July 2019 | Blayzer Digital

THE KEY TO WEBSITE LEAD GENERATION: CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION At one point or another in life, most of us have heard the old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. While this may be true for a horse, it is not true in the world of optimizing your website. With strategically placed advertisement and SEO activities, we can lead consumers to our website, and with proper conversion optimization, we can get them to follow our call to action as well.Website conversion optimization is all about quality over quantity. It is not the act of creating more website traffic, but rather creating quality interactions once they reach our site and leading them to follow a specific call to action. These calls to action can range anywhere from subscribing to a newsletter, to calling a phone number, to making a purchase online.Before diving in to optimizing our website, we should know a few main points about what the difference is between conversion optimization and increasing website traffic, how to measure the amount of missed conversions, and what can deter conversions. Conversion Optimization vs. Increasing Site Traffic Company ABC sells product XYZ through their website. The site’s average website traffic is 1000 visitors per day and their conversion is 2% of total traffic. This means they have 20 transactions (conversions) on any given day. If they wish to raise their daily transactions (conversions) by 50% (30 per day), they will need to pay for more advertising to increase their website traffic by 50% as well (up to 1500 visitors per day). Then 1500 visitors x 2% conversion = 30 transactions (the desired 50% increase)Instead of incurring such costs increasing traffic by buying ads, a mere 1% increase in conversion would produce the same sales results. 1500 visitors x 3% conversion = 30 transactions (also the desired 50% increase). Something as simple as moving the “buy now” icon up a bit, or creating fewer forms to fill out during the account creation process could create the same or better sales versus increasing traffic by intensive ad buying. Watch Your Bounce Rate One metric that greatly affects your websites overall conversion rate is the bounce rate. This number indicates how many users visit a page on your website, but leave before clicking to visit any other part of the site. A customer lands on one of your pages but instead of “sticking the landing” and going deeper into your website, they “bounce” out and find somewhere else to go. This usually occurs because of a lack of clarity on the home or landing page. Communicate Clearly The moment a website’s home page loads, the user should know:Who you areWhat you doHow you do itWhy you are uniqueWhy someone should choose youThis is your value proposition. If the customer can’t tell what you have to offer from your home page, odds are they won’t stick around to dig through your website to find out and the conversion is lost. It is important to know what search keywords or web ads brought them to your page. If certain keyword and/or ad driven traffic has a much higher bounce rate, it is important to figure out what inspires the user to click, and why their expectations are not met once they reach your page.All of these points should lead the consumer to some sort of call to action. This call to action needs to be blatantly obvious. If you are wanting them to call a phone number, don’t make them scroll the bottom of the page or travel to a “contact us” page. Instead, have an attractive “Call Now” icon or banner grabbing there attention near the top of the page. Have an Effective Call to Action As mentioned before, website layout and placement for these calls to action is crucial. However, each company’s website has distinct strengths and faces unique challenges. Because of this, there is no “one size fits all” call to action. If your site has an e-commerce element to it, “Buy Now” may be more effective with your target user than “Add To Cart,” or “Join now to get XYZ!” may be more appealing than “Sign up,” or vice versa depending on the target audience. There is a variety of different wording and visual element combinations that can be tested and compared to see what inspires your user to take the jump and convert. Setting up A/B testing can be a great way to hone your calls to action and increase your conversion. Follow User Behavior When trying to design a website layout, sometimes taking a back-seat approach and following the website viewers’ leads can be beneficial. Using heat maps and other programs can give insight into how the user interacts with the sight—allowing you to rearrange the content and layout to fit their organic behavior patterns. Sometimes instead of trying to fence the user in to guide them from point A to point B, it is better to allow them to blaze the trail as you adapt and satisfy their needs along the way. Avoid Points of Friction One way of following the user’s needs is to avoid points of friction on your website. Points of friction are elements of the user experience (UX) that would negate or eliminate the chances of conversion for that user. These friction points span anywhere from slow page load times and poor page layout, to irritating color choices and concerns of the websites security and accreditation. Many of these points of friction can be worked out by seeing which pages the users are dropping off at the most regularly and testing alternatives to see what increases conversion. Information Form One nearly universal website feature has been the culprit for causing friction with users for years: the information form. When a website’s objective is for the user to fill out some sort of form, such as subscribing to a mailing list or creating a free account, less is more. If a user clicks the link to sign up for your free monthly e-mail, and is suddenly bombarded with 30 questions about themselves, odds are they will abandon ship and you’ll lose the conversion so close to the finish line.You won’t know exactly how much information you can get without affecting conversion until you test multiple forms and analyze the results. Many times an email address and password, or even just an e-mail address, is all that’s needed. Once you’ve got your foot in the door, then you can strategize how to get more information and create a deeper connection with the user. Put the User's Mind at Ease Some users can be apprehensive towards buying from a small company’s website for of a variety of reasons. They can be concerned about the quality, reliability, or integrity of the website. Reducing this anxiety is crucial for increasing conversion and may be as simple as strategically placing customer testimonials, satisfaction ratings, a number of orders fulfilled counter, or number of years in the business information on the home page. Security can also be a concern in the user’s mind, especially when they are purchasing through the site. Clearly showing the site’s security features such as safe shopping logos and third-party endorsements is a must. Need help with Conversion Optimization?

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