Some companies tend to concentrate on getting traffic / visitors to their websites. Then they wait for the magical thing to happen – they’re waiting for the visitors to simply buy, for the money to start rolling in. But getting your visitors to turn into paying customers involves a little bit of work.
First, you have to figure out the answer to the three big questions:
- Are you getting visitors?
- What do those visitors want?
- Are you giving it to them?
Are You Getting Visitors? – Website Analytics
If you want to improve something you have to be able to measure it. Website analytics, like Goggle Analytics, will allow you to quantify your site’s performance over time. Are you getting more visitors? Are those visitors staying longer? Are they buying more? You can learn from these metrics and change your tactic accordingly.
What do those visitors want? – Website Usability
Website usability focuses on making websites more usable by people: efficient, easy to use, meet visitor’s expectations and in the end help people accomplish their goal. Branding on top, navigation on the left and most important content first is what your visitors expect so give it to them, or deviate as little from that layout as possible. Keep your page layout and style consistent across the entire website. You only have few seconds to capture your visitor’s attention and keep them on your site. Make sure they can clearly figure out who you are and what you offer, before they decide to hit the back button. Keep everything clean and focused. And of course, direct your users to take action with contact forms or buy buttons.
Are you giving it to them? – Testing
What if instead of guessing whether a change to your website would improve sales, you could know for sure. With website testing, you could present various options and let your customers choose. Goggle Website Optimizer is one such testing tool. Use testing to find out where you’re loosing visitors and to tackle your worst performing areas.
Analytics, Usability and Testing form a very effective process of improving your website’s performance. Taking a closer look at these areas will help you improve conversions and sales. All you have to do is listen to your visitors and soon enough they’ll be becoming your best customers.
Andrew
I came here after reading the top tips for turning visitor onto customers. I really get the message and I have implemented many of the suggestions for my landing page too.
I too have give-aways but on my main site. I think I will build a section to have this on my landing page too. Great article, thanks for sharing. My Landing Page