ProfitSEO.com

Online Conversion – Convert Visitors into Buyers

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” – Jacques Ellul

Hello everyone! Today I would like to talk about a real question that worries many site owners. It is of course, how to convert visitors into a buyers?

It’s not a rocket science that online conversion of visitors into buyers and clients is what brings success to a business. Many companies largely depend on this factor and work very hard in finding ways to increase their online conversion to the maximum level.

Often, only online conversion increase by itself and large investments into the context, social, or banner advertisement are not enough. It would be too simple to assume that, and boring as well. I think everyone agrees that it is more interesting and fun to increase conversion and not spend lots of money.

This brings us to the meat and potatoes once again – How to motivate a larger amount of your site visitors to place orders? In reality, this is not a simple thing to do. I am going to share what I think needs to happen to increase the online conversion and win customers’ business.

Search engine requests have to be targeted

It’s pointless to work on advancing such requests as “purchases“, “cars“, “website“, “online store” – these are too general and don’t carry any specific meaning.

We have to find thematic search requests, that align with our targeted visitor base and our business model.

More “selling” search requests

Based on experience, conversion of visitors into buyers is more effective via “selling” search requests. Selling search requests are those that include words “buy“, “sell“, “price“, “purchase“, “discounts“, “where to buy“, “click to buy“.

In addition, special attention should be paid to the word “cheap”. You could use “affordable”, if you are in a professional environment and want to present your report to the management. However, the word “cheap” has a lot more requests than “affordable”, and many customers are lazy and will refrain from typing in “affordable”. Even if the price of what you are selling is higher than the average market price, you can still go ahead and push the site via “cheap”. It works too, and works very good.

Although it’s true that word “sales” or “sale” search requests are not common, using them will save budget and will bring quality visitors, which means increased online conversion.

Site has to be appealing and functional

There are two sayings that fit here – “A cheap person pays twice” and “A cheap person is always poor”. If your site plays an important role in your business, do not be cheap in making it interesting and appealing to your clients.

Of course, do not add a barrage of functions that nobody really needs. It’s not wise to make a site look like a cockpit of a NASA space shuttle, when you are trying to sell black and white cotton socks.

It’s not wise to just go ahead and copy the functionality of any site. I recommend to research, investigate, and study the websites of your competition. Look at their pluses and minuses and try to implement all the pluses.

For instance, if you are working on the online store, it makes sense to bring up “similar items” on the page of a given item with images and short advantages. Also, you could have it in the form of “comparison”, or say something like “other people who bought (or purchased) this also looked at this”. Thus you are not only “squeezing” all the potential from your visitor, but subliminally suggesting that other people “bought” or “purchased this item (closing the sale), and on top of that they have looked at these items. This is perceived as a first sale has been completed, which means the trust has been established, and now that trust has been expanded where these same previous customers have started looking at other similar or complementing items.

Important note here, make sure your site’s search engine results rendering is appropriate where it brings up similar or complementary items in a logical and coherent manner. For example, it will look silly if when a person wants to buy a TV set, and the product page will have a nail polish remover and a red wood chess set as suggested additions to the TV set. Remember, the trust is everything. It is the first and biggest objection all visitors have, which you will have to overcome.

Site navigation has to be simple and accessible

Please make sure that all the headings, tabs, and blocks are easily understandable by all types of visitors. Do not make it feel like a Harvard professor’s memoir about his trip to the Geneva conference on a molecular biology. I always say this, but here it is again – always let other people you know (friends, family, co-workers, etc.) take a look and give you feedback on the navigation of your site.

The “order form” or a “purchase or buy button” must be clearly visible, accessible, and in working condition (the most important event)

This is the hart of your efforts. What is the point if after a beautifully crafted site with a powerful suggestive sales pitch, a “buy button” does not work and gives the error message. Yeah, believe me, that happens a lot.

Also, do not assume that if there is a “buy button” or a “purchase form“, your visitors will find it automatically. Internet visitors often do not notice many details on the site, since the majority is used to just “scanning” the information on the surface and moving on to the next thing.

The professionals working on the site have to be interested and motivated

A person or a team, working on your site, have to be financially interested in making it interesting for customers and making sure it’s resulting in increased sales. The same work can be done differently – with 100% enthusiasm and work ethics, and of course the other way – just to cross the little check box.

Many Internet users are immune to advertisement

Many visitors deliberately avoid clicking on the advertisement, since during all their Internet past they have developed the “ad immune system”. They do not perceive advertisement that does not differ from the rest – be it a context advertisement or a banner ad, thus influencing the online conversion rate. This point leads us to the next important one.

Advertisement has to be intriguing

From my own experience, often I click more on the advertisement, if it attracts me with something intriguing in it’s header, original slogan or unusual banner. Attracting potential customers, it’s crucial to create advertisement material that appeals interesting.

Prices have to be competitive

Prices of goods or services – is one of the most important factors, which influence visitor’s decision to buy the item or a service. All other beautiful things you have done might not work, if your pricing is much higher than your competitors’. You must continuously research competition and its pricing to keep the online conversion growing.

Present more information about goods and services

The more information you present about your goods and services, the higher your sales will grow. This information has to be under the “additional info” or “product info” or “full review” or other similar clickable item on the product page. This information should not be overwhelming the product or landing page, but yet should be available if a buyer decides to research. Remember, you want to interest your visitor with a nice ad, once they are interested, then you want to give them all the tools to reinforce and lament their interest, encourage trust and make the purchase, seamless, and fun.

Visitor feedback

Visitors’ opinions and suggestions – is a very valuable information, which should not be discarded. You can create a feedback form, and call it, for example, “Do you have ideas on how to make our store better?” or “Please let us know how we can make our store better?”. This goes back to the golden rule of leadership – you have to empower people with “why?”. Get your visitors involved, and once they are, they will spread the positive feedback about your site with everyone they know. After all, they are involved in its success personally.

Quality of goods and services

Sooner or later, any business will start having this “information trail”, when clients and customers share their experience about doing business with you via your online store or a site. This information could be both, positive and negative.

In many areas of business, especially online, there are many competitors, where customers can choose the place to do business.

I recommend from the very beginning, to pay most of your attention to the quality of your goods or services and the quality of your after-sales follow up. You must make sure your customer are satisfied starting their arrival to your site, through purchasing process, and forever after. Yes, this relationship needs to be treated as a long-term prospect, if of course, you want your site’s online conversion to constantly grow.

A good reputation will allow you to receive a maximum effect and profits, since people will recommend your company to their friends and families. Also, it’s important to note, a visitors that come to your site because they were referred by someone will have some degree of trust already. This is huge.

Benefits information for goods and services

Many people will make a purchase or place order only when they find the truly best item or service. Of course, they are the ones deciding, what’s best for them, but it is a good idea to write about the benefits of the product or service they are about to purchase. Important to remember, not to make large overwhelming novels that will make a lot of people think about suicide. Make this area short and informative, where all the pluses are listed in a coherent and professional manner. Remember, you are only suggesting, not pushing. This perception is very important, and has to always be completely subliminal.

Timely completion and delivery of goods and services

Quick and professional processing and completion of orders and purchases is also very important, which influence your reputation. Nobody will want to do business with a company that delivers late and has delays. Make people love you not want to hit you with a brick.

When a transaction has been initiated, always make sure a confirmation is sent thanking for the business. A very important point, keep all the contact information in a secure database, for future bulk or mass emails with advertisements.

Overcoming objectives

This is probably one of the most important things you have to keep in mind and implement as much as you can. It is crucial to have your visitors feel comfortable and at ease when on your site. Cool and effective advertisement, crafty product descriptions, and intelligent and valid product benefits are all great, but not enough. In today’s world people automatically and subliminally have concerns or objections, such as what if I buy this item and it’s no good, or what happens if they don’t send the item once I pay, or is this company trustworthy, or how easy it is to contact them, what is the return policy. It’s a good idea to have these things have to be addressed and appear on every page, no exceptions.

For example, the 800 toll free number, 24/7/365 day customer support, online chat, 100% satisfaction guarantee combined with loyal return policy, testimonials from previous clients, awards and recognitions by already authority sites or establishments, and so on. These items must be visible and easily accessible on every page of your site. It’s a proven fact, when visitor’s objections are answered without them asking for clarifications or approval, they are much more at ease, willing, and motivated to do business. This reinforcing, subliminal and nonchalant information has to be easily visible, and in a close proximity to a button or area where they can go for a purchase or do what is the final goal of the site. The most powerful motivation is subliminal, body language such as eye contact or hand gestures when meeting one on one or in front of the group, and strategically placed short and professional countering of objections.

Experiment and analyze

In order to achieve a maximum effect in terms of orders and sales, you have to experiment with different advertisement formats, changing site elements, changing product descriptions (tell them interesting story about a product), and so on.

These experimental changes have to be given sufficient time to see the result. I would recommend 2-4 weeks per experimental change. It is important to keep record of all changes and results in a separate file. Also, it’s wise to monitor the  online conversion statistics, traffic referrals from other sites, advertisement effectiveness and number of orders. Eventually, you will arrive at a scheme, that will give you the best visitor conversion into buyers.

Have a nice day and huge increase in your online conversion!

Beck @ ProfitSEO.com

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