Use A Call To Action; The Button That Follows Through
A call to action is your shot to turn a lead into a conversion. Your sales funnel is motivated by your CTA’s. There’s no harm in adding CTA’s wherever you can. If a visitor wants to access your services or products, give them a chance to do so by all means. They usher the user into the phases of the buyer’s journey by telling them what to do next. And in turn, prompting them to take immediate action. Whether you want your user to visit your blog, apply for a job, give you their contact information, download an e-book, or subscribe to an email list, you must prompt this action with a well-placed CTA in the sales funnel. They are extremely important to visitors as well, interested ones especially. When they want to enquire, subscribe, buy or read more, allow them to and make it a seamless experience. It is the cherry on top that every user (consciously or subconsciously) wants.
It eliminates the paradox of choice and hence, focuses your audience on that single action. But remember, simply adding a shiny red button screaming ‘click here’ also won’t cut it. Strategic placement is everything. When your visitor has read or at least looked through your products/services, chances are they might be on the fence about taking the next step. The right CTA at the perfect moment can push your viewer to for what you want them to do, sealing the conversion.
Creating Crystal Clear Messaging Is What Lands Top Dollar
The more successful sites have crystal clear, hassle-free messaging. Meandering content that serves no purpose can often steer people away from visiting your site again. The first thing your visitor should see is a clear outline of what your business is all about. Keeping content minimal and easy to understand is crucial. Everything we do now are simplified versions of tasks we’ve done before. For example; ordering groceries online is a simplified version of going to the grocery store, walking around, waiting at the till, and walking back with heavy bags. All those steps are null and void with a simple tap on that miraculous, chore saving device.
Similarly, your service or product no matter how useful it could be in someone’s life must be explained concisely. In any case, most people do not read an entire website word for word. Instead, when they scroll through, they gather crucial quick info from images, keywords, catchy phrases, and usually, that’s what sticks. The less your potential customers have to read, click on, or remember long, agonizing content, the better they’ll be able to evaluate your content and in turn, buy your product or avail your services.
Use Images That Capture How Happy Your Company’s Customers Are
When you check out Lululemon’s page or any other competing brand, the first thing you’d see is a picture of models in their attire, happy and carefree. This lets you know, as a visitor, that their products will leave you feeling elated and overall quite satisfied with your purchase. By reinforcing how easy your booking or sign up process is with well-crafted content, this paired with high res, happy images can really do the trick. Ensure you optimize these images by avoiding BMP or TIFF images and stick to JPEGs. If your images are too bulky, that can decrease your page’s load time, inadvertently affecting your search ranking.
PRO TIP: Make sure that all the images on your site, apart from those that only serve a design-driven purpose, have alt texts. While Google has gotten content analysis down, it doesn’t quite have an effective way to recognize images. So alt text lets the search engine know what your images are all about. This helps your site’s SEO massively. So gather your images and have it ready to go with alt texts that include relevant keywords.
Map Out Your Process; From Start To Finish
Having a clear breakdown of how your services will help your visitor visualize their experience with you. By reinforcing a positive, 3-4 step process, you are making the experience hassle-free and transparent already. This will allow you to land promising leads. But remember, no matter how many steps that you as a company take to ensure a great experience, do not make it too verbose by adding a 20 step process explaining how your services work. 20 Steps will instantly scare off people looking for pros who can fix things fast and efficiently.
And also, design for shorter attention spans. Don’t ever make the mistake of adding a 1000 word essay on your website about how your company’s services are better than every single one on earth. Chances are, nobody would read it. Even if you’re right. So map it out seamlessly and help your visitors understand your services without committing too much time and effort.
Build Your Credibility With Testimonials, Reviews & Awards
If you’ve got a great product, the obvious thing to do is to show it off. While self-promotion can do you good, testimonials from clients or past customers can be your home run. This is the perfect opportunity to tell everyone about people who’ve had pleasant, positive experiences. This reinforces the positive beliefs you want people to have about your brand. Don’t turn down a good testimonial.
PRO TIP: Don’t use carousels and rotating sliders to showcase your testimonials. Carousels often have terrible usability. No, it does not slow down your load time but it can throw a wrench in your website’s user experience. Since carousels seem fleeting and distracting, people don’t really pay attention to information plastered on these flashy, rotating objects of conversion death. Interestingly, this is called banner blindness. The human eye reacts to movement and can distract you from the actual content on your website.