| Website conversion is a methodology
designed to improve your website visitors' experiences on your website and, in so doing,
generate desired results for your company. While search engine optimization has become an
established method of marketing to potential customers, the newer and potentially
invaluable method of website conversion has not received very much attention. In these
days of technological innovation when you can order your groceries online, find a date
over the Internet, and even most fifth graders have an e-mail address, most people would
agree that having a company website is, at the very least, one of the costs of doing
business in the 21st century.
However, having a URL and a home page is more than just
another line item on the list of ways to demonstrate that your company is legitimate - and
it's also more than just another pretty, sparkly marketing brochure. The Internet is
unique in that it offers one of the only advertising mediums that is actually interactive,
requiring website visitors to engage in your marketing message. This interaction means
that, whether you want it to or not, your company's website acts as a virtual sales
person, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, convincing potential customers to buy
- or, sometimes, not to buy - the products and services you have to offer.
Ensuring that your website communicates the right
information to these potential customers can be a critical component of your company's
success in terms of both revenue and exposure, and website conversion is intended to do
just that. You may have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars creating a
state-of-the-art, eye-catching website, but without measuring website conversion, how can
you know what your typical visitor's impression is of your company and its products?
Some graphics-intensive websites can be slow to load or so
light on content that visitors jump ship after just one or two page views to find one of
your competitors who might be better equipped to give them the information that they need.
Conversely, some websites contain mountains of content but lack the structure that can
help prospects locate specific information they need to make an informed purchasing
decision.
And the problems website conversion aims to address are
even more complicated than that. Your customers may have very different needs. They
probably think of your products in different ways and probably have different problems
they are trying to solve.
Betty might want a vacuum cleaner that lets her get the job
done more quickly while Annette wants a vacuum cleaner that offers the most cutting-edge
vacuuming technology. Of course, your website probably doesn't sell vacuum cleaners - in
fact, you probably don't sell anything directly on your website at all.
But whether you are selling high-end banking software and
want visitors to take a free demo of your product or selling outsourced IT services and
want visitors to register to read a white paper about firewalls, your customers have the
same problems. How can you create just one website that addresses the needs, desires, and
buying habits of all of your customers, all of the time?
The key to creating a website that addresses all of your
customer's questions while balancing information and content with navigation and
aesthetics lies within the emerging science of website conversion. Like search engine
optimization before it, website conversion uses a combination of scientific metrics,
algorithms, research, and good old-fashioned marketing instincts to boost your website's
effectiveness as both a marketing and sales tool.
However, while search engine optimization aims at pulling
more prospective customers to your website, the goal of website conversion is to get those
prospective customers to take the action that you want them to take once they are there.
Of course, no one, not even a website conversion expert,
can force visitors to take an action, no matter how many algorithms he or she might try in
the process. But website conversion can help your website to engage each and every visitor
in such a way that he or she will continue along the buying path, asking questions and
getting answers.
If your website does its job, you'll probably get exactly
what you want - and, perhaps even better, so will the customer. At its heart, website
conversion is simply about getting into the minds of your customers, figuring out what
their questions are likely to be, and giving them clear directions to those answers.
When a human sales person encounters a potential customer,
the customer can ask his or her questions directly. The sales person can decide what tone
to take or what type of information to give the prospect based on the interaction. The
human sales approach can change completely based on the customer's needs and personality.
However, when an Internet user enters a search query in a
major search engine and lands on your website, your content is the potential customer's
introduction to your company and your products, and the hyperlinks on the pages are what
help the visitor move through your website to answer his or her questions.
Since it would be very difficult to generate a website that
could determine each visitor's needs and personality type and change its content and
architecture accordingly, your company's website has to try to address all of the possible
needs and personality types that a visitor to your site might have, all without ever
exchanging even a word.
This doesn't mean you have to cram every single piece of
information you have on every one of your product offerings into a one page website to be
sure that no one will miss anything - in fact, you would probably be hard-pressed to find
a single visitor who was interested in every piece of information you could offer.
When companies display all of their information on one
page, the content often becomes difficult to scan, making it just as cumbersome for your
prospects to get their questions answered as it would be if you hadn't given them any
information at all.
Website conversion allows you to pick out which pieces of
information are vital to moving prospects down their buying paths and place them on the
pages where they will be needed. If you know that Annette is looking for cutting-edge
vacuum technology, mention within the page content that your vacuum cleaners are the
latest in cutting-edge vacuum cleaning technology.
Now, make "cutting-edge vacuum cleaning
technology" a link to a separate page that goes into all the detail anyone could ask
for about the technology that powers this vacuum cleaner. Annette can click on this link
to get the answers she wants, and Betty can continue reading without getting bogged down
in specifications and technical terms that mean nothing to her.
Betty is only looking to cut down the amount of time it
takes her to clean, so your next sentence might explain that this new technology increases
the vacuum's cleaning power, allowing you to spend less time cleaning and more time doing
the things you really love.
If you make "spend less time cleaning" a
hyperlink to a page with testimonials from satisfied customers who have cut down their
cleaning times, Betty can click on that link and decide that your product is the answer to
her problems. By harnessing the power of content, organization, and well-placed
hyperlinks, website conversion techniques help you to answer all of your customers'
questions without leaving anyone feeling left out.
Every answer that you leave for customers on your website
is a point of website conversion. These are the points during a website visit when the
visitor can decide to either move further down the buying path or leave the website
entirely. If you can get your visitors to stick around and keep moving through the
website, you are doing pretty well.
However, what do you really want them to do? In the case of
Betty or Annette, you might want them to find a retailer near them that carries your
vacuum in order to make a purchase. Or maybe you want your customers to sign up for a
newsletter, download a white paper, or take a free demo. This is your primary point of
website conversion - the next step that you want all website visitors to take, no matter
who they are, what problem they are trying to solve, or how they arrived at your website.
In order to improve your website conversion and get your
visitors to take that next step, you typically have to do two things: show them how that
action fits in with their own needs and objectives, and give them clear directions. If
you've organized your content so that it answers your customers' questions, you're more
than halfway there.
But some customers need more reassurance than others, so
you can never be certain at what point along your selling paths any given customer will be
ready to commit to taking the next step. Betty might read the home page copy and feel
fully convinced that your vacuum cleaner will save her time.
Or, she may want to know more and read through the customer
testimonials before deciding to purchase your product. At whatever point in your website
that she makes her decision, she needs to be able to quickly and easily identify what her
next course of action should be. This generally means that every page of your website
needs to have a clear and obvious link to your primary point of website conversion,
telling Betty that she can purchase this vacuum in a store near her.
By making sure that the next step in the buying path is
always available, website conversion techniques allow your customers to move easily
through their buying processes once they are confident that you can offer them a great
solution to their problems.
In general, people want to feel confident about their
buying decisions, and a website that tells them what they want to know and answers any
questions they may have can go a long way towards getting your potential customers to feel
confident about your products and services.
By blending science, usability, and marketing principles,
website conversion can help your company's website become one of the most profitable
members of your sales team. Website conversion is not magic, nor is it a guarantee. It
can, however, significantly increase the number of visitors who leave your website feeling
satisfied and likely to return, which will probably make you feel pretty satisfied, too. |
