COVID-19 pretty much shut your business down and significantly impacted your sales. You decided to take your business online (or are thinking about it), and after a lot of work, time and money, you have your site up and running. But, there’s one major problem, your online sales aren’t what you expected. Sounds like you have a conversion problem.
Hang on, what’s a conversion, and how do I know when I have one?
A conversion happens any time a visitor on your website completes a desired action. This could be anything from filling out a form, watching a video, or finishing an online order. Each action should be attributed to a unique value. For example, submitting an Email address and buying a product are worth significantly different amounts. It’s essential that you have proper tracking in place so you can make educated decisions when making any changes. As with the large majority of companies, Journey Capital uses Google Analytics to stay on top of our metrics. Stay tuned for our Google Analytics guide.
So what do I do?
There is a multitude of ways you can attempt to boost your conversion rate, but here’s a simple shortlist you can start with:
Run an A/B Test
A/B testing is a simple and effective way to make improvements to a page. To perform the test, two versions of the page are used, hence “A/B”. Version A is often the existing page while version B features a few small changes. When the two pages are live, half the visitors get sent to one while the other half get sent to the other. Once enough data has been collected, you will be able to see which of the pages performed better and implement it as the new page.
Add Credibility
It is understandable people are sometimes apprehensive about shopping online. Credible sources help to ease their minds. One way to do this is to register for your local BBB (Canada wide) or OCCQ (Quebec only) as these services are held in high regard by customers. Another good way of increasing credibility is to provide testimonials from your clients. This provides potential customers with some form of reference point they can relate to.
Link to Social Media
This practice has become more or less commonplace, but it remains an important tool to drive conversions. By providing links to your social media pages, visitors of your website can navigate over to them easily and see what other people have to say about you. It should go without saying that your social media pages need to be upheld to a certain standard. If the pages are never updated, have no community around them, and are missing information, you may want to reconsider.
Be Clear
Clarity is key, visitors can’t be confused at any point or they will simply leave. This goes for all aspects of the website. Your products should be easily identifiable and contact information should be easy to find. It’s going to happen that customers have more unique questions. Try to feature your phone number and Email several locations so they can reach out to get answers. It’s also worth considering click-to-chat options such as Zopim.
For more online tips and tools, be sure to check our small business resource page regularly.