interacting with text as opposed to video, focus on creating more text to keep their attention.
Conversely, you would want to focus on video content if that seemed to get more engagement compared to text articles or infographics. Ultimately, you want to learn as much as possible about what your site visitors are doing and not doing. That allows you to make adjustments or focus even more on what the site does best.
Decrease Site Downtime
You will not be able to make any sales if your site is constantly down. Ideally, your site will have an uptime of at least 99.9%, and your site host should be able to guarantee that this will be the case. If your host cannot make such a guarantee, look into other options. Using a private server or a VPS can improve your website’s performance.
Insufficient uptime may be remedied by creating multiple copies of your server files at various points in time. In the event that your site is made vulnerable by a hacker or an attack by another party, you can take the current version down and replace it with a previous version. In most cases, your customers will not even notice that anything has happened.
Of course, you will want to notify anyone who may have had their information taken or otherwise compromised. However, by using a previous version of your site, you can meet the needs of your customers while being reasonably sure that their personal information is safe.
Your website can be among the most powerful tools that your company has to increase sales and reduce customer acquisition costs. Therefore, it is a good idea to spend as much time and money as necessary to create something that customers love. Contact us for a free quote and consultation about how to improve your website!
