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Part 6b - How to Increase Onsite Conversions

So we have talked about the importance of onsite conversions, and how they are the end product of your online marketing efforts. Now let's look at some of the ways you improve your onsite conversions to help grow your business.

1. Define Your Conversions in Advance

This might seem like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised by how many deer-in-the-headlight expressions I get when I ask a business owner, "What are your top three conversion goals on this website?"

Some will scratch their heads and say, "To get customers, I guess." That's not a specific goal for website conversion. It's the end-goal of all marketing efforts, sure. But it's not a clearly defined conversion goal.

Other business owners have it figured out better. For example, they might say something like, "I want my visitors to do one of three things ... download our featured report from the home page, click on the chat button to get in touch with a representative, or contact us by phone or email."

Now we are getting somewhere!

This hypothetical business owner has clearly defined the conversion points on her website. And from the sound of it, other members of the company are knowledgeable about (and engaged in) those conversion points. Customer support, for example, is ready to connect with site visitors through the website's chat tool, anytime somebody clicks on the button. That's much more specific and achievable than the first conversion goal of "getting customers."

You cannot move on to the other conversion techniques mentioned below until you have clearly defined your website conversion goals, and how they will ultimately lead to new business.

2. Be Visible Online

People cannot contact you (or purchase your products, etc.) if they don't know you exist. So you must strive to make your business visible, online and off. Internet visibility is a big part of this, which is why I've dedicated much of this book to that topic. After all, the more visible you are online, the more likely people will be to find you.

But there are other ways to increase your visibility as well. You can publish articles in your local newspaper, syndicate articles and press releases online, be active in your community, conduct free seminars, and many other aspects of PR. Visibility and awareness are the first steps to generating website leads and sales.

3. Increase Usability Across Your Website

Picture this. You're standing behind your website, eager and ready to connect with new customers and make some sales. A potential customer stands in front of your website, eager and ready to find the very products and services your provide!

The only thing is, you don't know the potential client is there. How could you? They haven't contacted you yet. So in order for you to connect with them, they first have to enter your website, navigate through it, like what they find, and then contact you in some fashion (or purchase your product, sign up for your newsletter, etc.).

But what if they can't use your website? What if they find the navigation confusing? Or they can't find your product information?

That's right ... they'll leave as quickly as they came. After all, there are plenty of other websites within your industry that they can visit.

Website usability is crucial to making onsite conversions. The two concepts are inseparable, because if a person can't use your website, you have no chance to connect with them or to make a sale. You don't have the luxury of personally guiding them through your website — they are completely on their own.

Entire books have been written on website usability (like Don't Make Me Think). So for the purposes of this chapter, let's just cover some usability hot spots. Here are some areas that can always use improvement.

1. Navigation. Label your navigation in a clear way. Don't be cute or clever.
2. Home page. Keep your home page clean, inviting and uncluttered.
3. Action paths. Define the actions you want people to take, and present them in a clear way. Make it incredibly easy for people to perform these desired actions.
4. Calls to action. People will go where they want on your site, but it helps to use offer some tips. "Check out our latest products." ... "Download our free booklet."
5. Interactivity. If you have interactive areas of your website, such as an FAQ program or bulletin board, be sure to offer clear and ample instructions.
6. Web conventions. Adhering to web conventions (like making your logo a link to the home page) helps visitors get around by using things they're familiar with.

Website usability goes hand-in-hand with website conversions. The easier a task is to complete, the more likely people will be to complete it (provided you've given them a good reason to do so ... which brings us to the next point.).

4. Minimize Distractions Across Your Website

This is another element of website usability, but it deserves special focus. On a business website, the goal is usually to lead visitors down a certain path. You can't control where people will go or what they will click on, but you can at least offer your preferred path and make it easy to follow.

But when you overload your web pages with too many items, you end up dividing the reader's attention, creating unneeded distraction, and increasing the likelihood visitors will leave your website altogether.

I see this a lot on the home pages of business websites. Often, small business owners will put so much stuff on the home page that they reduce the usability of their website altogether. People do not need to see everything all at once upon reaching your home page — that's what navigation menus are for.

Visit your home page and ask yourself, what is the most desirable action you want people to take? What is the second most desirable action? From a visual standpoint, does the placement and prominence of these two paths support their importance? Or do they battle for attention with a dozen other distractions?

5. State (and Restate) the Value of Each Conversion Point

Earlier in this chapter, we talked about the direct correlation between value and response. If you want people to take a certain action on your website, you have to convey the value of that action. In other words, tell people what they get out of it. It's a simple rule to remember. If you want action, you have to explain the reason and value behind the action.

Note the difference in the example below:

• Before: Click here to join our newsletter.
• After: Join our newsletter for exclusive offers you won't find anywhere else, plus a wealth of monthly tips and advice!

Don't ever ask somebody to do something on your website without giving them a good reason to do it. Tell them what they get out of it.

6. Increase Traffic to Website Conversion Points

Want the opportunity to convert more visitors into customers? Then just increase the amount of website visitors you get. We have covered website traffic generation in depth throughout this book, but it's worth restating at this point. Once you have some lead-generation and sales-generation techniques in place, you want to get as much qualified traffic to those conversion points as possible.

The first step is to increase your overall website traffic. We have covered that. The second step is to increase your traffic to specific pages of your website (your purchase page, your download page, your contact page ... in short, your conversion pages). You can do this by making your conversion points / pages more prominent and easy to find. See the following items for tips on doing this!

7. Increase the Prominence of Conversion Points

Once you've defined your conversion points (see item #1 above), you should try to make them visible from every page of your website. Put them into the main menu, right up near the top. Create eye-catching graphics to showcase them. Put them "above the fold" across all of your web pages.

For example, let's say one of your conversion points is an email newsletter you want visitors to find and subscribe to. You could put a sign-up box in the upper-right corner of your website, a location that has been shown to increase signup rates. You could also create a newsletter link at the top of your main menu area, right under the links for "Home." You could put call-out boxes within articles on your site, right there in the middle of the page ("center mast").

By doing these things, you would increase the prominence of your newsletter signup forms (conversion points) and most likely increase subscription rates as a result.v

For best results, combine this with item #5 mentioned above — the value factor. Instead of just saying "sign up for our newsletter," explain why people should sign up. Take readers to a page that pre-sells the newsletter by listing the high-value information it provides. Provide a link to a current issue of the newsletter, so they can see what they're getting. And make it incredibly easy to subscribe.

See how all of these points come together to increase conversions? Prominence, value, usability ... they all add up to more website conversions!

8. Minimize Website Attrition

Earlier, in our five "laws" of Internet marketing, we talked about marketing attrition. We defined marketing attrition as the number of people who do not take the actions you want them to take along the path to conversion. At each step in the marketing process, you stand to lose some people. You could also refer to this as "drop-off." The higher the attrition rates, the less successful the marketing program.

The good news is, each point of attrition can be improved — that is, you can minimize the number of people who "drop off" at each step of the way. Here are some examples of online attrition points, and what you can do to reduce them.

• Attrition Point #1 - Many of the people who visit your website will leave if they don't find anything of value. You can counter this by constantly adding valuable content and resources to your website, and making them easy to find.
• Attrition Point #2 - Even if people find your website, and find it useful, some of them will leave without making contact with you in any way. You can counter this by having lead-generation techniques on all key pages of your website, and by allowing people to interact with your website in some way (see interactivity suggestions below).
• Attrition Point #3 - Of all the people who visit your website, some will not find what you want them to find. You can counter this by having a clean, well-organized website with your preferred path clearly identified on the home page.

These are just some of the ways you could reduce the level of attrition in this particular marketing scenario. My goal here is simply to get you thinking about marketing attrition and the various ways you might reduce it on your business website and blog.

Understanding marketing attrition is the first step in reducing it. So think about your own marketing strategies for a moment. Map out the various steps in the process, and jot down the attrition points. They should be fairly easy to spot after reading this section of the guide. Then think of all the things you can do to minimize each point of attrition, and work hard to do exactly that.

Less attrition equals more business. How's that for motivation?

9. Increase the Interactivity of Your Website

The more ways people have to interact with your website, the better your chances of converting them into customers. You can increase interactivity in a number of ways. And these days, there are all kinds of software products to make it extremely easy for you!

Here are a few examples of interactivity you could build into your website:

• We talked about business blogs, and how readers can leave comments on the various blog posts. That's a form of interaction, and it's also the start of a dialogue!
• You could create some kind of Q&A forum on your website and grow your own Internet community. Forum software programs like VBulletin and phpBB make it achievable.
• You can also buy and install programs to help you create an interactive FAQ section of your website (also known as a "Knowledge Base"). Interspire's "Active KB" and Omnistar's "KBase" are two such programs.
• If you have customer support personnel, you could install a chat program on your website to encourage the all-important first contact from site visitors.

See Resources section at the end of this book for links to the above-mentioned tools.

10. Overcome Skepticism / Encourage Trust

We are all naturally skeptical online. The reasons for this are obvious. The Internet can be an anonymous and scary place, used for deceitful purposes by everyone from con artists to pedophiles. Yikes!

Of course, these shady characters represent the minority (or so I'd like to believe). But it still poses a challenge you must consider in your online marketing program.

I encounter a lot of "faceless" websites that use a lot of pronouns like "we" and "us" ... websites that make it nearly impossible to find a person's name. You've seen websites like this, yes? What's your first reaction when encountering a mystery website? Distrust? Uncertainty? Fear? Yeah ... me too.

Take a look at your own website right now. Go ahead, I'll wait. Are you done? Good. Now tell me what you've done to make the visitor comfortable in who you are? How have you demonstrated integrity? How have you encouraged trust and confidence?

Better yet, why not ask a half-dozen friends or colleagues to visit your website and navigate around like a potential customer would. Have them jot down on paper anything that makes them uncomfortable, uncertain, or just plain confused. Correct these things immediately, and keep them in mind through all of your Internet marketing endeavors.

Internet marketing is marketing with an added dose of uncertainty. It's your job to remove that uncertainty every chance you get. How do you do this? Well, customer testimonials help. So do professional certifications, long track records and professional / industry endorsements.

And don't be anonymous! Step up and own your website, and by extension your business. Put your picture and bio on the site, and those of other key members of your business. Show people that somebody is home, and that somebody cares.

You can also create trust by sharing your expertise with people. Publishing an informative blog related to your business is a great example of this. If you publish a blog over a long period of time, and people find that blog online, they will feel as if they already know you somewhat.

Conclusion

Is all this effort worthwhile? Let me ask you this. What would it be worth if you never had to email or call a stranger again? What if they contacted you instead? That's a goal worth striving for, isn't it? That's the kind of thing that can happen when you change the way you think about your website and the people using it.

Remember, website traffic is only website traffic until you act upon it. To get those website visitors to act in some way, you need to create a lead-generation / sales-generation program based on value and incentives. You have to make it easy for people to find what they're after, and to take the actions you want them to take. And you have to break down those layers of skepticism and distrust.

Do these things, and you will be using the Internet to its fullest potential. You will be tapping into what I refer to as the Great Equalizer!