If you want your website to be more than just a digital business card, you need to nurture it and make it convert.
What is website conversion?
Your website should persuade visitors to take action. That might be making a purchase, filling out a form, watching a video, subscribing to a newsletter, registering for future engagement or other wild and wonderful activities.
Attracting visitors is great. But you need them to do something. Otherwise, unless your website is simply there to provide information, what’s the point?
How can you make your website convert?
The job of creating a high-converting website isn’t done when the website developer hands it over, squeaky clean and ready to go. That’s just the beginning! A website needs plenty of attention to achieve the results you need. Think of it as your resident digital pet.
Review calls to action
Calls to action, the ‘register here’ ‘, download’ ‘contact us’, and other buttons, need to be effective. Are yours clear? Is your value proposition tempting enough to make people click in the right places? If not you should be changing the wording to see what works. For example, you might change ‘Download Now’ to ‘Claim your free gift’.
The calls to action should be free of obstacles and simple to use. Once visitors click the button they should be taken where they were promised they would go. They don’t want to be transferred to an advert or complex form (more later on forms).
Headlines with clear value propositions
The effectiveness of your website headlines cannot be overstated. As with the calls to action, you should be testing headlines regularly to see what works better for converting visitors. You have just 8 seconds to make an impression before visitors leave. You need to use them well!
In your headlines, you should:
• Refer to customer pain points – how can you resolve them? Example: ‘Ultimate broadband for fast streaming’
• Include the value proposition – for a subscription don’t just say ‘Join us today’; instead say ‘Join us for up to 30% discount on our garden range’.
Keep forms short
Forms on your website should be kept short by only collecting essential data. There is nothing more off-putting for an interested visitor than being faced with a long form requesting their inside leg measurement. They just want to sign up and move on. It can also arouse suspicion as to why you need so much data, so you immediately lose their trust.
Additional information can always be gleaned further along the process. Initially all you should need is a full name and email address, and a password if they are creating an account.
Be clear about what’s on offer
When visitors land on your website, they should know, within those crucial 8 seconds, exactly what you are about and what you can do for them. Convoluted language in huge chunks of text will send them to your competitor.
Don’t try to be clever, just be clear.
Get in touch
Code Galaxy is a website and software development agency. We work with our clients to create engaging websites that convert. Contact us to find out how we can work together.
