The two most important factors to a successful, money-making website are traffic and conversions. Clearly, a website that does not get any traffic can’t possibly be profitable but on the other hand, all the traffic in the world is no use if the website doesn’t convert visitors into buyers. Here are five things you can try on your website in order to increase it’s effectiveness.
1. Include a Clear Call to Action
It’s absolutely vital to have a clear and strong call to action on your landing page. There should be only one action that the visitor is encouraged to do and it should be front and center. For example, if your goal is to get people to sign up to your list, make sure that the opt-in form is very clearly visible and at least one benefit of subscribing is listed.
2. Test Positioning
For pre-sales and sales, test order-buttons above and below the fold. Placing an order-button and call to action further down on the page encourages visitors to read more of your content before they are confronted with a buying decision. Confronting visitors with the buying decision too early can lower your conversion rate. Give your visitors a possibility to order when they are already hungry for it and not before they’ve had a chance to make up their minds.
3. Interaction
Test a multi-page setup against a single-page sales-letter. Getting people to interact (even if it’s just clicking on the “next page” link) can often significantly increase conversions.
4. Colours and Graphics
Test different colours for your text elements and the background. Test different type sizes and different order-button images. Just keep testing and you’ll often be surprised at how small changes can make a big difference.
5. Opt-in vs. Sale/Pre-Sale
Instead of sending visitors directly to the sales-page or your order page, make them sign up to your newsletter first. Sometimes, making people jump through a few hoops will actually have a positive effect on conversions. And frequently, having people on your list gives you a much better chance of making a sale happen, as you have more than one chance to make a pitch.
You probably recognize the common factor here: It’s that you can never test enough! Get a hold of a good split testing program and install it for your sites, as this can speed up the entire process significantly. If you are looking for a free option, you can give Google’s own split-testing solution a try. It doesn’t work very well for WordPress sites, however. For those, I recommend a plugin called WP Split Test .
And remember: If you aren’t testing, you’re leaving money on the table!