Site Conversion: It Is Still Really Important!

Is Your Website Working Properly?

By now, most companies have a website. It seems incredible that a business would choose not to have a website in this day and age, but it still happens. Since we’re talking about site conversion here though, we’ll leave the convincing of those other companies for a rainy day.

Depending on the size of your company (and the size of the website’s budget) you may have played a role in the way it looks and functions, the flow of its navigation, the platform it was built on and the content. While all of these things are important to the success of a website, they’re really just equal parts of the larger goal: to get visitors to take a specific action. In other words, to convert visitors into customers (and hopefully brand advocates).

A Little Improvement Can Make A Big Difference

Companies often place too much emphasis on increasing their website’s traffic numbers while ignoring the immense power of site conversion. Traffic is important – if you aren’t getting people to your website then it may as well not exist. But if you’re a reasonably sized company and people know who you are, your website will generate nonzero traffic numbers, even with no effort on your part (and you can always confirm with Google Analytics).

 Let’s say one customer conversion is worth $100 to you (whether it’s buying a product with a $100 margin or taking an action that leads to $100 of future profit). Let’s also say that right now, you generate 250 visitors a week and convert two of them, so 2/250 (a 0.8% conversion rate) = $200 a week in website sales conversions.

Instead of worrying about increasing website traffic, which can be a lot of hard work, why not focus on site conversion? It makes more of a difference than you might think. If you focused on improving your design, messaging and calls to action, it’d be very reasonable to see a 1.2% bump in conversion (to 2% total). This would result in 5/250 visitors converting and $500 a week in website sales conversions.

For comparison’s sake, you could double your website’s traffic to 500 visitors per week (which is definitely more work than improving design and messaging) and it would only bump conversions up to 4 (because the conversion rate would still be 0.8%). A little site conversion work goes a long way!

How to Enhance Your Website’s Performance

Tips and Tricks for A Higher Conversion Rate

Now that we’ve got you convinced that site conversion is the way to go, you’ll need to know which areas of your site can help it perform better. Here are a few things you can focus on that will lead to better site conversion

  • Speed matters: studies have shown that 57% of visitors get fed up and leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Website speed is not trivial, so make sure your developers are aware that you want to make your site load as quickly as possible.
  • Don’t overdo it: companies have a tendency to cram their websites full of as much visual stimuli as they can fit, but simpler is better. Your website visitors need to be able to find what they’re looking for almost as soon as they begin navigating your site or else they’ll leave.
  • It’s not about you: yes, your website needs to have information about your company, but the general focus of the content should be on your customers. The site is for them – to inform them, to bring them value and to ultimately offer them a product or service – so make sure your visitors feel like you are putting them first.

These are only a few of the ways you can help boost your website’s conversion rate. For more information or guidance on how to help your website churn out even more conversions, contact us today!

Watch this short Video on 5 Reasons your Website is still important!