Increasing Conversions Basics

Simple Tips for Increasing Conversions

Just driving more traffic is like adding water to a leaky bucket! In order to get more profits, you have to analyze user activity to see why they don’t do what you want them to. Actions (special offers, forms, etc.) need to be defined and measured. Changes to increase actions need to be made and tested. If users don’t stay on your site, your ranks will go down. Google tracks user behaviors such as how long they stay on your site after a search, whether they bookmark your page, etc. You therefore need special reasons for users to take action (such as an exciting offer, free info) and well written titles and descriptions. If you don’t have a good analytics program and on-page calls-to-actions defined, stop in your tracks and do this before investing further effort to drive traffic making any further efforts to drive traffic. Analytics is at the heart of increasing conversions.

One of the simplest ways to increase conversions on service related sites, is to add a form on your site that is the the top right section of every page (when appropriate).

Let people know you are here to help!

Ask for just the basic info.

Example:

Ask any questions here or call anytime!

Name
Phone
Email
Comments:

You would be amazed at the results we have seen when adding this simple form in a conspicuous place.

Example:
www.meridianassoc.com

Web Usability

If your visitors have a hard time finding their way around your site you will lose them. Having your logo top left, easy to follow navigation and a clear site hierarchy is paramount when trying to keep people from exiting your site. When redesigning, review the pages people visit most and find a way to make it easy to get at that information in the new design.

Google Analytics Goal Tracking

Google Analytics is a free and powerful program that not only lets you get stats on who visits your site but it can be set up to show you charts of key actions you want users to take. You can set a goal to track how many people fill out your online forms or simply to track how many people click through to an important page.

Tracking Leads

These leads and sales are then tracked in a chart that shows an amount of money generated by each internet marketing goal. One chart shows the goals achieved in number of dollars for each lead. If you know it takes you $250 on average to generate one lead though offline advertising, then we can plug that number into software that adds 1 conversion point for every form that gets submitted on the website. You can also track the actual sales from a shopping cart or offline sales generated from the internet leads provided by your marketing department. Come back soon for info on how to set up Google Anlatyics to track shopping cart check out processes and offline conversions.

Check out Google’s very own website optimizer for testing you site in a way that helps you increase conversions:

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Also have a look at this great blog on conversion rate optimization:

www.grokdotcom.com

Photo credit: bgilliard / Foter.com / CC BY-SA