Making sure your online business is doing everything possible to increase conversions is key to boosting revenue.
There are two main ways to get more conversions:
- Increase visitors’ motivation to complete an action, which is typically done by refining your copy and testing new offers.
- Make it easier for them to convert by reducing friction, which is typically done by analyzing users’ behavior to find friction points.
Many teams start by putting most of their efforts on the first category by refining their call-to-action buttons (CTAs), adding pop-ups or live chat, and implementing other best practices that may or may not actually increase visitors’ motivation. However, if you have a functional website or app, it is probable that your conversion rates (for both micro-conversions, such as newsletter signups, and macro-conversions, such as product orders) are already being impacted by user experience issues.
The best way to start increasing conversions is to reduce obstacles by observing users’ current behavior. If you want to improve your conversion rate, it’s a good idea to look at the behavior of your users and figure out what is preventing them from converting, instead of just following generic tips. After you fix the issues, you can test and see if other ideas work for increasing user motivation.
What is a good conversion rate?
Among the most frequently asked questions regarding ways to boost conversions is, “What is a good conversion rate?”
It is often said that average website conversion rates are not a good indicator for success for businesses, as these rates are not specific to any one business.
The conversion rates of websites can differ a lot, even if they are in the same industry. Things that can affect conversion rates are things like the price, page copy, marketing strategies, target audience, and more. A high conversion rate for a business that sells high-margin products and doesn’t ever offer discounts might be horrible for another business that sells affordable products and constantly runs discount campaigns.
Plus, conversion rates aren’t static. The rates constantly change as businesses experiment with different conversion rate optimization techniques and encounter various user experience issues.
An average or good conversion rate for your industry should not be used to set targets for your business. Use your current conversions and conversion rates as benchmarks and try to improve them each month following the tips in this guide.
Tip 1 – Emotions Rule
Many people buy for emotional reasons. If you make the situation ideal for them, they will take action. The same rule applies to choosing images for your website. A positive image brings out positive emotions. A simple greeting or a casual word. But whatever it is that passes between them, it radiates happiness There is something that passes between them that makes them both happy. Emotions are powerful, and they work.
Your customers and prospects aren’t stupid. They are aware of what you are attempting to communicate, they observe it. Make your employees feel good, happy, proud, and wanted, and they will agree with you and connect with you better. If you leverage emotions in the right way, it can be very powerful. But it’s important to do it in a way that is respectful and considerate.
Human Touch is a company that specializes in massage and wellness products. The website uses images to effectively communicate its message. They are not only displaying the product, but also allowing their customers to experience it.
The image used here clearly expresses joy and happiness. It provides their prospects with a good indication of what they may experience. They chose to show pictures of someone using the chair to demonstrate how relaxing it is.
Tip 2 – Consider Using A Mascot
Ever noticed your favorite site with a little cartoon? Site mascots are highly popular these days. Websites and blogs are using them for branding. They are trying to create a bonding experience with the visitors. They are helping sites to create a strong image in the minds of their audiences. But how does a mascot help you convert better? Here are a few ways:
I. A mascot can solidify your marketing motif.
II. A mascot can have a much more memorable branding effect:
III. It’s much easier to create a desired emotional effect:
View different websites to see a variety of mascots. Most of these sites are successful. You can have your website professionally designed for a relatively low cost. There are a lot of creative designers who will agree to create a logo for you at an affordable price.
In the event that you are an internet advertiser, you ought to think about Mail Chimp – an effective email advertising administration. The company’s quick success in capturing a decent portion of the market is impressive. The quality of their service and the use of impactful imagery in their branding are the main reasons for their success.
Tip 3 – Give Your Images A Human Touch.
Boost your website’s conversion rate by using human faces. This helps them to focus more and creates a point of common interest. It doesn’t get more real than that.
Medalia Art is a site that sells art. Although there is nothing particularly special about it, the photo versus painting test they conducted is worth taking notice of. The website presents paintings from various artists right on their homepage. They tested to see what would happen if they swapped the paintings with a photo of the artist. Their aim was to have an increased user engagement.
This small change resulted in a significant increase in their conversion rate, which was unexpected. Their site experienced a whopping 95% increase in conversions!.
Tip 4 – Think Out Of The Box.
Use today’s technology to do more than you could before. You are only limited by your imagination. People want to see something new, even on websites. Make your website scream “I’m different” with your images.
Due Maternity, an online retailer that specializes in selling clothes and products to pregnant women, is known for its innovative thinking. To give their prospects a realistic feel for their products, they did something unique. The website utilized dynamic image technology to allow users to view images from 360 degrees.
The result? The pages that had these rotating images were more successful than the ones with standard two-dimensional images. The conversion rate for the products increased by 27% because of a simple twist.
Tip 5 – Show Validation
What makes TV commercials work? Different people from different walks of life are shown using the product. Praising it, loving it, and going bonkers. That’s what make these commercials tick. The more important question is: Why does this work?
It’s simple – people want a third opinion. They want to feel safe before buying something/anything. They want to be convinced. They don’t want to make a wrong decision. People are convinced of a product’s worthiness when they see others happy with it.
If your website features images of satisfied customers, you’re more likely to see increased conversions. It’s a natural process that will never change. Include testimonials with accompanying pictures to improve your conversion rate.
Infusionsoft provides sales and marketing software tools for small businesses. Their website is professional and well placed. The images of customers on their homepage are strategic, as they include testimonials.
They didn’t hide their customer photos somewhere deep down. Why? People buy from companies that make them feel comfortable and trustworthy. Something that’s essential to grow your conversion rate.
Tip 6 – It’s About THEM, Not You
If you want to improve your conversion rate, focus on choosing the right images. Your prospects are interested in themselves. They are not interested in what you have to say. It’s the ‘me’ factor that ultimately does the magic. Show your visitors they are on the right track. Make them feel comfortable. Get them to experience what you want them to. Opening up doors will get more people to like you and buy from you.
Tip 7 – Stop Using Bad Stock Photos
The 90’s are gone. The web 1.0 era has ended. This is the social age of the Internet. People’s attention spans are shorter when it comes to looking at the internet. They’re more connected than ever. And educated. What does that have to do with images and conversions?
If you use cheesy stock photos, people can tell.
Back then, they were a rage, but not now. When you use images of people shaking hands in suits, your prospects will know that you are trying to trick them.
In order to improve your conversion rate, you need to do the opposite of what you’re doing now. Choose photos that will help your website look professional, even if it means spending more money.
Tip 8 – Analyze the user journey through key flows with funnels
Funnels are sequences of steps users take to complete a goal, like:
- Buying a product.
- Signing up for a newsletter
- Completing an onboarding tutorial.
Funnel analysis can help you find areas where people are dropping off by showing you which steps lead to the most drop-offs.
Smartlook lets you create funnels by placing two or more events in the order you believe your users follow. The following is an example of a funnel that tracks tutorial completions.
As you can see, Smartlook automatically shows key information about this user flow, like:
- The funnel’s overall conversion rate (71.43%.)
- The drop-offs between each step.
- The step that led to the most drop-offs, which indicates a point of friction (Step 46).
You can also segment your data by country, device, browser, or other criteria.
Tip 9 – Fix bugs, crashes, and elements that confuse or frustrate users
If your site or app has a lot of bugs or crashes, users are likely to leave without converting.
Users also sometimes get confused or frustrated by elements on the website, which causes them to leave the site. There are things that are hard to find, but they have the same impact from a CRO perspective.
Here are two ways Smartlook can help you:
- Automatic tracking of JavaScript errors and rage clicks as events. This functionality lets you quickly find session recordings of users experiencing an error or getting frustrated. With JavaScript errors, you can send the relevant session replays to your developers, which makes debugging easier. With rage clicks, you can watch the recordings and try to see where the confusion is coming from (e.g., maybe users are clicking on elements that aren’t clickable).
- Crash reports (for Android apps). Smartlook can automatically detect app crashes and give you a stack trace and relevant session replays leading up to the crash. This speeds up debugging and lets developers fix issues they otherwise couldn’t have.
Tip 10 –Ask users for feedback
One way to find user experience problems is by talking to your visitors. You can improve your user experience by, for example, asking users to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 5 and then asking those who gave a low score to quickly explain their problem.
Tools like Survicate can be used to create pop-up surveys on websites or apps and get feedback in real-time.
You can replay all of the sessions in which users completed your survey by integrating Survicate with Smartlook. If you want to filter the sessions by a specific answer that was selected, you can do that as well.
You can watch a user’s session recordings to see what went wrong if they give a negative answer to a question.
Tip 11 – Speed up your website or app
conversion rates, customer loyalty, and organic search rankings. A fast website or app is necessary to get as many conversions as possible.
This is a complex technical topic that will likely need a developer. Here are two beginner-friendly resources to get started:
- Google’s PageSpeed Insights identifies performance issues on your site.
- HubSpot’s guide on website performance provides a detailed overview for beginners.
Tip 12 –Make your website mobile-friendly
The different sizes of mobile and desktop viewports can present a number of issues with user experience. Smaller viewports can cause problems like headlines getting cut off or images becoming blurry, which creates a bad experience for mobile device users.
Google has lots of tips on mobile-friendliness, like:
- Use the Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if your site is mobile-friendly.
- Measure the effectiveness of your website by how easily mobile customers complete tasks.
- When building your site, select a template, theme, or design that’s consistent for all devices.
To get a more in-depth look at how to configure your mobile settings, take a look at Google’s guide.