Online conversion audit: after (or even before!) you’ve successfully increased targeted traffic, discover how to get prospects to say “yes.”

Perhaps your company has been focusing so much on boosting targeted traffic that you haven’t given much thought about what your prospects will experience once they arrive at your site. If so, don’t beat yourself up about it; it’s not uncommon.

But . . . you will want to remedy that, as soon as possible, to ensure that prospects that do arrive at your site quickly and easily find the information they need to make a buying decision so that they order from you – and NOT from your competitors.

Here are steps that you should take when conducting your online conversion audit:

Online conversions, tip # 1: Make sure that your site is quick to load.

According to Akamai Technologies:

• On average, people are only willing to wait two seconds before they start to become impatient with load time.
• Even more alarming, 40% of shoppers are willing to allot only 3 seconds for load time before they click off your site (and then probably choose one of your competitors).
• Quick load time is needed to build customer loyalty, according to the same study, especially for high spending customers.
• Seventy-nine percent of online shoppers who suffer from a dissatisfying shopping experience are less likely to return to that same site to make a future purchase.
• Twenty-seven percent of shoppers won’t even go into a physical store if they had a bad shopping experience with that store’s site.

So, if your site doesn’t load quickly enough, then it doesn’t matter how wonderful your products and/or services are, or how well you’ve explained the benefits of them. Your prospects are already gone – possibly for good!

If you need a second reason to speed up your load time, here it is. Google has recently announced that site load time is now part of their algorithm. This means that sites that take longer to load will potentially rank lower in the search results than faster sites. If you’re lower in search rankings, your company will be harder to find – and, if prospects can’t find your site, you’ve lost out on a whole lot of conversions and sales.

Online conversions, tip # 2: Ensure that prospects can easily see how to contact you and how to purchase your products or services online.

This means including your phone number and email address in prominent, easy to find places, perhaps in a stand-out color. Your calls to action (Order your affordable, versatile ABC widgets in the color of your choice here, now!) should also be clear – and easy to find, understand and follow.

Online conversions, tip # 3: Conduct a web site usability test.

When choosing people to test your site, select ones who have not used your site before, but who are comfortable in general with navigating the web. Be sure to test on different types of computers and browsers. Don’t test solely by using broadband; also use dial up modems.

Assure the people participating in the web site usability test that they can’t do anything wrong or make mistakes. You are evaluating the site, not them. Then, assign them a task (finding a certain product or service, finding the answer to a question, and so forth; whatever is relevant to your site). Here are questions that you’ll want to answer, based on the results of your web site usability test:

• What problems did users encounter the first time that they used your site?
• What confused them?
• Once they begin to “get” the layout of your site, how efficiently could they search for products/services?
• If they return to a particular task after time has elapsed, how quickly can they regain proficiency?
• How frustrating did the users find your site?
• How can you fix the issues that they find so that others can smoothly navigate your site?

Consider using heat mapping tools to see which areas of the site your test users are focusing on and which ones are being ignored. For more information about heat maps in your web site usability testing, see CrazyEgg.com or ClickDensity.com – or choose another site that provides similar services.

Online conversions, tip # 4: Study info found in your site analytics, including your web site traffic patterns.

What can you learn about your bounce rate for each of your pages in your site analytics? Which pages have the highest bounce rate?

Rank the bounced pages from worst (most bounces) to best (least bounces). Are any of the pages in the bottom 25% considered to be key pages for your site? If so, analyze the problems with these pages and fix them as quickly as possible. If your most important pages are not in the high-bounce category, then focus first on the page with the highest bounce rate. Why do you think people are leaving your site after finding this particular page? What information might they be looking for that they aren’t finding?

If this page sells a product or service, analyze the benefits. Are they enticing? Are you clearly showing prospects how to buy the product or service?

If this page is intended as informational (rather than promotional), then be sure to provide the type of info that will engage your prospects; also include links to other URLs on your site that contain complementary information.

Also, if you offer site visitors compelling information in a clear, easy to follow format on this page, then they’ll respond more favorably to sidebars of text that recommend related products and services. Also include links that send prospects to pages that allow them to sign up for your company’s e-newsletter, so that you have a continuing opportunity to engage them further.

After fixing the page with the highest bounce rate, then work on the page with the next highest bounce rate and so forth.

It is believed that a high bounce rate can hurt your search engine rankings – and that a low bounce rate can help them. Although search engine rankings by themselves should not be your company’s ultimate goal, the reality is that you need to do what you can to help search engine spiders take note of your site in a positive way to increase targeted traffic and conversions/sales.

Online conversions, tip # 5: Boost your online security.

If you don’t offer secure shopping, then you’re probably losing a significant percentage of your prospects to competitors that do offer better online security. Don’t simply offer secure shopping; also made it very clear to visitors that you are offering the ultimate in online security. Create a consumer-friendly privacy policy and make it easy to find, read and understand.

Online conversions, tip # 6: Reassure prospects that your company is the right choice for your products and/or services.

How can you do that? Strategies include:

• Creating compelling case studies that show how your products and services have helped other companies and people to achieve their goals and/or live happier, healthier lives.
• Listing awards won by your company in prominent, easy to see places on your site.
• Collecting testimonials from satisfied customers and making them easy to find by people new to your products and/or services.
• Highlighting your best selling products and/or services; this can help because these are the products and services that are fulfilling the needs of the largest numbers of customers so, odds are that they will be exactly right for a significant percentage of your new prospects.

Online conversions, tip # 7: Conduct a series of A/B testing.

Use A/B testing to see which page layouts are most appealing and what text is most compelling to site visitors. At its most basic, you are providing two versions of a particular page (say, for your ABC widgets page) and then monitoring how prospects react to each one. Page A would typically be your control page, the one that has been live for a while; meanwhile, Page B would contain changes in text or layout.

If you’re focusing on page layout in your A/B testing, vary the colors on your page, the amount and placement of white space, the size and fonts of text, the images used and so forth. If you’re focusing on copy in your A/B testing, vary the benefit statements and calls to action. Tweak your layout and copy based on what you learn.

Congratulations! You’ve completed your online conversion audit. Now what?

After you’ve completed your initial online conversion audit, create a list of action items to concentrate on over the next six months or year; prioritize your list; determine what resources you need to put your strategies into place; and monitor your site to determine which tactics are bringing you the most targeted traffic, increased conversions and sales – and the biggest return on investment.

This isn’t a process that you should do just once – or every once in a while. Instead, choose the time of year when you’re least busy and schedule an annual online conversion audit during that time, so that you can prepare your site for skyrocketing sales when the next busy season hits.

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