Natural Born Conversion Killers

By Chris Behan

Just about every company these days understands the need to drive visitors to its website, but not every company understands the importance of measuring conversion and what it takes to make conversions happen.

Before we begin, it is important to accurately measure your site’s current conversion rate to establish a baseline. To measure your website’s conversion rate, simply divide your total number of online sales or leads by your website’s visitor traffic. If you don’t have an analytics package that measures your site’s traffic, there are many free options you can have installed on your site, such as Google Analytics. Simply call your hosting company and ask them to install analytics on your site. Once you have determined your site’s conversion rate, you can look to improve it by avoiding some of the pitfalls discussed in this article.

Poor Design – Proper web design seamlessly blends who you are, what you do, and whom you are appealing to. If you are operating a regional business, be sure to include some imagery that represents the areas where you do business. Also, only use professional imagery on your website. Using images taken with your Kodak Disc (‘80s reference) just won’t cut it, and conversion will suffer.

Other items to consider when reviewing your design are:

• Calls-To-Action & Contact Information – Don’t make it hard for people to contact you or purchase online. Have clear, consistently placed calls-to-action and always place your phone number at the top right of your website in plain, readable text. Having your phone number in text will make it easy for smart phone users to call you.

• Navigation – Make it easy for users to navigate your website through a clear and consistent navigation scheme. I usually recommend a left-hand navigation for your products or services with a top navigation that outlines your corporate information.

• Flash – Go easy on the amount of Flash animation on your website, particularly if you are operating an e-commerce site. For e-commerce sites, I suggest just abandoning Flash altogether. Flash will make your website load more slowly and also presents problems for some smart phones and mobile browsing devices.

Lack of offers – The Internet is very offer-driven. Sites that clearly convey their offers or unique selling propositions are certain to convert at higher levels. Take time to understand what matters to your potential customers, whether it is free shipping, BOGOs, or a hassle-free, in-home estimate. You have to make sure you are fishing with the correct bait.

Lack of Industry Credibility – Adding the logos or certifications of the entities that oversee your business or industry can have a very positive effect on conversion. For example, if you operate in the aerospace industry, be sure to include your AS9100 certification. This type of third-party substantiation lends credibility to your website that it cannot achieve on its own. You also can include your BBB logo, Angie’s List logo, award logos, etc.

Note: I usually recommend placing these logos on your site in grey scale (removing the color) so as not to detract from your site’s design.

Lack of Social Proof – It is important to understand that a properly marketed website has the ability to attract thousands, if not millions, of unique visitors who potentially have never heard of your company, products, or services. This ability to drive mass traffic does, however, create an interesting phenomenon. Nobody wants to go first, or at least feel like they are going first. Social proof demonstrates that previous website visitors, customers, etc. use and trust your company’s products and/or services, and this will go a long way to improve conversions. Social proof can be demonstrated by prominently placing testimonials or reviews on your site, or by adding icons for visitors to view your Facebook or Twitter pages.

Note: If you have no, or very few, Facebook fans or Twitter followers, this is a bad idea.

Lack of Passionate Compelling, Content - If you are a business owner, or are involved in the marketing of your company, you probably have great passion for your company and the products or services it delivers. Let that passion shine through on your website. Be persuasive. Interrupt. Engage. Speak to visitors as if you were standing in front of them, answering a question or helping them solve a problem. Share with them not just the features of your products or services, but the benefits as well.

And Finally…Lack of Testing – There are many ways to test different messages, offers, designs, etc., and there is no way of truly knowing what works best until you do. I encourage everyone to get with a reputable Internet marketing company and begin to test what you think works. You may be surprised.

In Closing… While there are many other factors that go into conversion – and I am confident I could bore you to sleep describing how the use of broken-margined arrow buttons on your site can positively affect conversion – we’ll save that for another time. Let’s just start by looking at some of the key items outlined above.

Note: Although I think Woody Harrelson is very funny, I could not stand the movie Natural Born Killers. However, I wanted to write an interrupting and compelling headline, and it tested well.

About the Author
Chris Behan is the President and Chief Optimization Officer of Socius Marketing, Inc. (www.sociusmarketing.com), Tampa’s top-ranked search engine optimization company, which provides Internet marketing services to small, medium, and large businesses looking to expand their online presence. With offices in Tampa and Atlanta and clients across the country, Socius Marketing is one of the largest, and fastest-growing online lead generation firms in the United States.  Specializing in organic, white-hat search engine optimization, Chris has more than 11 years of Internet marketing experience and has helped hundreds of companies generate leads online. Chris can be reached at chris@sociusmarketing.com or by calling (813) 282-8300. – Offices Rocky Point, Tampa