If
you’ve been working on optimizing the navigation, copywriting and calls to
action on your website – you’re off to a great start.
When
deciding where to put your focus, keep these strategies in mind to increase
conversions
Make Sure Page Load Is Quick Or Risk Losing Sales
Some
marketers are so focused on their sales pitch that they forget about the
importance page load speed and how it affects conversions
A
7% decrease in conversions was seen with a mere 1 second delay in page load
speed according to Aberdeen
Research Group
And
if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, Akamai reports that 40% of visitors
will abandon.
Platforms
like Fasttimes let’s you see how your
site speed compares to the top 1000 sites that get the most traffic.
There
are a lot of platforms out there that will generate a report on your site’s
speed. But you should also consider
continuous speed monitoring. 3rd
party scripts and code can bog down your site’s speed without you ever
knowing. Also, your service provider may
make changes that you’re unaware of that could hamper page speed.
Maxly provides hourly updates detailing any
issues that are harming your page load speeds.
Take
a look at how Twitter’s site speed nearly tripled when they did a site
redesign.
If
they have a Google analytics account, businesses can try Maxly (minus the
hourly monitoring) to check their page load speed for free
Page
load speed doesn’t just effect conversions.
Google and many other search engines are giving sites with faster page
load speeds higher rankings.
Spy On Your Competitors To See What They’re Doing
You’re
never going to know what your competition s up to if you don’t do a little
monitoring of their activity.
I
generally include a couple of Competitor Reviews when I’m conducting an
analysis on a client website. This way
we can see what they’re doing that might keep them ahead of the game.
You
can go further than that with platforms that do the monitoring for you.
Platforms
such as Kompyte can routinely visit the
websites, advertisements, newsletters and social profiles of your competitors.
Notification
are sent each time your competition changes their prices, launches a campaign
or a new competitor enters the scene.
Would
you like to see which of your competitor’s content is the most popular? Ahrefs
Content Explorer reveals the content that is trending in a particular
industry. It also shows which content is
being shared, how often and where.
They
also have the largest backlink index so that businesses can find quality
linking partners. Billions of pages are
crawled every 15 minutes.
Personalize the Experience For Your Visitors
You’ve
probably seen sites such as Amazon use personalization by greeting visitors by
name and showing products that they might be interested in.
Personalization
can go further than that by showing specific pages and marketing messages based
on a visitors behavior and choices.
Evergage helped Slideshark, a division of
Brainshark, utilize personalization to increase conversions. They were hoping to cross-sell, upsell and
educate visitors based on specific choices that they made.
At
the perfect time, Brainshark could share features that would encourage visitors
to sign up for a 30 day trial. They also
included personalization on their website to promote ebooks, PowerPoint
templates and webinars.
They
came away with impressive results…
Trial
sign ups were increased by 150% for Slideshark.
They also saw a 15% increase in registrations for their webinar and they
saw their sales inquiries increase by 9 times.
The
personalization strategy influenced over $1.1 million in the Brainshark sales
pipeline.
Focus On Mobile Users
comScore
has reported that 4 out of 5 consumers are shopping on smart phones and 78% of all
mobile searches are ending in a purchase.
They
also report that Mobile Internet Usage passed up Desktop Internet Usage last
summer.
In
other words, mobile internet users are now the majority. And if you’re not keeping them in mind,
you’re going to lose out.
Jones
Soda Co. recruited WompMobile Adaptive
Javascript Technology to create a mobile optimized site to provide an optimal
presentation of their products and brand to mobile users.
Take
a look at their site on a mobile device before and after they implemented.
Adaptive
Javascript Technology is particularly interesting because there is no need for
2 separate websites. All content is
stored at one URL and then distributed according to the device that is
requesting it. It also allows for fast mobile load times as only the necessary
device-assets are loaded on page request.
The
new mobile design brought impressive results. By adding a presentation that was optimized
for mobile users, Jones Soda Co. was able to increase conversions by
103.59. They saw a 127.78% increase in
transactions along with 43.07% increase in average order value. The most impressive increase for Jones Soda
Co. was a 225.88 increase in revenue.
Use Video To Engage Visitors
70% of marketing professionals felt that video was
the medium that brought the highest conversions, according to MarketingProfs
Crazy Egg saw a
64%
increase in conversions and an additional $21,000 in monthly revenue after
adding an explainer video to their site.
An article by Emarketer
shares how effective interactive videos
are. With data provided by Sizmek,
studies show that 70% of interactive videos are watched all the way to the end.
Don’t just upload a video hoping
for good results. Use analytics to
determine how visitors are engaging with your video.
As you can see below in these Wistia analytics, this video had a play rate
of 74% and 85% engagement. The
individual bar graphs show where viewers dropped off and where they replayed
the video.
Go After Visitors Who Have Abandoned Your Site
It’s
discouraging that Baymard
Institute has reported that 65% of all visitors will abandon their shopping
carts.
But
hope shouldn’t be lost. Abandoned
visitors are worth going after and re-cooping your investment.
Servicing
the ski and mountain industry, Liftopia offered deals up to 85% but were
confused why they would see such a high shopping cart abandonment rate.
After
implementing Rejoiner to re-capture
those lost sales, analytics revealed that they were losing close to $1.3
million during their prime season each month.
An
automated sequence was created that sent an email 30 minutes after abandonment
and then again 24 hours later.
When
recipients clicked the link within the email, their shopping carts were
automatically recreated so that their transaction could be completed quickly.
In
using this retargeting strategy, Liftopia was able to re-coop
17% of their revenue. In just 4
months time, they added $714,251 to their top line revenue.
Conclusion
Optimizing
your site is an important start. But by
adding these strategies you could see significant growth in your bottom line.
Make
sure your page load speeds are fast so that you don’t risk losing
visitors. Spy on competitors to see what
they’re doing. Make visitors feel like
you’re speaking directly to them by personalizing their experience. Make sure you market to your growing mobile
audience. And go after abandoned
visitors. There is hope.
Marie Dean is the Innovation Director at ConversionLifters. She has
helped businesses increase their conversions, sales and revenue with
website audits, heat mapping, split tests and user testing for over 10
years.
