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The 7 Most Effective Ways to Increase your Conversion Rate

Set Logical Goals for Your Business

Happy woman is using the computer after completing a website action.

Marketing executives may have you believe that in order for your business to make money, you need to get your message across. While that is true, it only represents one half of the equation. Even if people hear about your products, how many will visit your website, and of those who do visit, what percentage actually ends up making a purchase? Obviously, getting people interested in your product is a great start, but the second half of the puzzle is getting them to act. Let's look at the 7 most effective ways to increase your conversion rate and your bottom line.

What are conversions?

Before we dive deeper, it might be best if we get our definitions straight. Your rate of conversions represents the number of users who perform a desired action after arriving on your website. This can be clicking on a button, filling out a form, or making a purchase. You'll need to find ways to get users to perform the action you want them to, rather than just leave the website as soon as they arrive.

Here are the 7 most effective ways to increase your conversion rate

Optimize through testing

One of the best ways to get things to work is to keep testing and experimenting until you find a solution that works. If you ever run into a situation where you are unsure which headline to use, you can simply run an A/B split test to see which works better. Create several alternative pages and divide the traffic equally among them. Afterward, you can track the results to see which page gives you more conversions. When it comes to marketing effectiveness, perfection is hard to achieve, and some would even say it's impossible. Therefore, you'll need to experiment to find the most effective ways to increase your conversion rate and optimize through several iterations until you find something that gives you the desired results.

Login screen on a phone.1
/Try several different layouts to see which one will increase your conversion rate.
Alt-tag: Login screen on a phone.

Have a strong Call to Action

No one is going to be impressed by an unoriginal CTA. Try to come up with something better than a generic "Sign up" for your landing page. A much better copy for your CTA is something that sounds positive and inspires people to act. "Yes, I'm interested in getting a discount" is much better since it is written from the perspective of your customers and it frames your offer in a positive light. As with many other items on this list, you can test several options to see which one gets more clicks. You could also experiment with different uses of colors. This will let you draw attention to certain parts of the screen and visually guide your users to where you want them to click.

Declutter your website

If your site is a mess of complicated menus, odd design choices, and far too many ads - users can quickly get confused. Even if they came to your website intending to sign up for your services, they might not know how to proceed. You should improve the visual aspect of your website by removing all of the noise and distractions. Anything that can draw your user away from what they initially came to your website for probably shouldn't be there in the first place. Sometimes less is more, and a clean design will help the essential elements of your website's design stand out.

Person standing near welcome sign.
Make user onboarding simple and easy.

Streamline your forms

Complicated forms can drive your users away before they have filled out and submitted the information in the form. You should simplify the forms and remove all unnecessary fields. When designing forms, you need to ask yourself: do you really need all of the information you are asking from your users. One of the most effective ways to increase your conversion rate is to make it easy for website visitors to subscribe, fill out orders and make a purchase. Those visitors who have expressed an interest and opened a form are some of your most precious leads, and it would be a shame to drive them away when they are so close to completing a form.

Offer valuable content

Content can represent the initial hook some people need to visit your site. Not everyone who sees your website or the ads leading to it will immediately want to make a purchase. Of course, some people will be enticed by your offers and will want to check out your site for more details. On the other hand, you can try to persuade some online users to visit your website by hosting interesting content and informative articles. Try to create educational content that will cover how your products are used and the benefits they can provide. Your content should also answer common user questions and reinforce your products and services as the solutions to the problems users may be facing.

Have reviews and testimonials on your website

If you have numerous satisfied customers, you should be proud to let others know about it. Have testimonials visible on your site. People love seeing proof that something is effective, and positive reviews can go a long way to increasing your conversion rate. Users will be much more likely to take the plunge and make a purchase if they see that they aren't the only one who is doing business with you.

Sale sign to drive conversion rates.
Simple percentual discounts don't have a sense of urgency.

Incentivize immediate action

Having your users make an immediate purchase can save you a lot of time and money that you would otherwise spend following up on that lead and trying to make a conversion at a later date. However, most people aren't inclined to make impulse purchases. That's where basic marketing psychology can step in to help you. You'll need to understand how scarcity and exclusivity function. Evaluate your business strategy, and see how you can best put to use the fear of missing out to get more users to act when they visit your site. People hate missing out on great offers, but you can't just call something exclusive and hope people buy it. For your customers to feel like they are making an exclusive purchase, you need to offer great deals but only at a limited time or in a limited quantity.

In conclusion

Now that we've gone over the 7 most effective ways to increase your conversion rate, it's time to do some tweaking on your website. Don't be afraid to try something new to see if it will work. The results might surprise you, and you could end up with a higher rate of conversions.