by Lina Martinez
If you have a business like an online store, then one of your main efforts needs to be all about getting enough sales through your online platform. Because after all, if you don’t get enough sales, then the business isn’t going to be able to carry on and sustain itself. The question is, how do you do it?
There are some things that you can do to your marketing strategy, and changes that you can make there, as well as changes to the appearance of your site and online store, some of the things that you need to do is change just a few small elements on your site. Though they may be small, they can have a really big impact. This kind of thing and these kinds of changes are called conversion optimization, where the aim is to increase the number of website visitors that they go on to become paying customers. For any new online business, this conversion is something that really is important as it will help you make the most of each of your visitors, and will help to create more customers, which in turn, will help your cash flow.
Knowing the best ways to convert website visitors into customers, as well as getting more website visitors in the first place, really is key. So today’s post is all about some tricks and techniques that you can use to increase your online sales; all it takes is some basic know-how and a few tweaks to your website. Here are some of the changes that you can make right away:
Use a Personalized Call-to-Action
If you are looking to increase your conversion rates as it is all part of increasing sales, then you need to know where this kind of conversion can take place; a call-to-action. A call-to-action is part of your website that will ask or tell your site visitor a specific step to take. As examples, it could be something as simple as an ‘add to cart’ button or a ‘buy now’ button. But you can also think about using a call-to-action that is around following your social pages or subscribing to your newsletter for some money off. Then you are likely to retain that person as a customer as they will keep hearing from your business.
Making a call-to-action personalized is something that is really specific. It isn’t going to use their name or anything like that, but there have been studies that have found that if the call-to-action has tailored language, depending on where you customer is in terms of conversion (such as a new visitor, been before, or purchased before), then it really helps conversion rate by over 40%. So it does make a difference to put a little effort into it all, but the idea is to just keep the customer journey in mind when you think about the cal-to-actions to use.
Write Clearer Headlines
Headline texts on your website is something that is an essential factor in helping to increase your sales. Whether it is a headline for a blog post article or perhaps a product page, but a headline is likely to be one of the first things that your visitors will see, take in, and read. It has to be something that can capture the website visitors attention and it needs to be something that can help to keep them reading on your blog or keep them browsing on your site.
First of all, you need to think about being clear with the headlines that you are using. So think about who your target customers are for your business, and then you can think about what you can do for them and how you can best attract them through the headlines that you have. Having clarity is something that really resonates with readers. So the more explicit a headline and being clear about the content on offer, the more that people will prefer it.
Declutter Your Site Navigation
We live in a day and age where so many things are on demand and instant. And rightly or wrongly, there are going to be customers that are going to lose patience if your site loads slowly or if your site looks cluttered, confusing, or isn’t clear. One of the main focuses of your site will be the calls-to-action. But it is really important to declutter the navigation menus that are on your website. How clear is it for your customer to find out what they are looking for? When you’re able to minimize the navigation elements on your site’s pages, then your site visitors will then get to the right call-to-action, which is what it will take to lead to a conversion, rather than them going back and forth and getting frustrated at the wrong things. It has been found that removing navigation on some key landing pages on your site, then it can lead to up to 50% increase in site conversions, which can make such a difference.
Make Sure That You Are Found Online
In order to increase your conversion rate, and get site visitors to go to convert to customers, then it is a massive deal to be able to be found online. Of course, social media sites are really important, as content on there can then help people to come to look at your site. But one of the best things that you can do is to use SEO (or search engine optimization) to your advantage. It is all about the keywords and phrases that people will look up on a search engine to find your site. If you have got it right, then it will make a big difference to how many site visitors that you’re able to get. You need to make sure that you can get it right, otherwise it can mean your site has a high bounce rate, which means people have found your site online, but it isn’t what they were looking for, so they will just click away.
If you don’t know where to start with SEO and being found online, then it is something that you could outsource. So that is something to think about if you have an online based business.
Replace Stock Photos
If you are currently using stock images on your website and online store, then it is something that is really common. When you’re starting out you want things to look good, but often you don’t have the budget in the early days for some professional photos. But having some real photos of your products or people, or the products being used in a lifestyle image, then it does actually have an impact on conversions. In fact, compared to plain product images, research has found that things like user-generated photos of the products can increase conversions two times more than simply having a stock image. It helps to show the products in real life situations and it can create a feeling of more trustworthiness because potential customers can see the products being used. So creating an incentive for customers to share their images with you, such as using a hashtag, then it can help to get some of those images for you. It does make a massive difference to the sales and conversion of those people that come and click onto your site.
As these things above can show you, you don’t have to do anything that is a complete website overhaul to help to maximize your sales and help your business to boost. Sometimes, running some simple tests and testing out some different website elements can be what you need to help you to increase your profits.
