4 Expert Tips to Increase Website Sales
Hi, I’m Francie.
If you’re hanging here on the Founding Females blog, you’re aiming to start and build a strong business. That means, you’re my kind of people. Welcome! I hope you learn something here that will make you wildly successful.
4 Expert Tips to Increase Website Sales
This post will teach you four smart ways to increase the conversion on your website.
Most people build websites that function like a billboard - meaning the messaging is strictly informational. No engagement. Very little movement around the site. Few online sales.
They don’t lead visitors through an experience according to The Buying Cycle. The result? Visitors leave because they aren’t guided through an experience and into a sale.
DIY Culture in Small Business
Website platforms have become so user friendly that building a website is no longer a barrier to doing business online - anyone can do it! It’s one of the reasons starting a business has become incredibly accessible. The problem is that most people don’t know how to design a website that actually converts.
Sure, they can technically add words and images, and technically get the site online for customers to access. But too often, the DIY method leads to few visitors, low sales, and business owners who are unsure what to do about it.
How to Increase Online Sales from Your Website
The good news is there are hundreds of tactics you can apply to help increase the conversion rate on your site to gain more paying customers.
I’ve audited over 50 websites to help business owners understand where they’re leaving money on the table. The result of these audits for my clients has been increased qualified traffic, higher sales, and improved profits. Since there’s a good chance you built your own website, let’s talk about how to optimize it for conversions.
The key to conversion: the small details matter.
Nuanced details that don’t seem like a big deal can mean the difference between customers completing transactions and a high abandoned cart rate.
In this post, I’ll walk you through 4 exact tips I use so that you can gain an understanding about the seemingly small tweaks you can make to your site to turn more leads into paying customers.
The Roles of SEO and CRO
It’s important to recognize that an organic online strategy has two important parts: SEO and CRO.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. CRO stands for conversion rate optimization.
SEO and CRO are besties because SEO strategy drives qualified leads from the search engine to your website. CRO strategy helps those qualified leads actually become paying customers. You need both of these parts to successfully grow your website traffic and profits. While this post focuses on CRO, you don’t need to worry – I’ve got you covered with the SEO strategy too with these helpful articles:
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What is a Conversion in Marketing?
Many people think of a money transaction when they think of “conversion.”
Actually, while that can be true, a “conversion” can be more broad. More than a money transaction, “conversion” can also include any action you intend for a visitor to take, like filling out a form or joining your email list.
So while many marketers do actually use conversion to mean the number of people who complete a money transaction compared to total visitors, the term is also used in other marketing context to mean that a website visitor completed an intended action that could eventually lead to a sale.
What is a Good Conversion Rate?
A good conversion rate varies by industry, but in general a “good conversion rate” is much lower than most people expect.
In terms of money, it’s important to recognize that statistically, 90% of visitors browsing a website aren’t yet ready to buy. Even Walmart supposedly has a 5% conversion rate, and that’s high! That means 5 out of every 100 people on the site actually complete a transaction.
In other words, strong calls to action to buy are only effective for customers who have gathered all the necessary information to complete a transaction. Knowing this, it’s important to build out a website that provides the necessary information a future customer would need prior to a transaction.
The key to increasing conversion is to nuture leads who aren’t yet ready to buy.
How to Nurture Leads Who Aren’t Yet Ready to Buy
As you review your analytics, you’ll need to keep in mind just how much traffic growth you need to earn a decent conversion rate. It’s simple math. If you have a 2% conversion rate on your site, the reality is that you’ll need to drive 100 daily site visitors to receive just two sales. Want four sales? Then you’ll need to drive 200 daily site visits with just a 2% conversion rate.
However, when you think of conversion solely in terms of website visitors paying for an offer, you miss the very important role of marketing leading up to customers handing over money.
It’s important to speak to customers who are trying to decide if your offer is the best fit for their needs. The best way to do that, provide a total and complete picture of why your offering IS the right fit for them. Answer questions they may not even know they need answers to. Create the picture of transformation strategically with detailed content, visuals, and stories.
My favorite tools for painting a complete picture for prospective customers:
A strategic FAQs page,
Complete offering pages,
Social proof with stories and testimonials, and
Enough copy to naturally introduce a strong internal link structure among pages to guide them through your site.
There’s more than what meets the eye when it comes to conversion. Guiding your website visitors in the journey prior to buying from you is critical. Your marketing strategy should include intentional repeat touch points that build trust and familiarity (in essence, a relationship with your visitors) over time.
Now that we’ve clarified expectations around conversion in marketing, let’s talk about four ways you can increase conversion on your website to earn more engaged visitors and, eventually, paying customers.
Conversion Tip #1: Lead Online Visitors Where You Want Them to Go Next (Toward a Transaction)
When visitors land on your website, you should lead them through an experience according to The Buying Cycle (For a complete explanation of The Buying Cycle, see my favorite tips for turning leads into paying customers). The Buying Cycle is the psychological process visitors go through as they come to know about your brand, consider buying from you, and then become a repeat customer and raving fan.
The first thing I do while auditing a website is comb through page by page and line by line of the website. I look to see missed opportunities where calls to action or hyperlinked text should exist in order to lead visitors through The Buying Cycle. Don’t leave it up to site visitors where to go next - they don’t know your website and business like you do. Strategically design your site so that each page leads to other pages on your site. Be sure to use optimized keywords in hyperlinked text and buttons.
Create an Intentional Flow Through Your Website
To create an intentional flow through your website, map out the journey an ideal customer visiting your website might take. My favorite tool for this is Mila Note where you can create digital sticky notes and move them around as you flesh out your ideas.
Here’s a flow chart I set up for a client showing how pages should reference one another and lead forward in The Buying Cycle:
Keep in mind that over 80% of your visitors will enter through your home page, no matter which phase of The Buying Cycle they’re in. That’s why it’s important to create a home page that will speak to all customers, no matter their intention for visiting your site: to gather information or to actually make a transaction.
For example, your home page should contain sections that appeal to someone just learning about your business by including buttons and hyperlink texts that lead them to find out more about your business, like on your About page. Then, after the visitor learns more about you, they’re ready to consider buying from you. An FAQs page or Services pages would be a strategic next step.
In another example, someone returning to your site and ready to finally make a purchase should find a section on your home page that appeals to their intention, such as with featured products or a call to action to book a service.
Always Lead Website Traffic Forward
Calls to action should never lead backward, but rather forward into the process of buying from you. The flow through your site should build upon itself.
Once a visitor has gathered information about buying from you, the next step would be to lead them into a conversion. This might look like filling out a form, booking a call on your calendar, or purchasing a package.
Keep in mind that growing your email list is a fantastic way to deliver repeat touch points to qualified customers who aren’t yet ready to buy, but will be in the future.
At every next step the customer takes through your website, it’s important to meet them where they are by providing all pertinent information they need at that particular phase to create a complete picture of what it would be like to receive the transformation you promise.
For example, when you build out a robust and complete product description, pull pertinent FAQs onto the product description, rather than linking to the non-converting space of an FAQs page.
2. Conversion Tip #2: Visualize What the Visitor Might be Searching For
Knowing visitors’ goals in each stage of The Buying Cycle is important. For example, visitors goals in the first stage of The Buying Cycle, Awareness, would be to gain an understanding of what your business does and for whom. Notice the goal for these visitors it not to buy yet?
The goal for visitors in the second phase of The Buying Cycle, Consideration, is to gather information about your company to decide if your offering is the right fit for their needs. Information that meets their needs might be location, pricing, packages, a detailed description of what it feels like to work with you, past success stories, and how accurately you can convey the ability to create transformation for them. Notice the goal for these visitors is not yet buy yet?
The goal for visitors in the third phase of The Buying Cycle, Purchase, is to be firmly convinced that your offering meets their need at a price they can afford. The goal is for these visitors to buy and often need an appropriately placed call to action to buy or another added incentive to complete the transaction. This is where a little goading like free shipping or a free gift with purchase often come in handy.
The Root of Low Conversion
Keep in mind that if you know you have a great offer and you know it’s priced appropriately and people still aren’t buying it, it’s because they don’t understand it.
If your conversion rate is below 2%, you’ll need to go back to pages on your site that speak to the awareness and consideration phases of The Buying Cycle and see how you can help website visitors complete the goals of first falling in love with your brand and next being hooked by your offer in order to increase your conversion rate.
Another conversion tip is to look at your data to better understand where visitors are most likely to land on your site. By identifying your top landing pages, you can include information that helps them more smoothly journey through The Buying Cycle and into a conversion.
3. Conversion Tip #3: Engage visitors
Creating a website experience visitors can interact with is critical for conversion.
Google is obsessed with engagement because website engagement signals that visitors are having a positive experience. “Engagement” could be as simple as clicking through several pages on your site or as complex as watching a video, completing a form, taking a survey, signing up for a class, opting into a webinar, or taking a virtual tour of your facility. You need website visitors to take action, and lots of it!
Engagement is closely correlated with the length of time visitors stay on your site. The more visitors engage with your site, the more Google positively favors and is likely to recommend it to more visitors in the search engine results.
To increase the conversion on your site, consider how your website can become more of an interactive, rather than passive, experience.
Ideas for How to Increase Engagement on Your Site
Ideas for how to increase engagement on your site include:
Adding videos to blog posts to appeal to those who prefer to watch rather than read content.
Adding ample internal links referencing other pages on your site. Be sure the hyperlink text color is bright and eye catching and that the words you use to hyperlink text are optimized keyword phrases. For more information, snag these 9 Effective SEO Tips to Grow Your Website Traffic.
Add forms to several places on your website rather than solely on the contact page or footer so visitors can naturally reach out with questions as they have them in their journey through The Buying Cycle.
Map out your website like a blue print pointing traffic forward in the flow of The Buying Cycle rather than backward away from a conversion.
Consider including customer service chat.
Structure the copy on your website with headers and short, choppy paragraphs so readers’ eyes are lead down the page smoothly.
I also look for opportunities where we can place call to actions, rearrange content, add a video, or make the content more visual to increase the positive experience that a user has.
The longer they stay on the site, the more familiar they become with your business and offering. In turn, the more likely they are to make a conversion. These opportunities will lead your audience completely through The Buying Cycle and increase conversion.
Conversion Tip #4: Remove Your Social Icons
I know, gasp, right?! As business owners, we’ve been groomed to believe a large social media following is synonymous with a profitable business. It isn’t true and it’s actually killing your conversion.
Therefore, the best place for you to direct traffic for conversion is your website.
Adding social media icons on your website is a distraction away from your intention to convert there. Sure, growing a social media following can be beneficial to your business, but not at the expense of a highly engaged visitor spending the equivalent amount of time on your website.
Unless you have a strong monetized presence on your accounts, social media marketing should be used to direct traffic to your website, not the other way around. Even if you are monetizing your social profiles, know that it’s a risky bet to depend on a platform that has their best interest at heart, not yours.
When I build optimized sites or create website audit reports for clients, I recommend they remove their icons completely or place them in an inconspicuous place, like in the footer.
Whatever you decide - to keep them or ditch them - do not position your social icons right next to the shopping cart or on your contact page because visitors are close to a conversion and the last thing you want to do is entice them away from your intended goal.
Conversion Tips Conclusion
Most business owners struggle to grow website traffic and convert leads into paying customers and raving fans. Now that you know some of my favorite strategies for increasing conversion, you’re well on your way to building a profitable business that lights you up inside.
By leading visitors intentionally, anticipating their goals for browsing your site, engaging visitors, and removing your social icons, you’ll create a website Google comes to recognize as highly valuable to search traffic.
There are hundreds of small tweaks you can make to improve conversion on your site and grow your company’s profits.
These are just four of my most favorite as an SEO and CRO expert who has helped clients make hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional profit. If you’re interested in a tailored strategy for your business, click over to learn how to work with me.
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Female business resources
Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business (with free access to the resource suite)
Hi, I’m Francie!
Nice to meet you. I’m the founder of Founding Females®. Some call me a business sage because I love to empower female entrepreneurs to breathe life into the business dreams God called them to.
After feeling like a misfit in the corporate world, I discovered a life I loved waking up to through business ownership.
I’m the author of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, a guided journal helping hundreds of women start and grow their businesses.
I’m also a passionate entrepreneurship hype girl, female leader, public speaker, and community enthusiast.
My MBA and 10 years in a corporate career and in business ownership positioned me as an entrepreneurship educator with forward-thinking strategies for starting and growing successful businesses.
As a community leader, I realized other women could thrive with the right guidance and support. I created the Founding Females® Mastermind Community that provides a safe space for women to build better businesses.
I believe that anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship. Looking to grow your own business? Click for info about how to work with me.
About Founding Females®
The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. We create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support.
In addition, Founding Females® offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.
Curious to connect with women business owners who are paving new paths, providing tremendous value to customers, and growing their businesses? Our Women’s Business Mastermind blog series features women business owners who are raising the tide for all of us.