Our Top 20 Tips To Increase Your Conversion Rate Starting Now

You’re here because you own or manage a website and you want to increase your leads and/or sales and the most effective way to do that is by increasing your conversion rate.

In fact, you’ve probably Googled something like ‘how to increase conversion rate’ and it’s brought you here.

You’re in the right place, let’s dive in…

What is a conversion rate?

Let’s start off with a fun example:

Your website sells scuba equipment and it receives 1,000 visitors a week thanks to your marketing efforts. It regularly sees around 10 sales per week.

To work out your conversion rate you divide the number of conversions by the number of visits to your website or landing page

In this case it’s 10/1000 = 0.01
Convert to a percentage – 0.01 x 100% = 1% conversion

The great thing about a conversion rate is it helps you establish how effective your information/user experience is.

So, we have an e-commerce site and its conversion rate is 1%. E-commerce sites should aim for a 2-3% conversion rate, so we have room for improvement.

In our case we could target more traffic; we could invest some budget on social media or AdWords and throw a lot of money at more visitors, but if we made a few tweaks on our website, we could get a lot more bang for our buck.

If we increased our conversion rate to 3% we would see 30 sales, not 10. We would spend the same amount on advertising but triple our sales.

So, that’s what we are going to do – we’ll increase conversion rate.

But how can you increase your conversion rate? Do you have to invest in a new website?

Not necessarily.

Here are our top tips to increase your conversion rate starting now.

1) Make sure your benefit is clear

This may seem obvious, but on your landing page/homepage, have you made it clear what your product/service is and how it benefits the customer?

We’re selling scuba equipment on our website, we want users to land on our newest product – ‘the Diver Hero 3000’ – on it we make it clear it’s the latest technology in diving wetsuits, here are the benefits and here is the button to buy. Done – customer converted.

If your landing page is wishy-washy, with adjective-full information on how wonderful your brand is, how innovative you are and how lucky your customers should be to shop there, but your customer can’t see why they’re there or how it benefits them, you’ve just wasted their time and your CPC to get them there.

2) Be clear about the problem that your product/service solves

This point works in conjunction with our 1st tip.

We’re selling the Diver Hero 3000. From tip 1 we have made it clear that our wetsuit is new, the best in the industry and available to buy. But, why should the customer buy this – what purpose does it serve?

Our Diver Hero 3000 will keep them warm and prevent cold water from seeping in. This is the problem our customer has and what we’re solving.

Acknowledge a problem your customer is looking to solve and highlight how your product/service solves that problem.

Don’t make your customer work it out.

3) A Clear Call To Action That’s Above the Fold

So, your customers found your landing page, they understand your product, and they like it. Can they buy it?

Nope – ok, bye. That customer is gone.

If you want your customers to buy your products, make it too easy for them to do so. Keep your CTA above the fold – make it big and bright.

4) Build trust

No one buys from a company they don’t trust. In fact, 60% of millennials claim they’ve left a website because it didn’t have reviews or photos (source). Can you afford to lose 60% of your customers because of something basic like photos?

Strengthen the trust in your website with:

• Full information about your product/service
• Images
• Reviews/feedback
• Payment gateway options.

91% of consumers say they trust online reviews (source). Strengthen your product and service pages – it will have a significant and positive impact on your conversion rate.

5) Show authority on your subject matter

This works in conjunction with point 4 – show your customers that you’re the absolute authority on this product/service.

We’re selling wetsuits; there are plenty of retailers that sell wetsuits but we’re going to show you why we’re the only place you need to go for your wetsuit needs. We know everything there is to know about diving, wetsuits and what you’ll need to have the best diving experience.

6) Provide value before asking for it in return

You want your customer to hand over their email/money/data but you need to offer them something first.

Give them something they want – a great deal, lots of information, the product/service they need.

This screenshot from Boody is a great example; look at the level of content and detail they have provided for 1 product.

This shop has provided the customer with a huge amount of information before they expect the customer to hand over any of theirs.

7) Reduce Anxiety by Answering questions

From the Boody example above, you can see they have addressed questions about size and fit and FAQs, before a customer has even asked.

This boosts your credibility, gives the customer confidence in what they’re buying and will reduce the strain on your customer service which won’t have to answer these questions.

Use your social media and customer service team to see what questions your customers ask the most and address those questions straight away.

8) Ensure the landing page is relevant to their buying journey

We’re selling wetsuits on our dive website, so we want users to land on our Diver Hero 3000 or on our wetsuit category page.

The point is, we don’t want to land on some information page about diving in the Red Sea. Sure, that’s nice, but that’s not why they’re coming to our e-commerce site.

It’s even more important if you’re running paid marketing. We’re running an AdWords campaign for our Diver Hero 3000, so we’ll send the customers directly to that page – NOT the homepage.

Reminder – don’t make your customers work for it. Send them where they need to go.

9) Use landing pages to tailor your message

This point works in conjunction with tip 7.

We love a landing page and so does your customer. A landing page provides thorough information about the product/service that is specific to their needs. It answers questions they have, provides trust and credibility and doesn’t distract them with navigation around the site.

If you’re running a paid marketing campaign for your product/service, we’d strongly advise using a landing page to optimise that traffic.

10) Nurture your leads to conversion with a series of emails

Sometimes your customers aren’t ready to buy yet. Maybe they need a little time or want to do some more research. Don’t lose them!

By getting their email, you can market to them later.

A great option for email capture is a pop-up on exit, or after a certain amount of time spent on the site. Offer them an incentive to leave their data such as a first-time discount, free shipping or engaging content like an eBook.

Create an automation series that will run in the background and remind them about your company, the product/service and what you have to offer.

11) Use Common Functionality – Don’t Make Things Complicated

Do you have flashy pop-ups? What about auto-playing videos and music? Get rid of them.
Keep things simple, and make it clear what the user is there to do. Don’t let this be you:

12) Make sure your site is mobile responsive

“According to Google, more than half of web traffic now comes from mobile devices and over 40% of sales are transacted on a mobile.” (source)

“Users expect a mobile site experience to be seamless, smooth and fast. When their experience doesn’t match their expectation, it does damage to the brand.”

13) Make sure your website is fast

More than 50% of visits are abandoned if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load. (source)

Don’t lose your customers due to poor page speed. Use Google’s free Page Speed Insights tool to work out how you can speed up your website.

14) Use Urgency to Create FOMO

It’s amazing what a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) can do for your conversion rate. Create time-sensitive offers and incentives to create a bit of FOMO for your customers.

Some great examples include:

• We only have 1 item left, buy before it’s gone
• Limited stock availability
• This offer expires at midnight
• This offer is only open to the first 10 customers
• You only need to spend another $5 to get free delivery

15) Use Behavioural Targeted Pop-ups

In conjunction with tip10, to encourage users to leave their data, place strategic pop-ups around the site.

This could be asking for their email address or a live chat pop-up asking if they need help.

16) Abandon cart emails

Abandon cart emails help to remarket those customers that you may otherwise have lost.

“Research suggests that on average, 68.63% of online shopping carts are abandoned before purchases are completed. But 63% of those are recoverable with the right set of offerings.” (source)

There is plenty of software out there that can integrate with popular CMSs like WordPress, Shopify and Squarespace.

Take a look at Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Campaign Monitor.

Here are some great examples of abandonment emails

17) Do some competitor analysis

An easy win is to check out what your competitors are doing.

If their product pages have videos, testimonials, free shipping, 5 payment gateways and free returns, then you need the same.

If their site is better than yours, you’re losing sales to them.

18) Track your funnel, test and learn

Using software like Google Analytics (free) and A/B testing software like Optimizely, Google Optimise and Visual Website Optimiser, you can assess where users are landing on your site most often and run experiments on those pages to see how that impacts your conversion rate.
It could be as simple as changing the colour of your CTA or it might mean moving around the content.

Something simple could have a dramatic impact on your conversion, but you don’t know until you try – and test!

We have some great information on how A/B Testing can affect your conversion rate here.

19) Offer multiple payment gateways

If you offer customers multiple payment gateways they’re given a choice for their preferred gateway, whether bank card, PayPal, AfterPay etc.

The other benefits are:

• If one gateway fails you have backups
• It increases customer satisfaction as users feel more comfortable providing their data to a payment provider they have used before.

20) Create an interactive tool to help a user make a decision

Whether you’re checking your eligibility for a mortgage:

Checking if you can get a discount on your energy costs:

Or trying to find the right mattress:

…there are plenty of websites out there providing interactive tools to help point new customers in the right direction.

A great tool for converting newbies to your site.

A helpful list to increase conversion rate

So, there you have it – a helpful list for ‘how to increase conversion rate’.

Here’s a checklist of our top 20 tips to increase your conversion rate:

1. Make sure your benefit is clear
2. Be clear about the problem that your product/service solves
3. A Clear Call To Action That’s Above the Fold
4. Build trust
5. Show authority on your subject matter
6. Provide value before asking for it in return
7. Reduce Anxiety by Answering questions
8. Ensure the landing page is relevant to their buying journey
9. Use landing pages to tailor your message
10. Nurture your leads to conversion with a series of emails
11. Use Common Functionality – Don’t Make Things Complicated
12. Make sure your site is mobile responsive
13. Make sure your website is fast
14. Use Urgency to Create FOMO
15. Use Behavioural Targeted Pop ups
16. Abandon cart emails
17. Do some competitor analysis
18. Track your funnel, test and learn
19. Offer multiple payment gateways
20. Create an interactive tool to help a user make a decision