Customizing Your Website for Higher Conversion Rates

by SanforaQ8

Customizing Your Website for Higher Conversion Rates

When asked to redesign an existing website, or to design a new website, the first thing I ask my client is, “What is the one thing you want your website to do—above all else?”

Sometimes there is one answer, but usually there are several answers, or something like, “We want our website to do everything!”

My goal is to try and understand what is important to the client above all else in terms of what the website does.

Setting Website Priorities

Websites are often seen as an online multi-purpose brochure, an information portal, a resource for prospective clients and existing clients—or all of these things at the same time.

When creating a website, or redesigning a website so it is more effective and useful, knowing all the priorities for the website is extremely important.

From a design standpoint, I want to make sure the overall website design visually supports the top three priorities. From a functional standpoint, I want to make sure the website has the capability to provide for all the website priorities.

There is a big difference between simply wanting a website to say, filter out prospects who are not ready to make a purchase, and actually having website functionality that can in fact filter visitors.

What Exactly Is Conversion?

You have probably heard the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Conversion would be leading the horse to water, and getting it to drink.

Your website may have several different types of conversion depending on your product or service offering and what marketing strategy you are using.

For example, if you are using pay-per-click ads, you may first take your prospect to a special landing page, instead of your website. In this case, conversion may mean having the prospect call you or complete a simple email form so you can follow up with them by phone, mail or email.

On the other hand, a prospect searching for the services or products offered by your company may find their own way to your website directly. In this case, conversion may mean having the visitor signing up for a free newsletter, registering for a promotion offer, contacting your sales or customer service department, bookmarking your website or completing another task.

If you are relying on prospects finding you by using searches with Google, Bing or Google, and if there is no clear path for the prospect to follow, or no clear call to action on your website, your conversion rate will be low.

Increasing Your Conversion Rate

Ideally, as you are marketing your company, products or services, you will be sending your prospects to a specific area of your website or to the one page specifically designed to assist with conversion.

Promotions and offers are a great way to increase conversions. Ideally, your offer or promotion will use a URL like: “www.XYZcorp.com/offer” so you can both track the number of people going to that offer’s URL and the actual number of conversions so you can track your conversion rate.

Your website administrator can set up redirects so you can use easy-to-type and easy to remember URLs. Your ads, direct mail, radio spots and other marketing materials can use a simple URL and redirect the prospect to the correct page within your website, thus avoiding the use of extremely long URLs, or sending your prospects to your home page, when your offer or promotion is elsewhere in the website.

Make use of a clear “call to action” on your conversion page. A call to action is just that—a request or appeal to the visitor to do something now, whether this is to complete a small form, call or download a white paper.

The Importance of Good Website Navigation

If you are relying on website traffic alone for prospects to find your website, with prospects searching with Google, Yahoo or Bing and then finding their way to the right area of your website, care needs to be taken so that all your website pages can help guide your prospect to their ultimate destination within your website.

Keep in mind that search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing may not always list your home page in their search results. Any page within your website may come up in a prospect’s search results, so your website needs to have the same navigation elements on all pages and a clear path for the visitor to follow once they find your website.

Use Graphics Effectively

Ideally, the most important priority for your website should also be the most visible graphic element to the website visitor. A good graphic designer will use effective placement of a link or graphic on the page, and may also use size and color to draw more attention to higher priority item.

Websites that are primarily text, can use small, colorful graphic links to first attract the attention of the visitor, then take the visitor to the area of the website you wish the visitor to go to.

Lower priority links should be “played down” and/or placed well away from the higher priority links.

Concentrating several links in the same area of your website design can be confusing to the website visitor, since the idea is to help them find their way to the right information. By placing different link elements around the page, you can eliminate visual competition.

Tips for Increasing Conversion Rates on Your Website:

Have a clear “call to action” where possible
Use tasteful graphics to get attention
Utilize opt-in newsletter offering useful information
Consider the use of a promotion or special offer
Utilize clear, concise navigation throughout your website
Prioritize actions you wish website visitors to take within the website
Design your marketing and advertising to support your conversion priorities
Use short URLs in marketing materials that redirect to conversion pages
Avoid “busy” page design that forces the visitor to have to “think” about what to click on next
Use banner ads, direct mail and links within your website to take visitors directly to specific pages where conversion is designed to happen

Review Website Statistics Regularly

Be sure to review your website statistics on a regular basis, and especially during marketing campaigns.

Website statistics can help you see what pages are being viewed, which are the more popular pages and may help you to troubleshoot why your conversions are lower than expected. Some statistical applications will also let you see how long someone was on each page, as well as the most popular paths through the website.

Knowing how your website is being utilized is the first step to correcting problems so you can achieve and exceed your website conversion goals.