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Most marketing strategists focus on driving traffic towards their websites. But does a higher traffic count mean a higher conversion rate? The average website conversion rate is a mere 2.35%, whereas the top 10% of websites have a relatively impressive conversion rate of 11%.
Meanwhile, the average mobile website conversion rates are even lower at 1.53%, compared to 4.14% on desktop websites.
How do you get your website to perform better? Is it really worth investing in conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategies? We at Glood.AI, dive into the importance of website conversion and provide you with some of the top tips to help push your website towards the 11% side of the scale.
For too long, the focus has been on driving visitors to your website rather than improving the conversion rate. Companies are said to spend only a dollar to convert customers after spending $92 on acquiring them. This is similar to having hundred of customers window shopping in your store but having only one or two buyers.
An improved website conversion rate can increase your revenue per customer and, in turn, reduce your customer acquisition cost. Besides that, successful purchases will attract more customers and help your business grow. In fact, the top 7 companies with high conversion rates have dedicated 5% of their budgets to CRO.
The best companies know that the path to growing their business involves constant adaptations and improvements in their operations, which include website optimizations. Turning latent prospects into buying customers should be one of your priorities as a marketer or business owner.
1. Re-Optimizing SEOs
The main reason you might be having a low conversion rate despite a high number of visits is that you might be attracting the wrong visitors. You might need to revisit your SEO strategy to fix this.
Using generic keywords can increase your traffic, but more likely than not, your visitors would have been looking for something specific. For example, if you simply used the keyword “sunglasses” for your optic wear store, then users looking for “the best hack for fixing broken sunglasses,” “the definition of sunglasses,” “when to use sunglasses,” and so on, would end up on your site unnecessarily.
Worse is using keywords that are not related to your business. Inserting commonly searched keywords across your website to simply draw traffic will lower your conversion rate even more as you mislead visitors by including “best swimwear” somewhere on your page when you only sell sunglasses.
Highly optimized keywords like “aviator sunglasses free shipping” rather than “aviator sunglasses” will actually bring in more visitors that have the genuine intention of making a purchase. The difference is integrating buying content into your SEO phrases.
The choice of social media you promote your website on will also make a huge difference. B2B products and services are better off being showcased on a professional platform like LinkedIn. Gen Z and millennial shoppers are active on Instagram and Facebook, so e-commerce retail websites would benefit from a presence on such platforms.
2. Show Testimonials
Social proof is a time-tested, effective technique for brand advocacy, and it is particularly beneficial for gaining the trust of new visitors. While you may preach all you want about how useful and splendid your products and services are, reviews are 12 times more trustworthy than your own descriptions.
Moreover, 88% of users trust online reviews, and this is a statistic that you absolutely need to use to your advantage. Testimonials and reviews build trust between the customers and your business. Pick detailed and original testimonials so your customers know what they can expect from your business.
Apart from testimonials, having customers share their experience with your business on their personal social media pages can have a positive impact and build trust with your audience. Therefore, make sure that testimonials, influencer endorsements, and product reviews are prominently displayed on your website, particularly for your most popular goods!
3. Incentivize the Visit
If you run an E-commerce store, first-time visitors are quite valuable as they are the most difficult to obtain and retain. Studies estimate that acquiring new visitors costs five times more than retaining an existing customer. Moreover, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while that of selling to a new customer is a mere 5-20%.
This is because they have no prior knowledge about your brand. In such an instance, it is sensible to provide incentives and offers to make them feel valued and special at your store!
It is no secret that shoppers like price cuts. In this sense, you would be more likely to get the visitor to make a purchase from you if you offer discounts and coupon codes.
This would not only reduce your bounce rate but also optimize the lead conversion rates, improve the lifecycle value of the customer, and turn them into regular buyers. This doubly benefits your brand because you would boost both your customer acquisition rate and retention rate!
4. Built-in Live Chats
For E-commerce firms, your success in driving sales boils down to a desire to match consumer expectations and give more value. For this purpose, live chatbots and virtual shopping assistants are a must-have if you wish to transform your visitors into customers of your brand.
Visitors enjoy a smoother, more personalized buying experience when engaged by digital shopping assistants. These experiences lead to improved user engagement and enhanced purchasing decisions. Studies found that deploying a chatbot increased sales by a massive 67%! This tells you that chatbots must be a necessary investment as part of your sales strategy.
Chatbots provide many benefits to retailers, such as doing away with cart abandonment issues, building trust with your potential customers, and disseminating knowledge about your brand, your products’ specifications, and your know-how. They can also immensely increase customer satisfaction and drive up sales!
5. Simplify Your Checkout Process
Have you ever had to click through 5 different pages just to purchase one simple item? It can be quite annoying, right?
Up to 69% of visitors abandon their carts during checkout as it seems too much of a hassle. A seamless and efficient checkout experience will drive up your website conversion rates significantly. This kind of optimization involves reducing the number of fields that your customers need to fill to complete a purchase.
Every additional field you add brings more friction to the process, which in turn affects your conversion rate. Instead of adding redundant fields to fill, you can use analytical tools to gather information about your visitors as they’re browsing your website.
6. Divide and Conquer
Every customer on your website will have a unique amalgamation of various traits shared with others. This can be seen in their preferences, hobbies, interests, language, location, and the likes.
That’s to say, you cannot use the same tactics on every visitor and expect the same results. That would be a classic example of poor user management, which would result in a lower conversion rate. Hence, it is imperative that you properly identify the groups or segments of customers that come to your site.
A well-customer segmentation strategy will bring forth benefits like:
An example of effective segmentation is identifying users from a specific location and offering them free shipping or free gifts for the purchases they make. Another can be personalizing pop-up messages by using the visitor’s preferred language. Customers will feel special and continue to browse through your website, improving your chances of engaging them in a sale.
7. A/B Testing
The truth is, not every hack will work for you. You will need to test these tactics in various combinations to determine what works best for your website. With A/B testing, you can try different ideas simultaneously.
For example, if your current banner pop-up ad style is not drawing attention, you can see if a pop-up game works better for your visitors.
This trial and error method will take time and effort to be fully fruitful, but you will get to understand your customers better at the end of the process and successfully improve your website conversions.
In conclusion, we hope these helpful tips give you a head start on improving your website conversion rates and boosting sales. With Glood.AI, you can seamlessly optimize your website to benefit from higher conversion rates. Support your business growth with the efficient and effective personalization strategies and techniques employed by Glood.AI.