Isn’t it frustrating when people leave your website without signing up for your service or buying your product? Here are six simple ways you can transform your website into a conversion machine that turns visitors into customers.
Use killer headlines for landing pages
A headline is perhaps the most important part of your homepage or landing page. It should not only communicate what your product or service is all about but also grab the reader’s attention. Make it easy for visitors to clearly see why they should use your product or service.
Email marketing is a crowded space with dozens of solutions competing for business. Yet, MailChimp differentiates itself by focusing on making it easy for people to send newsletters. And it makes this amply clear in its headline – “Easy” Email Newsletters
In fact, if you’ve used their service, you’ll know that everything about it – from building email campaigns to designing templates to sending newsletters – is simple & easy.
Use Short Forms
When it comes to user forms, the trick is to simply keep it short & sweet. Lack of time & privacy concerns are 2 major reasons why people avoid filling out long forms with many inputs. So you should ask only for the essential information, and leave the rest for later. You can always ask for more information once they start using your product or service.
Take a look a Dropbox’s signup form. They only ask for the minimum information required to create & manage your account. No username, security questions, re-enter password, or captchas.
If you really need to ask for a lot of information, break your form into multiple parts so they don’t get overwhelmed.
Provide a Quick Checkout
One of the biggest reasons for low conversions is the long checkout process. So people like your product, and want to purchase it. What next? Don’t make them go through dozens of checkout pages just to place an order. Just as people don’t like long forms, they don’t like long checkout processes either. People find them too confusing or boring to complete.
The average checkout process has 5 steps. Aim to keep your checkout flow below 4 steps to stand apart.
In fact, you can also allow guest checkouts that allow people to buy from your online store without having to first register on your site.
Remind them about their pain point
Tell people what pain points your product or service helps solve, on your home page and landing page. Remind them why they’re on your website in the first place, and what will happen, if they leave. Evoke a few painful memories by telling a story about a similar customer or by referencing them in testimonials. And then offer your product/service as the antidote to their problem.
Ramit Sethi does a great job in this regard. In fact, the landing page for his course “How to Talk To Anybody” is peppered with ideas about what will happen – embarrassment, rejection, loneliness – if you’re unable to communicate confidently.
Tell them about the pleasure of using your product
Pain points are just one-half of the story. It’s equally important to tell people about the pleasures of using your product or service, its benefits, and how it will improve their lives.
For example, you’re not just selling running shoes, you’re selling the ticket to be get respect, be trendy and live a healthy & fulfilling life. Present your product or service in such a way that it invokes emotional pleasure.
Here’s an example, Reputation.com is an online reputation management service. See how they remind you about your reputation getting spoilt (pain point), and how they can fix it (pleasure).
Provide trusted testimonials
Customer Testimonials are one of the most effective ways to gain people’s trust and convince them to try out, or even buy your products & services. Before making a purchase, most users would want to know if they can trust your business.
Show testimonials from real people, not celebrities, that are similar to your target audience. For example, if your service is targeted at marketing managers, then include a few testimonials from marketing managers from a customer base.
However, most businesses target multiple audiences. So, maintain a healthy mix of customer profiles in your testimonial to target each customer segment. For example, if your business caters to an international audience, you may show a testimonial from an enterprise customer in New York, a small business owner in Spain, as well as a startup owner in London.
Also, display their actual name and headshot, instead of showing only company names & brand logos. Using photos of real people goes a long way in building trust in your business.
Showcase only testimonials that are specific in nature. Best testimonials have real numbers (such as % growth), real data, and specific examples.
If your website drives a lot of traffic but doesn’t generate many customers, then you can apply the above tips to the website to persuade more visitors to try out your products and services, and eventually, turn into paying customers.
