8 Quick & Easy Conversion Rate Fixes
I'm a Google Ads specialist. As someone who worked at Google for six years, I have plenty of tips to help you grow your business. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a hot topic right now because the businesses that get it right see their revenue soar. Here are 8 tips to increase your conversion rate for small business owners.
1. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
99.9% of users are viewing your website from their phone… ok, I might be exaggerating a bit.
According to Statista mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide, and that’s only going to increase.
These days more product research and purchasing happens on phones versus computers. However, I bet you're designing your website on your computer or laptop... right?
So promise me this:
Before you make any changes to your website, live test it on your phone first.
In fact, try designing everything for your phone first, and then worry about the desktop version later. Focusing on creating a great website experience for mobile users will allow you to create an amazing website experience for the majority of your users as well.
The better their experience the more likely they are to convert!
You want things to load FAST, and you don't want them to have to scroll too much. Make it as easy as possible for them to add to cart and to buy/checkout.
2. Set up conversion tracking
If the purpose of your website is to generate leads or get people to contact/phone you (not ecommerce), it’s especially important to ensure you’re tracking something as a conversion.
Make sure you have conversion tracking set up.
By tracking conversions, you will be able to see how well your ad clicks lead to customer activity on your website.
For example:
If you want people to fill out a form on your website... make sure you can track it.
If you want people to call you... make sure you can track it.
If you want them to book a meeting with you... make sure you can track it.
It is SO important to track conversions because if you can't measure them, then you can't improve them.
Once you start measuring your conversions you'll find out where people are dropping off and how you can improve conversion rates at those points by reducing friction.
3. Use social proof to improve conversions
You may have seen other creators talking about “social proof” but what does that mean?
Well, people don't like to be the first person to do something. So it's helpful to add things to your website to prove that lots of other people like your products and/or services.
Here are some examples of social proof:
Star ratings
Testimonials
Customer reviews
Indicating how many people have something in their cart
Displaying the number of people shopping
Social media shares
Business credentials
An expert’s stamp of approval
Publications and news
Trust badges
As soon as you have gathered all of your social proof, add it to your website’s home page, product pages, checkout pages, etc., and watch your conversion rate improve!
4. Add trust badges to your website
Trust badges are images that are added to your website that increase customer trust. These are simple tools that can increase site traffic and sales.
Types of trust badges:
Security or antivirus images like Norton
Payment logos like Visa, Mastercard, or Afterpay
Safe checkout badge
Money-back guarantee badges
Free shipping & returns badge
To increase your conversion rate, you need to have trust badges everywhere. Your landing or home page, product page, checkout process, shopping cart, etc. Strategically place trust badges throughout your website to help increase conversion rates.
5. Reduce the steps in your customer’s checkout process
How many steps are required for someone to buy from your website?
No really… how many? I want you to go through the process as if you were a customer and count them.
For example, do they have to land on your home page > add to cart > view cart > sign up or login > enter payment details, etc.?
That’s too many steps.
Ideally, someone should be able to purchase from you in three steps or less!
If your conversions take five or more steps, well here’s how to improve your conversion rate: REDUCE THE STEPS!
Here’s how you can make the checkout process faster:
Feature more products directly on your home page to save a step.
Offer guest checkout.
Allow social sign-in.
If you use Shopify you can enable a feature called Shop Pay, so that people can pay and check out quickly.
Remember for every additional step you add for people to convert you're going to lose sales. Keep it as simple as possible.
6. Create an effective call to action
Here’s a simple and effective way to increase your conversion rate.
Change your “call to action”. Call to action (CTA) is a marketing term for what you want your visitors on your website to do. Pretend you are literally calling them “HEY... YOU!” and saying “here is the action I want you to take!”
Here are some effective call to action examples for small business owners:
Learn more
Shop now
Sign up
Order now
Call now
You want to test a lot of different calls to action on your site to see what works best for your customers. Remember to track your conversions to see which call to action works best for your business.
To write a great call to action you need two things:
An action that's a verb. For example, shop, learn, upgrade, etc.
You need to create urgency! You want people to act fast. Use words like now, call today, offer expires tonight, limited time offer, etc.
By combining words of action and urgency, you can come up with a variety of calls to action for your business that will help increase your conversion rate.
7. Maximize FOMO to increase your conversion rate
To increase your conversion rate you need to create a sense of urgency by maximizing FOMO (fear of missing out).
Here are some ways you can do this:
Let people know there are only a few items left in stock.
Have a countdown banner for when a sale is about to end running across your site.
Send out emails with limited-time offers.
Send out emails about limited-time drops… i.e. “get it before it’s gone!”
You can also create urgency during checkout by including a countdown timer and, of course, making the process as fast and easy as possible.
Create a sense of urgency and watch your conversion rate rise.
8. Add more payment methods to the checkout process to improve your conversion rate
You don't want to lose sales because you don't accept a customer’s preferred payment method.
Make it as easy as possible to make a purchase!
Credit cards and PayPal are table stakes. But these days, especially for more expensive items, you should be offering a “Buy Now, Pay Later” option, like Afterpay or ClearPay.
“Buy Now, Pay Later” pays the merchant right away while letting your customers pay in installments over time. So there is no loss to you as a merchant.
Try adding a payment plan option to your payment methods and watch your conversion rate rise!