For any business with an online presence, the most important role of a website is likely going to be to attract more customers. If you design your website correctly, it should provide a huge ROI, as those who land on your page are potential opportunities to make a profit and form a relationship. A good website should inform your visitors of what your business is all about, but it should also persuade them to take the next step so that they become customers or clients.
This is a sort of science and an art, and it’s something that will require a little trial and error to get it just right. Even if your website currently has a high conversion rate, there are likely tweaks and changes you can make in order to convert more visitors into people who will pay for your services or buy your products.
The good news is that these changes are often easy to understand and apply. Here are ten easy ways you can attract more customers to your website.
FUNNELING
If your website exists primarily in order to gain leads and customers for your business, then you have a well-defined objective for your site, which is advantageous for you.
A good website design will ‘lead’ the visitor to take the action you want them to, like clicking a buy button, submitting a quote request, etc. If your website is littered with lots of information and links, users won’t know what to click – they’ll develop what is known as ‘options paralysis’. So, it’s important to make sure everything leads to the same place so visitors will naturally gravitate towards that contact or order form.
A quick thing to do right away is to take the less-is-more approach by removing most of the clutter to make sure your call to action is clear to visitors.
MINIMAL DESIGN
An uncluttered design throughout the site not only makes your site look more professional but also provides easier navigation for visitors. It’s best to include only information that will convey your message, steer visitors in the right direction and foster sales. If your design isn’t doing this, correct it immediately.
Minimal designs also load more quickly, scale easily in responsive web designs and are simpler to incorporate contrast into, which we’ll discuss next.
CONTRAST
There are two types of contrast that can be used in your website to increase conversions. The first is color contrast, which will make your most important elements stand out more. Contrast can also be used to make ideas and products stand out. For instance, list expensive items next to cheap ones to make the cheap items look like a better deal while the expensive products will appear to be of better quality.
THE COLOR RED
By using the color red on your ‘buy now’ button, the chances of people clicking on it will greatly increase. Studies have indicated that seeing the color red will increase our heartrate as well as the sense of ‘urgency’ that accompanies it. Since most purchases are influenced by emotional or impulsive decisions, a red buy now button should improve your sales. Of course, red also contrasts against white, causing it to show up better on the page.
SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
When someone visits your website, you can expand your customer base if you’re able to leverage social sharing. By including social media buttons on your website, you’ll encourage your visitors to share pages or items with their networks, all while obtaining free marketing from their all-important testimonials.
PROVIDE VALUE FOR FREE
Giving away a free taste is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to business, and things are no different online. If your website can deliver something of value at no charge to your users – such as free information that is significant to your business – you will encourage more sharing, increase your number of repeat visitors and establish a bond of trust. The free source can be something as simple as a well-written blog post.
LEAD CAPTURE
Every website that is designed to make money must have some form of lead capture. Even though impulse purchases may not be made immediately, you can capture e-mail addresses to market future products to and build trust with visitors who have shown an interest in your products at some point. Your archived e-mail addresses can be an invaluable resource for business, so you need to start using them right away.
USE POP-UPS
Pop-ups with newsletter subscription forms have been considered to be extremely successful ways to increase website leads. Handle this carefully, though, so you can avoid annoying your visitors.
BEAUTIFY YOUR WEBSITE
If you want people to buy from you, your website must look stunning. By making your site look professional, your business and your products will display well so visitors will spend their money with you. Each cosmetic change you make on your site will increase your chances of making a sale.
SPLIT TEST
How can you know if you’re making a difference with all of these changes? You can find out through split testing. Split testing means checking for an increase or decrease in your conversion rate after tweaking your site.
A true split test can be performed by showing two different versions of your website to two different groups of visitors. Use a tool like Optimizely to collect data from each version. Watching your statistics will help determine which version provided the best results.
So there you go – ten easy ways you can start attracting new customers through your website. Give them a try and start earning more money!
