You could have the best rankings in the SERPs and be pulling in the most organic traffic out of all your competitors, but unless you convert that traffic into sales you will never have a profitable business. You see, so many business owners focus on rankings and traffic, but fail to understand that it’s what their traffic does once they land on their website that needs to be the main focus.
Would you rather 1,000 visits a month and a conversion rate of 20% (200 sales) or 10,000 visitors a month with a conversion rate of 1% (100 sales)? In this situation, the business with less traffic, but a higher conversion rate, is the winner. It’s very possible to make more money than your competitors simply by focusing on converting traffic. CRO (conversion rate optimization) is something that is becoming more popular and specialized, but many are still left out in the dark regarding its benefits.
Optimizing for conversions is becoming more important by the day, as SERP competition is at an all-time high and now Facebook ad costs are going through the roof. If costs continue to rise and your conversion rates don’t also rise you will fall flat on your face. Many businesses are in for a very rude awakening soon.
I think it’s important to emphasize how CRO is needed more than ever, yet I don’t see many SEO professionals talking about it. Yes, my agency sells SEO services that are designed to achieve rankings, but I want my clients as well as my blog readers to convert more of their traffic into sales. More sales equals more money to allocate to SEO, allowing more traffic and scaling.
So, here are ten ways to help you convert more of your traffic. Take advantage and focus on improving your conversion rates. It’s an area not many are focused on at the moment, giving you an opportunity to leverage for your own growth.
These tips will help your website visitors convert into sales
1. Show proof.
There are several different ways you can show potential buyers that your product or service works. If you are selling physical goods via an e-commerce website one of the most powerful persuasion tools is by enabling reviews and encouraging every customer to leave one.
Take a look at Amazon for example. If you buy from there don’t reviews play an important role in your purchase decision? Consumers love to read the opinions of other buyers and will often trust complete strangers to help guide their purchase decisions.
There are plenty of plugins that will help you collect reviews and display them on your product pages, while also enabling rich snippets and showing those reviews in the SERPs. Those little stars can really increase click-through rates and they directly impact your conversion rates.
Now, if you are a service provider, there is no better proof than testimonials from satisfied customers. If you want to take it a step further, consider asking customers for video reviews. When there is a real person behind the testimonial and not just text, it becomes much more powerful and can drive conversions through the roof.
2. Present the correct products or service to the audience you are targeting.
This is something that I see a lot, especially with e-commerce websites. There are so many people launching drop shipping stores with a wide range of products and they are running ads to a very broad audience and expecting sales to just magically happen.
If you are selling several different products, you need to create ads for each product or at the very least their category, and target specific audiences that are looking for that. You might sell electronics, but there is a big difference between someone looking for a camera and someone looking for a new video game system.
Your conversion rates will increase if you match products and offers to an audience that is actively looking for that specific item.
The same logic applies to service providers. Even though a business might be looking for help increasing their online sales, I couldn’t target my agency ads so broad. Some might be looking for links and SEO, but some might be looking for a social media agency to manage their Facebook ads.
3. Be clear and straight to the point on your offer pages.
I’ve stressed this several times in the past, and that is how important it is to send traffic to landing pages that give the visitor a single option. If you are targeting consumers that are interested in buying a blue widget, then you need to send them to a landing page that gives them an option to purchase a blue widget, and nothing else.
The last thing you want to do is send traffic to a general page and hope that they click around your website and take the time to learn how to navigate around and seek out that blue widget on their own. It’s not going to happen and if you use this approach your conversion rates will be non-existent. They will be zero.
If you have a great traffic source or laser sharp targeting, you might even want to consider removing the navigation options on these pages, giving your traffic two options. They can either convert or leave your website. Surprising to many, this will actually increase conversion rates because you take the possibly of them getting distracted out of the equation.
4. Ooze confidence and be the expert your audience is seeking.
Most people do not fully understand everything about the product or service they are buying. They are looking for a company to stand out as the top choice, giving them the confidence to make a purchase. This is why brands spend millions of dollars on branding and PR. Often times they instill consumer confidence just by creating an image.
This is why influencer marketing has become so popular. It’s a straight branding play. If a company gets their product in the hands of a Kardashian type celebrity, everyone automatically associates it will the “right” choice. Silly, yes, but nonetheless, very effective.
One thing that really contributed to the growth of my agency to a seven-figure business was my blogging. I was publishing content that was honest and raw, and business owners respected and valued my opinion and insight. I don’t like to call myself an expert, but the information I provide is true and accurate, and my audience rewards it by engaging my agency for their SEO needs.
5. Be authentic and real – be the face of your brand.
Some of the most successful businesses have a face, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a worldwide company like T-Mobile, who uses its CEO as the face of the brand, or an SEO agency like my company, where I am the main face and easily accessible.
There are plenty of huge SEO and marketing agencies with no face. They have a brand name, but you have no idea who the people are that work there. This was fine in the past, but now with social media it has caused this phenomenon, where consumers want to be able to connect with someone at a business. That connection makes it feel more personal.
When you put your face on your business, you are automatically removing several barriers, which creates warmer leads and consumers that are more confident regarding your company when they hit your website.
A consumer that is confident in the business is more likely to convert. If you do a good job at promoting your business using your own (or a high-level employee) face, you are going to experience a much better response to your offers. Use your face in some ads and on landing page copy and watch your conversion rates spike.
6. Repeat your message over and over because it takes multiple ‘touches’ to convert.
Consistency is key when it comes to converting online. Why do you think pixel tracking and re-targeting is so popular? It’s because most traffic that hits your website will not convert at the first visit.
This is why creating a brand is so important. If traffic converted the first time, there would be no need to invest in creating a brand. You would just push as much traffic to your website as possible.
Why do you think I blog so often, and often times delivering similar messages? It’s because you often have to repeat your message over and over – multiple times, in order to convert visitors into sales.
Consistency is key, and this is why so many online businesses fail. They expect to load up some ads, turn them on, and watch the sales pour in. This isn’t how it works. The more your project your message, the higher your conversion rates will become because you will constantly attract repeat visitors that will eventually cave and convert.
7. Give one choice per landing page.
I touched on this above, but it’s so important that it also deserves its own bullet point. It applies to all businesses, whether they are selling a service or product. The goal is to funnel highly targeted traffic to a very specific offer.
So, if I am creating an offer that promotes our authority link building, then I am going to send that traffic to our sales page for authority links. If the ad is promoting our full-service outreach service, then that traffic will be sent to that page.
Even though both offers are SEO related and involve links, they are two entirely different offers. You can’t assume or guess what the potential customer wants. You need to attract the correct visitors through targeting and detailed ads, which then send the traffic to an offer tailored to exactly match what the ad promotes.
When you learn how to be very specific, from targeting to your ad to the landing page, you will see your conversion rates improve. This type of targeting will not only convert higher, but also lower your customer acquisition costs.
8. Be accessible.
So many online businesses have no contact options, which raises a red flag in the eyes of many potential customers. You should make it a point to be very accessible, allowing potential customers to contact you several different ways.
Often times they will have a very simple question, that once answered will cause them to purchase and convert. If you don’t offer several ways for them to get answers to their questions, then they will leave your website and find a competitor that will answer their questions.
Live chat is a good option for e-commerce stores, as many times you can have your chat operators not only answer questions but also push the customers to the conversion point. Even something as simple as having them offer a 5% coupon code after providing the answer can drive conversion rates. A lot of little things can add up to big results.
Contact forms, phone numbers, social media profiles and support desks are just some contact options you can offer, in addition to live chat.
9. Get your potential customers to agree with your point of view.
Want to convert more traffic? Get your audience to agree with your point of view. This is an old psychology trick that has been used forever, long before the internet was even invented. Think about TV commercials for a minute. How did they sell products back in the day? They would shoot a commercial with an attractive actor or actress and the commercial would be them telling the viewers how amazing the product was.
If the advertiser did the commercial right, viewers would “agree” with the commercial and then think highly of the brand and when/if they were in the market for that particular item there was a good chance of them purchasing that brand.
If you are a physical product, get your customers to believe you are the best brand. If you are selling a service, portray the image of being the best provider. It’s Marketing 101. Get the customer to agree with you are the hard part is done.
10. Figure out how to leverage your story.
A story is a huge asset these days, thanks to the many ways to leverage that story. From social media posts to video content, you can tell your story on multiple platforms, which can all contribute to branding and converting potential customers into sales.
Personally, I constantly reference my journey, from starting and selling my first SEO agency, to starting my current agency and scaling it to seven-figures. Stories are inspirational, but also help validate your business.
The fact that I have built several successful businesses shows that I truly know what I am talking about, and I’m not just talking nonsense based on speculation. I speak from personal first-hand experience.
Conclusion
Understanding how to get your traffic to convert is a skill, but one that can be learned. There is a lot of psychology that goes into conversion rate optimization, and it’s not something that has a universal success blueprint. It requires knowing your audience and a lot of testing to find the winning combinations.
When you set out to increase your conversion rates, you are trying to convince and persuade cold traffic to purchase from you (or hand over their contact information) when they really don’t know much about you. Those that can be persuasive will win.
Are there any persuading tactics that you have personally used or have seen others use with success? I would love to hear what you think in the comments section below.
