How To Increase Conversions Using Convertful

For many bloggers and content managers, traffic volume is the only KPI (key performance indicator) that matters. However, we have come to the conclusion that, without conversions, traffic is an empty vanity metric.

More traffic does not always mean more conversions. If you run a business blog, you need that traffic to translate into a high conversion rate. You need to make the best out of every single visitor to your website and/or blog. But how do you achieve that? This is where Convertful comes in!

Steps For Conversion Rate Optimization

Research Phase

First of all, you need to evaluate your product and the way you’re advertising it. This will lead you to discover what needs improvement in your product and your branding.

Hypothesis Phase

Now that you’ve evaluated your advertising and your conversion rate, you can design a hypothesis about how to optimize your conversion rate.

Prioritization Phase

You most likely have several ideas that need to be implemented, but you can’t do everything at once. Otherwise, you might end up not knowing what worked or not or changing too much at once.

Testing Phase

Choose a testing method – we recommend A/B testing and going through your hypothesis until you’re sure of what works and what doesn’t.

Learning Phase

Once you’re done with testing, evaluate your results and change your materials accordingly. Make sure that your landing page matches your email, and that your form matches the look of your website. Only then can you be sure of what you have learned from your experiences during testing.

Now that you have a framework for the conversion rate optimization process, we have a few tips that will help you along the way. Optimizing your content for conversions is not easy, so we’ll give you a few pointers.

Tips To Increase Your Conversion Rate

Use our widgets on your site

Convertful provides a large offer of widgets to collect user data through different approaches. You can create a spin-to-win widget according to our template, for gamification – highly effective to create rapport – or maybe use gated content in return for your reader’s email address. 

There are many options available on Convertful, and you can test several templates in order to understand what resonates better with your target audience. 

Keep your form fields basic

If you want to get your user’s email address to be able to send them your updates, just ask for their email address and name. 

It might be interesting for you to have more data, of course. However, if your form is too long and too detailed, your visitors might give up. This can jeopardize all your hard work when it comes to conversion rate optimization. If you want to increase conversions, go for a short form and focus on basic information.

Add social proof in the form of testimonials, reviews

If there’s one thing that website visitors trust, is the opinion of other customers just like them. We recommend sending a survey to your most active users and using the answers to create a testimonial section on your landing page.

If you have celebrity customers, that can also help visitors. If a well-known (and relevant) celebrity claims to use your product with positive results, that testimonial can be the final push to visitors that still have doubts about whether to buy or not. 

Social proof is great to increase engagement and push for sales.

Make users focus on your offers

If you created a landing page, there’s an action you want visitors to take. This needs to be as clear as possible, with no distractions. 

We recommend having a single call to action button. If you need to use several, make sure that each button is straight to the point. You want users to act, if possible, immediately as they see the button and read through your content. 

In order words, make sure your offer is clear and that readers know what they are getting out of your product or service, and why they should buy from you.

If your first offer is your newsletter, that’s alright as well. Just make the benefits clear and users will flock to the CTA (call to action) button.

Polish your copy, especially your CTA

Speaking of CTAs. Your copy needs to be perfect on your call to action and the text around it. Don’t be afraid of brainstorming with your team, or even alone. Test different versions of your content and your buttons to find out what works, as we mentioned previously.

Keep high standards when it comes to your copy: make your content as enticing as possible for your target audience. Know how your visitors look up your product or service online and make sure your keyword research gets you the right search terms for what you sell. You need to speak to your target audience, which means you have to know what kind of language they use. Analyze your content and optimize it tirelessly.

Offer live chat to visitors

Live chat on a website used to be available only for very large companies. These days, the technology is much cheaper, and if possible, you should offer live chat to your website visitors.

A live chat feature makes it easy to clear out any doubts or questions your visitors might have regarding your product. By reassuring your visitors, you make sure more of them will move on to make a purchase or a subscription.

Change your offer to adapt to visitor needs

When it comes to your content, you already know it needs a bit of tweaking – often in the form of A/B testing. But what about your offer?

If your offer does not resonate with your visitors, there’s no way they’re going to convert, even if you follow all the advice in the previous steps. 

We recommend testing different offers to find out which one your visitors prefer. It’s not always about the price either: sometimes, it’s all about the benefits you demonstrate and the value you provide with your offers.

Offer money-back guarantee

One thing that gets users to trust you – and therefore to buy from you – is a guarantee that they will be satisfied or get their money back. A money-back guarantee makes users more comfortable, because there’s nothing to lose and so much to gain. 

If you have a 30-day guarantee, you have a whole month to ensure new users that your product is worth the cost. Users buy based on what they perceive to be a good deal: it’s up to you to provide that good deal.

Add a countdown timer

Urgency, real or perceived, is a great tactic to increase conversions. It goes hand in hand with scarcity: they both increase the value of your offer since your customers need to act now to access the product, or to get some specific bonus. 

That’s where a countdown timer comes in. The timer will show how much time users have left to get the offer, and rush visitors to buy. We recommend adding your countdown timer on all the pages, like a bar at the top. This message should be visible at all times. 

However, we must add that you can’t overuse countdown timers. If you always have a countdown for the same offer, the value is lost. The commodity, whatever it is, is less valuable for being always available. Use countdown timers wisely.

A/B test each item

Optimization should be constant on your website. However, you can’t test everything at once: it takes time. There are many variables like colors, fonts, text content, images… We recommend starting with something simple, like your CTA (call to action). 

Try to add two different CTAs to be displayed to different visitors, then measure the results. Sometimes it might take a few tests to get the golden ratio, but that’s not time wasted – knowing what works for your website and target audience is valuable information.

Humanize your brand

This is not only about your website, but your brand as a whole. People buy from people, not brands. A way to do this is to show team members’ names and pictures on your website, on a page like “Meet The Team”, or on your “About Us” page. 

The way you talk about your brand and your products can also be “humanized”, i.e. have a personal aspect to it. Sometimes this can be controversial, but brands like Netflix and Oreo have achieved a good balance between being assertive and fun. This can be done on your website, on your social media, and on every digital channel you use. Make sure that your strategy is cohesive and consistent.

Simplify purchases, subscriptions, and onboarding

If you want visitors to do something, make it easy. When purchasing, some websites require that you register. This takes a bit longer to do sometimes, making users waste time unnecessarily. Website visitors are not patient – if something is not straightforward for the visitor, don’t expect them to go through. 

It’s easy to set up a purchase process that does not require registration. You just need a name, email address, physical address, and payment method. That’s all. Requiring registration does not mean that the user will be more invested in this relationship; probably, it will even annoy them to the point of giving up.

Make sure your website and your online store are easy to navigate, easy to use and provide a seamless experience.

Keep your design simple

Having a simple design can mean several things, from using a clean look on your pages to having a lightweight build. First of all, clean websites tend to be soothing and make it easier to focus on the product (for an example of a very clean look, check Apple’s website and email newsletter). A simple, unassuming design is trendy and will continue to be because, well, it works. 

When it comes to your page build, we recommend compressing images and avoiding embedded videos. You can just add a thumbnail for the video with a link to YouTube or Vimeo, which makes your page loading time shorter. The faster your website is, the best the user experience (UX) is. Plus, it is known that the longer a website takes to load, the more likely it is that the visitor won’t wait and will try another website. 

So, keep it simple on your website to create a good experience and help customers focus on the action you want them to take. Make your CTA buttons stand out by having a simple website that users will love.

Wrapping Up

A data-based approach is essential to increase your conversion rate. Conversion rate optimization is a digital marketing tactic that you cannot ignore. Traffic is good, but conversions are a lot better!

Also, remember to focus on your goal for each of your landing pages as your goal is the foundation for your work on your website. You need to know what you are expecting of users to decide which widgets and forms to add, and how to pursue conversion rate optimization in general.

Would you like to add something? Do you have any questions about Convertful? You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.