When it comes to increasing website revenue, most people think that they need to increase their website traffic. While increasing traffic seems to be a good idea, having an impressive amount of it will not guarantee that your website will make a greater profit.

What then should you do to increase your site’s income?

The answer is simple; you need to focus on your Conversion Rate. Your website’s conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that fulfill your desired action, such as subscribing or purchasing.

For example, the average conversion rate for an e-commerce business is around 2%. If you can improve this figure up to 4%, you will get a 100% increase in revenue.

There is no silver bullet for increasing your website’s conversion rate, but there are some tricks that can help you to boost it significantly. In this article, I will explain nine effective ways to do so.

Let’s get started!

#1. Come up with a unique value proposition (UVP)

A value proposition is a clear statement that delivers specific benefits and tells prospects why they should purchase from you and not from your competitors.

Many people try to improve their conversion rates by changing page elements, font colors and sizes, images, button shapes, and so on. However, your first step should be focusing on strengthening your value proposition. To increase your conversion rate, you need to test different UVPs and see which one is attracting the most number of clicks.

Let me share some tips for creating a clear and compelling value proposition.

• It should be clear for your visitors the moment they read it.
• It must be differentiated from your competitors’ offers.
• It should reduce the perceived risks of your offer (e.g., “Try it free for 15 days. Download now.”)

Furthermore, having a clear value proposition isn’t enough; you must communicate it effectively to get optimal results. It should be the first thing that visitors see on your home page.

#2. Build trust

There are several reasons why visitors turn away from your website before making a purchase. Zig Ziglar says,

Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.

You can’t do much about the first four reasons, but you can build trust easily by adding trust elements to your website.

Here’s the list you can follow to increase your audience’s trust easily:

• Make it easy to get in touch with you.
• Make sure that all information on your website is easy to verify and trustworthy.
• Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.
• Add customer testimonials.
• Design your site in a way that looks professional.
• Display the right trust seals.

#3. Easy conversion process

Make your website’s conversion process as easy as possible for visitors so that they can take your intended action without any hassle. If you are selling products or services, make the checkout process as simple as you can. If your website generates leads, then don’t overwhelm users with unnecessary information.

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Would you like to spend 7-8 minutes of your valuable time to fill up some forms just to get access to online software?

Just as I assumed, your answer is “No.”

Your customers might have the same feeling if you make the conversion process complicated. So your aim has to be making doing business with you as easy as it can be.

#4. Create urgency

Most of us don’t want to miss out on an opportunity because of a delay. Urgency notifications like “offer expires Friday” or “Order in the next 2 hours for delivery today” have proved to be effective in urging people to take immediate action.

Amazon.com shows the exact number of hours within which the purchase needs to be completed for next-day shipping.

However, make sure you create a proper type of urgency based on your products or services. For example, using a statement such as “3 items left in stock” for online software is not going to work because people know that these kinds of products never run out of stock.

If you can create urgency appropriately, doing so will surely help you to increase your conversion rate by prompting your customers to make a purchase.

#5. Know your competitors

Almost every product and service has its competitors. Knowing the core product features and marketing strategies of your competitors is a must for you to improve your website’s conversion rate.

Online shoppers no longer just go to a site and make a purchase. Instead, they research and compare product features and prices with those of other websites. Therefore, knowing about your competition is important.

For example, what if you have competitors who are openly comparing themselves to your services and prices and making it look like their offers are superior? If your website doesn’t have those kinds of details, then more people will go with the competing offers because that’s where they’re finding the information they are seeking.

To survive in online business, you definitely have to offer a better product than that of your competitors, and you need to clearly explain the reasons why your customers should purchase from you.

#6. Eliminate all distractions

When it comes to conversion rate optimization, the truth is that less choice equals higher conversion rates. The more options your audience has to process, the less likely they are to make a conversion decision.

Don’t overwhelm your pages with tons of outbound links, irrelevant images, and extraneous information. Doing so will make it harder for you to guide visitors through your website. If you are on a sales page, the “Buy Now” button should be the only clickable option available.

JellyTelly improved its conversion rate by 105% just by removing some distracting elements (i.e. navigation, search box, and links) from the page.

Therefore, before adding something to your webpage, seriously consider whether that element is really essential to convert visitors.

#7. Use a clear call to action (CTA)

Whether you want your audience to buy your product or sign up for your mailing list, you need to have a call to action button on your website. A perfect CTA button communicates with your audience and encourages them to take your intended action immediately.

I came across many websites with poor CTA buttons and, even worse, some of them are not using any calls to action on their websites. According to Small Business Trends, 70% of small business B2B websites lack a call to action.

In order to get a maximum amount of conversions, your  CTA button must be clear. Make sure the copy of the button is compelling and that its color contrasts with the background color.

#8. Minimize risk

Because you are always working with your product, you’re very familiar with how to use it and how it can solve your audience’s problems. But how would your audience members know that your product can fulfill their needs? This uncertainty is one of the main reasons why people are scared to shop online.

The best way to remove risk is to have a money-back guarantee. The industry standard is a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you should definitely not offer any less time.

You can also minimize risk with a 30-day free trial. With a free trial, your customers can get the chance to use your product before spending any money and get a clear picture of whether or not your product can solve their problems.

#9. Do A/B testing

A/B testing (or split testing) is the process where you create different versions of your page with different features to find out which ones lead to higher conversion rates.

You can run A/B testing with almost anything on your web page, such as CTA buttons (their color, text and placement), headlines and messaging, page layout and design, and new media elements (picture size, videos, etc.).

You won’t know anything about what works in your website and what doesn’t  unless you test it. Remember, A/B testing isn’t a one-time event; it’s a continuous process to find out the best combination of features.

Final thoughts

By working through the techniques on the above list, you will go a long way toward improving your website’s conversion rate.

This list is not exhaustive. If you have tried any other methods that have led to positive results, feel free to share in the comments.

To learn more about optimizing your site, you can read through the detailed guide to conversion rate optimization. Thanks for reading, and please share this article if you have found it helpful.

The post 9 Proven Ways to Boost Your Website’s Conversion Rate appeared first on Growmap.