Conversion Marketing: 5 Steps to Better Website Conversion

If you do business online, then you’ve probably heard about conversion marketing in one way or another. You’ve heard all about how you need to improve your conversion rate so that you can get more sales online and so on. The question is: what is this conversion marketing all about? And how can you use it for your benefit?

Definitions:

First of all, let’s define some of the terms we will be using repeatedly in this text.

• Conversion Marketing: The process of converting website visitors to customers.
• Website Conversion: This refers to an instance where your website visitors take an action that you’d like them to take, whether that is buying a product, downloading an ebook, signing up to your newsletter, etc.
• Conversion Rate: the ratio of website visitors to those who take the desired action. This is usually converted to a percentage.

Why is conversion marketing important?

Conversion marketing is everything! If everyone that visits your website is just browsing, and taking no action, then what is the point? You want them to take some sort of action: make a purchase, download your app, signup for your newsletter … something, anything.

The point of conversion marketing is to encourage your website visitors, who are not naturally inclined to take action, to take an action. Conversion marketing helps you guide your website visitors through to the destination you desire. 

How to improve your conversions?

1. Decide what it is that you want your customers to do
What is a ‘conversion’ to you? Do you want your site’s visitors to download your free ebook, signup to your newsletter, make a purchase, share your article, signup to attend your event, etc.? Make this clear from the onset.

2. Start from your homepage
Your home page is prime real estate on your website – don’t waste it! Use your homepage to communicate your ideas properly. Focus on the benefits to your customers, and not on yourself. Check out our previous post on creating website content for a guide to writing effective copy for your homepage.

3. Be clear with your Calls-To-Action (CTA)
A ‘Call-To-Action’ is an instruction to your visitors, asking them to take immediate action, e.g. “Call Now” “Download Here”, “Sign Up”. When you’re trying to get your visitors to take an action, be clear what exactly that action entails. Remember that the text leading to the button is as important as the button itself. Leading up to the CTA, clearly, state the benefits of taking said action. You want your visitors to be eager to take the action – a quick response is what you’re after.

4. Hold their hands, guide them
Provide a simple, guided tour to your desired destination. This is your conversion funnel. This path should lead your visitors from the moment they arrive on your website,  to exactly where you want them to go.

5. Check if it’s working, then make it better
As part of any (digital) marketing effort, you need to measure, evaluate, revise, and in this case, optimize. Measurement involves determining your conversion rate (earlier, we discussed what exactly this means). Your goal, as you’ve probably guessed, is to continually improve your conversion rate – this is called Conversion Rate Optimization.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at some techniques you can employ in improving your conversion rate. We’ll also be looking at critical factors in this conversion rate optimization. In the meantime, you can go over your website, see what you could improve based on what we’ve discussed here today.

We’re always happy to answer your questions. We’ll also be glad to take any contributions.

Until next time…