Website’s are great, aren’t they? They look pretty and tell people who you are. But how many of you want more from your website and want to see that it’s converting more people into talking with you and buying from you?

We’ve compiled a little list of things that you can do to try and help conversion on your website:

 1. Understand it’s objective. If you are a company selling jewellery online, then the objective is for people to actually get their credit cards out and buy something. If you are a B2B business looking to generate potential leads to follow up, then you need to encourage people to pick up the phone or send you their details. Work backwards from this – there’s no point going in for the hard sell on your website, if your sales cycle is three months long – think about what you can say in your copy or demonstrate on your site through testimonials or reviews that will achieve the actual objective. Leave everything else out.

2. Know exactly how well it’s performing. If you don’t have a web analytics package installed on your site. Get one. Google Analytics is free and allows you to see exactly when your audience is visiting, where they are coming from and which pages they are interested it – only when you have this data can you improve what you have.

3. Think about the important parts of each page, it’s called ‘eyetracking’. Where will people be drawn to first? Where do you WANT them to be drawn to? Highlight important information and either leave unimportant information out or keep it out of the way. This way you can guide your visitor around the page in the way you want them to experience your site.

4. Surveys. I know, I heard a collective ‘ugh’ when you read this, but every now and then, it does no harm to ask your visitors and customers what they think. No one understands why they did or didn’t buy/connect with your website better than them.

5. Be contactable. Not everyone will want to read every bit of information to the tee before making an enquiry or buying online. Put contact details in a prominent position on every page – don’t make your customer have to search for a phone number – it could be one click away from losing their interest.

6. If you sell online, make sure you have a good guarantee. People feel the pangs of ‘buyers guilt’ much stronger when they buy online as they don’t have the tangible product there and then once they’ve handed their money over. Once they’ve bought and during the process of buying, make sure you’re setting their minds at ease that if they change that mind – it’s easily reversible. Combatting buyers guilt is a really important factor in selling more online.

7. In line with 6, be there for every step of the buying process. We all go through certain steps before we buy stuff, whether online or offline. We discover something, work out if we really need/want it, explore for more information, investigate the options, see where it’s sold, check out prices, check out reviews and then choose a place to buy it from. Make sure you’re there for every stage of this process – if they don’t need to leave your site to find out the reviews, the competitive prices and the best information – why would they buy elsewhere?

8. Prove your worth. Sounds like an easy one, but an easy one to forget or add as an aftermath – don’t forget your case studies and testimonials. And don’t always put your biggest and best clients or sellers on there, think about your market. If you did one job for a large, well known corporation but the majority of your work is for SME’s, don’t just plaster the big jobs – the customers won’t relate. Make sure you have a selection of testimonials that are easy to navigate and cover a wide variety of applications,

9. Don’t make your images too small. Its so annoying when you can’t see the image properly and it’s impossible to zoom. Make them obvious and zoomable for product sales.

10. Don’t forget those ALT tags and captions for images. ALT tags are great for SEO and captions allow people to read what the image is. Sounds silly but sometimes people like things explained to them.

11. Don’t make any forms or registrations too long. People hate filling them in so make them snappy and easy – only taking the essential information – you can always prompt them to fill in more later.

12. Adopt a customer mindset. What are the most common stumbling blocks or objections? How can you overcome them with your website? Address them all…

13. If you don’t offer any discounts, don’t have a discount box! Simple…

14. Add as much credibility as you can. If you’re endorsed by someone, add their logo. If you partner with companies that will add clout to your message, make sure they’re visible.

15. Dreaded internet explorer. A lot of people are defecting away from Microsofts’ web browser – we hate it here. Make sure your website is available for all browsers and works perfectly on all.

16. Mobile, mobile, mobile. A ridiculous amount of people are now looking at your website on their mobile device – iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and such-what are becoming increasing popular for web browsing. Does your website firstly work well on a mobile device and secondly, is it easy to navigate and see???

17. Be human. People like to see who they’re buying from or dealing with – get your mug shots on the website. People like to buy from people, not machines. (we’ll be adding our mugshots soon, as soon as we’ve airbrushed all blemishes )

18. Encourage the viral spread of your message. If you have something interesting to say, allow your visitors to share it! Have social share buttons available and allow customers to invite their friends in order to receive additional money off.

19. Content. This probably should be number one really. Does the content on your site really reflect you and your business? Are you talking to your customer? Using the words ‘You’ makes it feel much more personal. Remember Google looks at the content of your site heavily, so make sure it’s explicitly easy to see who you are and what you do.

20. Keep an eye on competitors. Copy them if necessary. Obviously don’t build your strategy on this! But keeping an eye on how the competition stack up – see what they do well and make it your own.

So there we have it! A few ideas to help turn those clickers into converts…. Please let us know in the comments field below if you can think of any more.