This is a guest post by Ray Wilson from Recipe4Marketing.com
Oftentimes we get so obsessed with traffic that we completely forget to improve the conversion rate of our website.
The reality is simple: you’re wasting your time if you don’t properly monetize your website.
[note]You could have a low conversion rate like 0.5% and make a few sales, but why not maximize the conversion rate to something like 5% and make a ton more sales.[/note]
That’s why I’m giving you a few principles to think about …and I hope you’ll understand how important they are.
Your job is to put these principles into practice and see more money in your bank account.
Here’s what I like you to think about…
Make It Easy For The Reader
Too many people make huge mistakes here.
They usually put way too much on their website. Doesn’t matter if it’s a blog, or a squeeze page or a niche website or whatever.
The problem is that they turn their website into a promotional material, an advertisement.
Don’t assume that if you put more advertisements and more links on your website, you’ll make more sales. Quite the opposite, you’ll make much less money.
Therefore what I suggest is to keep it as simple as possible.
It doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice the cool design of your website, it just means that you need to be a minimalist.
A good practice is to remove all the clutter in the sidebar like links to other websites, archive, recent comments, latest tweets, etc.
Instead, add 2-3 links or add as a click-able image to your very best articles or resource pages. You can leave the popular articles too.
Of course, you need a optin box too.
Write For Customers
Another biggie.
In general, nobody cares about your business and what you have to do to make money, all they care about is themselves.
Because of this reason, you need to write your content targeted specifically to help your readers. That’s all.
Don’t even think about bragging or adding too many details about yourself.
When a new visitor comes to your websites, he/she wants to know what’s in it for them. They want to know if you can help them somehow with their problem.
And they don’t need your story or your achievements, they want the solution to their problems.
If you can give the solution, then you have gained their trust. Now they can become your potential buyers.
Deliver Your Promise Immediately
Even though you may have the greatest solution to their problems, you really need to deliver on the promise immediately.
If you don’t deliver immediately, then you risk to lose the customer.
Why?
Because people on the internet, especially today, are very impatient, very, very impatient. They want instant gratification. Like – NOW!
Therefore, it’s your job to give them what you promise on the homepage or on any other webpage as soon as possible.
A great mistake most internet marketers make is that they make their potential buyers work. Yeah, they make them work …which is a bad idea.
You definitely don’t want to do that because every obstacle you place between the customer and your solution costs you big time.
The simple solution: if you’d like to give your readers something for free, then give it fast, and don’t make them work for it.
Copy Needs Emotion And Passion
Boring doesn’t sell well.
Your writing needs to consist of something more than plain words. You need to package it with emotion and passion.
Unless someone is absolutely desperate for a solution to their problem, you need to write interesting and entertaining content.
Everyone has a different approach; their unique selling point; but if it sounds like something copied from a college textbook, then it’s really bad.
Include A Valuable Free Bonus
You could offer your readers anything for free, but it definitely should be of high value.
And even better if it is of high perceived value like a video or an audio. Just adds to the credibility more.
But, if you share your strategies in a report that you offer free, it doesn’t mean the content must be poor. No! the e-book must be so valuable that you could potentially easily sell it for money.
It depends on the price of the products you sell, but if you, basically, sell $100 products, then you could write a $27-$37 ebook which you offer for free.
The advice really must be golden. The better the free advice you share with others, the more willing they will be to buy your products and pay higher prices.
I really like the first point. Design and content simplicity goes a long way in enticing your readers.
I’d like to add another point: Don’t Irritate the Readers
I’ve come across many sites which open up a modal and tell users to ‘Like’ the page before they can continue reading. These modals don’t even have a ‘close’ button, and readers have to wait for it to close itself.
Conversion rate is very important,,i have seen that most of the bloggers just try to increase their visitors ,but do not work at all on retaining them,aand u can easily tell that they are the newbies
Hi Ray,
A thoughtful and helpful post. This has answers to the questions of many out there who are facing difficulties in improving the conversion rates of their websites. Not an easy one as said. The content should not be impartial on any issue and of course should be unique always. They make a lot of difference.
Regards,
Sanjib Saha
Certainly conversions depend on offering a good product – and good advice. Many potential clients of mine don’t even fully understand what they are offering and how exactly do they plan to make money on it. It’s crucial to have a detailed plan about what you offer, how you offer it, have a viable business model – then planning conversions strategy can truly be beneficial.
I’m on board too with the simplicity and passion advices. I try to use only clean, uncluttered and easy-to-read themes. Also, I must like what I write. If I sound bored, my readers would be twice as bored.
I found a proper way to fix these problems through your post. Actually, I would like to say it as “GAP” between your customer and you. Wonderful explanation make this critical matter easy understandable.
Nice post! Writing for the customers and delivering immediately are highly valuable. I think sometimes we as bloggers (at least me) get a bit stressed out about what content to put in there so we rush it or maybe forget about the customers true needs and just think that they need to see SOMETHING. By not being stressed out or in such a hurry we can deliver great content that customers desire.
Great principles! i enjoyed reading this post. I think it is always important to deliver promises immediately and be passionate about your marketing business.
Very useful article. There is one problem about making promises is that sometimes you can’t deliver them at the right time. You have to be very careful about doing it because one single mistake will make a great change to your website. I’m talking about your reputation.
Great principles! i enjoyed reading this post. I think sometimes we as bloggers (at least me) get a bit stressed out about what content to put in there so we rush it or maybe forget about the customers true needs and just think that they need to see SOMETHING. By not being stressed out or in such a hurry we can deliver great content that customers desire.