Conversion Techniques

The average time spent by an Internet user on a web page is a mere 17.5 seconds. Within these critical seconds an online business needs to attract the customer, make a compelling proposition and close the deal!

Conversion Basics

Would you send your top sales person to your largest new potential customer in a car with no paint, bonnet or doors? Would you buy a million pound home from an estate agent that turned up in shorts driving a blinged up Ford Escort?

Design is a Must or it's Bust!

• Your design MUST be about your business model & goals
• You MUST not have a home page template used by everyone and every business type
• You MUST have it designed using XHTML & CSS to give you SEO friendly benefits
• You MUST place navigation where it best caters to your clients.
• You MUST be able to easily change certain elements based on season or monthly specials
• You MUST keep your branding consistent
• Overall, your site MUST look cutting edge and beautiful!

How can three clicks translate to higher conversion?

Successful navigation design is a key part of your website. Navigation is arguable the most important part of a website's usability, and is often not done correctly. Looking funky and cool is a nice to have feature when it comes to navigation - not a must have. Having user-friendly navigation that that looks as good as possible is essential. Don't make your visitors click more than three times to get to what they are looking for.

Home is Home

The main navigation button that takes you to the home page should be labeled "home" (or whatever the appropriate translation is in your language). There is no need to change this - ever - and should always be on the left hand side at the top. That's what people expect.

Clickable Logo

The logo for your site should always be clickable, because it's expected. It's always worth trying to make the logo a single image and something that can be downloaded easily. This is so potential partners or suppliers can easily get your logo onto their site.

Shop by category, price, band, colour etc

Just make it as easy as possible for your customer to find what they're after.

Easy to find contact details & telephone number

When your visitor decides they want to call you, make it easy for them. They will expect the contact button to be the last item on the top level navigation. Visitors will also look in the footer for contact info, but whatever the case make it easy for them to find. If, for whatever reason, you don't want people contacting you, at least do your visitor the courtesy of letting them know and why. Include the contact button anyway, with a friendly message explaining. This will save your visitor frustration and possibly save the sale. Another great conversion technique, which relates to building consumer confidence in your store, is to put your phone number very prominently throughout the site in the header part of the page. This may be appropriate if your site contains merchandise that is easier to sell over the phone.

Search

A search facility is a good form of navigation and is becoming the first place people go on larger sites. The feature gives users quick access to the information they are looking for on your site. Be sure your search returns relevant results.

Live Chat

A fantastic way to increase your conversion rate is using a Live Chat facility. This gives the customer a happy medium between emailing (the response time for which is unknown) and calling (which may be too personal for some customers or impractical in certain circumstances). Live Chat gives you the following benefits:-

• Learn what common problems or questions people have so you can add to your FAQ (see below)
• Up sell
• Cross sell
• Increase order value

Remember you need someone to manage the Live Chat facility.

FAQ

Give people the information they need about your products and services 24x7x365. Talk about the questions you get on a constant basis. Get your customer support staff to write down the common questions and keep the FAQ up to date.

Seasonal Designs

It is important to stay on brand and on message all year round. However, clever use of seasonal design in both the site copy and creative can make all the difference to the user experience.

Your Christmas Homepage

Your homepage is critical to your online sales at any time of the year but never more so than at Christmas. Provide a variety of options and routes through your product catalogue appealing to users with different tastes and budgets. Present prominent special offers, delivery options and incentives to capitalise on the increased traffic all year round.

Gift ideas

People are desperate to spend money online with you, so help them! Position your product range and present a range of seasonal offers to meet a variety of buyers, gift recipients and budgets. Provide product gift finders and present a range of related products to make the buying process quick and easy.

Conclusion

Your e-store can help add life to your business enterprise. Perform regular enhancements to your look and feel, the display of your products and seasonal considerations to your store front. Make changes that they do not detract from the brand image in the minds of your customers. Make sure that these changes are not unattractive and are not too frequent.

Constantly innovating while remaining focussed on your business goals will lead to success in your online business.