If you aim to make money by online marketing – some would say that’s the whole reason for digital marketing – how can you increase your conversion rates among your audience? 

Up to now, most of the articles on Content Savants have addressed tactics to increasing followers and better engaging with audiences.  Once you have built a following and are now regularly engaging with your prospective customers, it is time to take a closer look at methods to increasing online conversion rates. 

Increase Conversion

Increasing conversion involves optimizing various aspects of your website and marketing strategies to encourage more visitors to take the desired action – signing up for a newsletter, buying your product or service, or joining your community – all of these demand a response from your audience.  The most basic way to attract your audience to your offer is to… 

• Optimize Your Website Design and User Experience – As always, we like to begin with the basics.  Is your website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and mobile-responsive?  A user-friendly interface can improve the overall shopping experience and encourage conversions.  Nonetheless, the greatest website in the world will do nothing unless there is a…
• Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) – Beyond the mere basics of a good user experience (and it is amazing how many, even name-brand websites, totally fail at this basic step), let your call to action be easily understood.  At the start of the journey, set aside fancy wordings and attempted mind tricks.  If you build up the value of your offer well enough, you don’t need to be clever about it.  Are you giving your audience a fair deal or not?  Use prominent and compelling CTAs that guide visitors toward the desired action.  To be sure, the language you use is important to get right.  Use action-oriented language like “Buy Now,” “Add to Cart,” or “Get Started.”  These are quite straightforward and basic, and for a more sophisticated audience, subtlety would be appreciated, but no need to forego clarity for subtlety.  With all humility and reverence, kindly ask them to pay.  To further help them in the decisioning process, be sure to present…
• High-Quality Product Images and Descriptions – Provide clear, high-resolution images of your products from various angles.  Generally, more pictures and graphics has two effects:  1) it gives your audience greater comfort and assurance of what they are going to get.  One picture is not enough to generate a lasting mental image.  Photos, videos, verbal descriptions… all of these play a crucial role in making your audience comfortable with a purchase.  2) while your readers are clicking through the photos and descriptions, they are convincing themselves that they want it.  The more engagement you give them in revealing your offer, the longer they have to talk themselves into a purchase.  The only way to benefit by not providing a broad range of descriptive content is if you have something to hide.  Show your prospective customers that you are not the phony website that is trying to sell them something worthless.  Show them how much value you have to offer, and give them the information they need to make themselves feel comfortable with it.  Therefore, you may…
• Showcase Customer Reviews and Testimonials – Display genuine customer reviews and testimonials to build trust and credibility.  This is where active and genuine interaction with your audience is especially helpful.  If you can elicit their positive feedback through thoughtful communication, their response will come across with greater sincerity than any crafted advertisement could ever achieve.  For further encouragement of interest in your offer, you can…
• Offer Limited-Time Promotions – Create a sense of urgency by offering time-limited promotions or discounts.  Scarcity can motivate visitors to take action quickly.  As always, don’t overdo it.  The world as a whole is becoming more skeptical, and for good reason.  Smart customers will see past it, but if you have something in limited supply or for a truly limited time, let it be known.  Promotion is one thing, but customers can be easily distracted, so it is best to…
• Simplify the Checkout Process – Most of the check-out process will follow according to your payment service, but avoid offering too many options or adding on further clicks to the purchase.  Every additional click risks losing the customers time and interest.  Streamline the checkout process to minimize steps and make it as simple as possible. Allow guest checkout and offer at least three payment options.  Simplifying the process is essential, but closing a deal will require that your audience has confidence in your claims and your delivery of the expected quality.  You can enhance your customer’s confidence when you…
• Send Trust Signals – Display trust badges, SSL certificates, and secure payment icons to reassure visitors about the safety of their personal and payment information.  Usually customers will not notice these individually (there are so many of them out there, who can keep track?), but having them there is at least a display of confidence.  One of the most effective ways you can engender trust is to…
• Be Transparent About Shipping and Return Information – Use every opportunity you can to generate goodwill with your customers and portray your business as upright and honest.  Transparency of information, particularly around costs, is key to building trust.  Clearly communicate shipping costs, delivery times, and return policies. Transparency builds confidence in the buying process and creates a positive brand identity in the mind of your customers.  Nonetheless, as you identify some customers who back out of the purchasing process, you can…
• Use Retargeting and Remarketing – Your buying process should have as few steps as possible, however some customers will back out along the way.  Capture this data to enable retargeting ads to reach visitors who have shown interest but didn’t complete the purchase.  Remind them of the product and encourage them to return.  Use split testing on your marketing to identify if there are problematic themes or otherwise messages that may be more effective to customers who are on the edge of their decisions.  This step is the beginning of analysis where you begin to categorize your audience and increase the sophistication of your marketing efforts, and is the basis for you to…
• Segment Your Audience – Segment your audience based on their behavior and preferences. This allows you to tailor your marketing messages and offers to specific customer segments.  Segmentation is a topic in itself, and is the focus of entire volumes of marketing research, theories and ivory tower debate.  Set the deep thinking aside for a moment, and think about a few categories of customers that would be interested in your promotion.  How old are they?  What is their net worth?  Are they male or female (or otherwise)?  Here’s where you can take the progressive and idealistic notions of humans being the same, and delve into what makes us all unique, and how does that uniqueness affect our motivations to buy, and how can that uniqueness be leveraged to increase your sales?  You can effectively use segmentation to…
• Personalize Your Recommendations – With some customer data in hand, you can use this understanding of your customer characteristics to provide personalized product recommendations based on a visitor’s browsing and purchase history.  What are they more likely to be interested in, based on their past behavior?  Finding the bullseye will take extensive study of data and numerous iterations, combined with a little wisdom from experience.  You can further hone your understanding of customer preferences and how to personalize your recommendations by directly engaging with your audience, where you…
• Provide Live Chat Support – Offer real-time customer support through live chat. This can help address any last-minute concerns and provide assistance during the decision-making process.  Use this interactive process to understand what may be objections from your customers.  Can you shape your messaging around answering potential objections before they arise?  This knowledge will be key to developing an effective…
• Email Marketing Campaign – A well-crafted email marketing strategy will further nurture leads, provide valuable information to your customers about your products and services, and guide potential customers back to your website.

Increasing online conversions is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and optimization. Regularly analyze your website analytics to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement, and adapt your strategies accordingly.