In the website world, conversions are king. The number of sales, lead, or members are critical to the success of a website. So it follows that increasing your conversion rate is very important for every small business with a web presence. Here are four ways you can start increasing your website’s conversion rate today and become the king (or queen) of website conversion.

1. Quality copywriting and web content

Just like sales person who can’t close a sale, poor web copywriting will hurt your website’s conversion rate. On the web, your copy acts like a sort of virtual salesperson; and as such it has multiple roles: to engage your visitors, provide information and to close the sale.

If you don’t have someone in your company who can write great persuasive copy, then hire someone to write your site’s text. If your text isn’t tight and compelling, then visitors will slip out of your website before they convert.

2. Check your color scheme

There is nothing worse than clicking on a link and being taken to site that has a bright yellow background, with a lime green header, and turquoise body text. While this is an extreme example, your website’s color scheme is crucial to increase conversion rates.

The most important place where color matters is on your call-to-action button. If your call-to-action button doesn’t stand out against the rest of your page, then visitors won’t be able to easily find it in the 8 seconds that they spend deciding whether to convert or not.

3. Make it easy on your visitors

In his book, “Don’t Make Me Think”, Steve Krug explains how complexity and confusion are the enemies of conversion. Visitors want to come to your website, handle their transaction and move on.

Unless they absolutely have to, they are not interested in learning your confusing navigational structure, understanding your corporate jargon, or trying to maneouver around your broken links.  Make it easy on your visitors to use your website and you’ll be rewarded with a higher conversion rate.

4. Unique Value Proposition

Why should your visitor do business with you instead of your competitor?  What differentiates your products/services from your competition?  Once a visitor has checked out 3-4 websites gathering information and gaining impressions, what is going to make your website stand out in their mind?  From your visitor’s perspective, once they’ve looked at a couple of websites, they can’t tell one from another.

Figure out what makes your company different from others in your space.  Make sure that the things that differentiate you are clear to your visitors.

These 4 tips are tried-and-true ways for any website to start increasing their conversion rates.

Bonus:  Get a free idea to increase your website’s conversion rate.

6 Comments »

  1. Nice list. I would also add clear calls to action, although that would probably fall under #3 “Make it easy on your visitors.”

    Comment by Laura Sultan — June 28, 2010 @ 1:03 pm

  2. I agree – it could fall under make it easy – but it probably should have it’s own separate category

    Comment by Marty — June 28, 2010 @ 9:03 pm

  3. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shelby Sanchez, Shelby Sanchez. Shelby Sanchez said: You only have 4-7 seconds to grab the new visitor and tell him why he should be dealing with you instead of competitors. http://ow.ly/24lZ0 [...]

    Pingback by Tweets that mention 4 Ways to Increase Your Website's Conversion Rate | Diamond Website Conversion -- Topsy.com — June 28, 2010 @ 11:04 pm

  4. Not sure about that number 2… Instead of color scheme I’d rather emphasize on white space and design standards. Good contrast and wise color schemes are just a small fraction of a good design.

    Number 4, definitely a hot issue. My favorite :)

    Comment by Claudiu — June 29, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

  5. Good point on #2 – I don’t disagree – use of white space to set off your important elements on the page is critical – as are design standards.

    Even though I really like #4 too – I think my favorite is #3 – maybe it’s because I just got back from an excellent seminar on Do It Yourself Usability Testing by Steve Krug – the author of “Don’t Make Me Think” and “Rocket Surgery Made Easy” – It was really amazing to watch users go through some professionally designed, beautiful websites and see them struggle to complete a simple task.

    Comment by Marty — June 30, 2010 @ 6:58 am

  6. Number 2 and 3 you need to test to see if your doing the right thing. Use our tool http://www.reedge.com to test these things and make sure your site get the max. conversion.

    Comment by Dennis — August 11, 2010 @ 2:38 pm

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