You cannot simply put in 10 minutes of work and expect customers to come flooding in. However, what if you could?
I believe that converting a complex funnel is possible and I will explain why.
There are a lot of elements that need to be put into place in order to have a system that effectively generates leads that turn into customers.
There is an opportunity to be found in the small details of websites and product design. Things like landing pages, individual product pages, form fields, copywriting, and checkout pages can make a big difference in how successful a website or product is.
We’ll go over the most common mistakes that lead to conversion rate reduction, and how to fix them.
1. Your website is still slower than a snail
One second of delay can decrease conversions by 7%. If a website is slow, up to 79% of online shoppers won’t return and will tell their friends about the bad experience. This can lead to a loss of sales opportunities.
You can check the speed of your website and find ways to improve its performance with Google’s Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
Enter your URL and click “Analyze”. This will provide you with a detailed report on the issues that slow down your website based on two major parameters:
- Above-the-Fold Load – The time that the page spends to display content above the fold when requested by users.
- Full Page Load – The time that the browser takes to fully load the page when requested by users.
The tool provides Insight scores, Lab Data, and Field Data: In order to get a good understanding of your web page’s performance, Google PageSpeed Insights loads your URL twice – once with a mobile user agent and once with a desktop user agent. The tool provides Insight scores, Lab Data, and Field Data that you can use to improve your web page’s performance.
Implement a good hosting provider
To have a website that performs well, you need a hosting provider that can improve your website’s performance in all areas, including speed.
The four key benefits of using a managed hosting provider are:
Better security
Managed hosting services provide a much higher level of security than other types of web hosting.
A provider that manage your website’s security applies the highest level of security possible, including daily backups, malware scanning, and updates that prevent hackers from attacking your site.
Monitoring uptime
How fast your website loads and how well it performs has a direct impact on your website’s search rankings.
Managed hosting providers typically offer 24/7 website monitoring, so you can focus on other aspects of your business rather than worrying about your website’s performance or security.
24/7 support
Managed hosting providers have experts that are trained to understand the technical details of the platform and how to solve common and complex problems.
Install a caching plugin
Installing and activating a caching plugin saves a copy of the page after the first load, and then serves that saved version to every next user that opens the page.
Although there are many excellent WordPress caching plugins available, we recommend either WP Rocket (the premium version) or the WP Super Cache plugin.
Reduce the number of plugins
The more plugins you have on your WordPress site, the slower the site will be.
The more plugins a website has, the longer it will take to load.
A good rule of thumb is to only use the plugins that you need and uninstall or delete the ones that are not updated by the creators or that you don’t use anymore. This will help keep your WordPress site running smoothly.
Be smart when choosing your plugins in order to cherry-pick the plugins that matter and are of real quality.
Use a content delivery network (CDN)
Most big publishers use CDNs in order to deal with large traffic spikes and deliver content quickly to readers. A CDN essentially takes all the static files (CSS, JavaScript) from a WordPress site and delivers them to users via the nearest server. It’s important to choose the CDN that will work best for your WordPress website and your business model.
Here’s a list of the most well-known CDN providers today:
Optimize images
It’s important to compress images before using them on a website in order to improve speed. ImageResize and TinyPNG are great tools for this purpose because they can drastically reduce the file size without affecting the quality of the image too much.
When you optimize your images, use as many resolutions as you need. For example, if you only need a thumbnail of the image that is 300 x 300px, there is no need to insert a 1200x1200px image as it will only appear smaller on the page. WordPress is very good at handling image resizing.
Optimize your homepage
There are several things that you can do immediately to speed up your homepage:
- Excerpts Only: WordPress shows entire posts on your homepage by default. This slows down your site, and by using excerpts, the page will load faster because you only use a portion of the article.
- Minimum Posts: Use maximum 3-5 posts on your homepage.
- Minimum Widgets: Remove unnecessary widgets and inactive plugins that you don’t need on your homepage.
- Light Slider: If you use a slider instead of a hero shot, make sure that each slider image is optimized according to the rules that we’ve already outlined in this article.
2. The design is obsolete
As users become more technologically savvy, they want to spend less time looking at a slider.
In addition to that, professional web designers and developers are always trying to change things up, which can make your WordPress site look old-fashioned and unable to generate any sales.
Analyze everything
What is the condition of your website presently? Look at the analytics, determine if your arrangement really directs prospects down your sales funnel, and measure the KPIs that you desire to accomplish.
We recommend using Google Analytics to collect and benchmark your data. It is free and easy to integrate on your WordPress site.
Examine the content hierarchy
Arranging your content in a clear hierarchy is important because people will skim over the content on each page and are not likely to stay more than 10 seconds. So, if you want to increase your conversion rates, you should make sure your content is arranged properly.
- Connect: Instantly connect your services with the users’ problems.
- Explain: Describe your solutions.
- Social Proof: How you’ve helped your customers.
Improve the style
Focus on the following elements:
- Imagery: A bad image creates a bad image for your business. Make sure that you use quality and unique imagery.
- Typography: Typography is crucial to the success of your website because, with the right typography combined with your website layout, you can directly improve the time that people spend on your website, and consequently, the conversion rate.
- Whitespace: Make your website more elegant by allowing more whitespace. The right amount of whitespace also helps the users to focus on the core message and on your CTAs.
- Spacing: A line spacing of 1.3 to 1.7 is the desired one, but this should vary depending on the type of your page, the font size, and the number of characters.
3. Unapparent or weak CTA’s
The same rule can be applied when it comes to your web presence and your conversion rates. Here are the 3 most common reasons why the CTAs on your website don’t work:
- You’re too short: Less is more, but not always. The sole “Buy” or “Register” doesn’t exactly explain what will happen if someone clicks the button. “Download” and “Download Your Free Book” is not the same.
- No context: Having a CTA that is not relevant to your content is confusing for the users. When people scan the content, they need to summarize and capture the entire context of the page, and this can’t be achieved if your CTA and headlines don’t match what’s in the content.
- No Focus: A proper CTA screams “HEY I AM HERE!”. You need to enclose it within your page aesthetics and its clear message and content. Pay attention to how you use colors, contrast, and typography as well.
The following aspects will help you to effectively optimize your call-to-action for conversions:
Make it visible
To increase your conversion rate, your call to action must be visible to users! Place a CTA that is large enough and aligned with the rest of your page components.
Good copywriting
The CTA needs to be convincing and present the benefits of what is being offered.
If people are not convinced by your copy, you cannot convert them. Make sure your headline, main copy, and microcopy are convincing enough to persuade people.
4. You have no urgency elements in your sales funnel
The purpose of a conversion is to get your prospects to take immediate action.
You need to make your customers feel like they need to buy now, or they will miss out. If they believe they have time to consider their options, they will take their time and not make a decision.
Although this may seem like a good thing, it can actually be detrimental to your sales. You want prospects to feel comfortable with their purchase decision, but if they take too long to make a decision, they may lose interest altogether.
There are a lot of distractions on the internet, and if your prospects see something else of interest, they may forget about you.
So what do I mean by urgency?
This is when you explain to your prospects why it is in their best interests to take quick action.
Urgency is a strong catalyst for increasing conversions.
There are many authentic ways to do this:
Add real urgency elements
If prospects don’t act now, they will miss out on an actual, real opportunity.
I’ll illustrate with some examples:
- Limited time offers
- Low stock
- One time offers
You can use a countdown timer to make the point more forcefully.
Reverse the risk
You can also increase your conversion rate by offering some kind of guarantee. This could be a money-back guarantee or a refund policy. By reducing the risk and lessening the impact of the commitment, you’ll be more likely to get people to convert.
Imply urgency
Strategic language which implies urgency can be very effective in persuasion. Words like “Now” or “Today” in a call-to-action can make a big difference.
Amazon is brilliant with implied urgency.
If you want your shipment faster, order within this time frame.
5. Your sales funnel is one-size-fits-all
Each person who comes through your funnel is different in some way. They each have different things they want, different problems, different beliefs, etc.
I’m not saying you need to make a separate sales funnel for each person. That’s not possible.
There are differences between the people in your customer base, and you should take these into account so that your sales process and customer experience are as effective as possible.
You’ll see more conversions coming in when you start catering to the specific needs of your audience.
Here’s what you can do about it:
Create multiple buyer personas
You have probably heard this advice many times before: “Creating personas are very important.” Personas are essentially fictional characters that you create that represent your target audience. By creating personas, you can better understand your target audience and what they want.
This advice is often ignored because it is seen as a tedious and dull task. I understand why this is.
I believe that you should have more than one persona to be successful. Three is a good number to start with.
When you create personas for your primary, secondary, and tertiary markets, you can better serve your customers and create an unforgettable experience. This, in turn, leads to more conversions and customer loyalty, giving your business staying power.
Loyal customers are worth up to ten times more than their first purchase, according to studies.
Know your customer journey inside out
Mapping out your customer journey can help you to differentiate prospects by showing you the path that customers take when interacting with your business. This can help you to identify areas where customers may get stuck or confused, and make changes to improve the overall customer experience.
Look at the factors in every interaction to give you an idea of where your potential customers are in their journey.
You can make sure the content on your website is appropriate for each stage of the conversion process, and help to move people through the process.
Segment your prospect and buyer lists
You’ve taken the time to create multiple buyer personas and map your customer journey. Now it’s time to segment your lists to track the interests of each prospect.
You can increase conversions by delivering custom messages to the right people at the right time.
6. You have poor customer support
Many e-commerce sites fail when it comes to customer support because they ignore their customers. The way to secure a conversion is to not ignore your customers.
Customer will pay more if you give them a better experience. This is not something I made up, 86% of people have admitted this to be true.
If someone lands on your product page, it’s safe to assume they’re interested in buying it.
If your product page doesn’t answer all of a potential customer’s questions answered, that is bad for business. It is easy to fix this problem.
Conclusion
If your website is making any of the mistakes we listed above, it will be difficult to increase your conversion rate.
We need to be more diligent and purposeful in our actions and not take anything for granted!
Figure out where you’re going wrong, and put the advice from this article into practice as soon as possible to see an increase in customer satisfaction and conversions.
In addition, please let us know if you have any questions that we can help you with regarding conversion rate optimization.