The average conversion rate for a landing page is 2.35%.
Imagine putting a lot of time and money into creating content, designing campaigns, and driving people to your website, only to have less than 1% convert.
Yikes.
And 25% of websites convert at over 5% (depending on your industry)…
If your conversion rate is less than this, you’ll need to improve.
It can be incredibly frustrating when you invest in your website and don’t see the conversion rates you need to drive more revenue to your website.
It just takes the right approach.
We’ve put together 26 strategies to help you convert more of your website traffic into paying customers.
1. Track User Behavior and Activity
Tracking user behavior and activity gives you a better understanding of user behavior, preferences, and interests—information you can use to tailor content and optimize conversions.
You can monitor web performance metrics and track user activities using analytics, heat maps, scroll maps, and A/B testing.
There are a variety of tools available today that can help you make your website conversion-friendly.
Analytics Tools
Analytics helps you understand how people use your website.
Google Analytics reports how visitors behave and interact with your website with metrics like session duration, traffic sources, and referrals.
Heat and Scroll Mapping Tools
Heat maps and scroll maps can give vital insights into a page’s elements that draw the most attention from visitors.
Software like Hotjar or Crazy Egg visually represents users’ mouse movements, clicks, focus, and how far users scroll down on a page.
A/B Testing Tools
A/B testing enables businesses to experiment and compare the performance of various page versions. Tools like Optimizely or VWO test versions of a page to maximize conversions.
2. Attract the Best Audience
Before you create any content or design any campaigns, you need to identify your ideal customer profile (or persona).
Start by identifying who your best customers are and who does the buying in their organization. Next, map out their defining characteristics. Finally, make sure your content and messaging speak to that audience.
You must understand your audience’s pain points, anxieties, challenges, and aspirations. You should also know why they hesitate to close (any objections they have in the sales cycle.)
You can gather information on your ICP in a few ways:
- Interview your clients.
- Speak to leadership.
- Read customer reviews.
- Identify where they get their news.
- Work with your sales team.
- Join relevant groups.
- Talk to customer support teams.
- Review sales calls.
Use these insights to build out your messaging and content marketing strategy. This will help ensure you don’t waste time and resources targeting the wrong audience.
3. Keep Site Navigation Simple
Clunky, cluttered pages make it difficult for visitors to navigate. A minimalist, no-frills website is often better than an outlandish one.
A well-designed website typically has the following:
- A clean layout
- Easy-to-read font
- Clear and intuitive navigation
- Colors that are readable
- Easy-to-spot call-to-action (CTA) buttons
- Accommodations for disabilities
Don’t forget about blogs, either.
They should be easy to read and skimmable. Margins should be around 20% on each side, making it easier to skim vertically.
Consider adding a table of contents for each article. And include identifiable CTAs that don’t interfere with your primary content.
Alternatively, you can display lists of similar, relevant content as “Additional Resources” on the side of your blogs.
This can help users find additional assets similar to the content they’re reading, keeping them on your site and engaging with your brand longer.
4. Fix Technical SEO + Page Speed Issues
Slow loading times can lead to a poor user experience, causing prospects to abandon your site before they convert.
Conversion rates are 3x higher for a site that loads in 1 second than one that loads in 5.
And every additional second of load time between 0 and 5 seconds decreases website conversion rates by approximately 4.42%.
Additionally, broken links lead prospects to a dead end.
People have very little patience online. They tend to leave web pages at the drop of a hat if they don’t find the information they need.
It’s best to run an audit of your site. After, you can use those insights to improve performance, user experience, and as a result, conversion rates.
5. Build Trust and Authority with Your Audience
Website visitors are more likely to convert when they know the website and blog is trustworthy and reliable.
These elements build authority and win the trust of your prospects:
- Quality Website: Provide an up-to-date and mobile-friendly website that’s easy to navigate and looks professional.
- Effective Copy: Speak in the language your prospects use and show them how you can help conquer challenges.
- High-Quality Content: Offer unique tips, advice, and insights that reduce your prospects’ pain points, anxieties, and frustrations.
- Reviews + Testimonials: Build confidence by displaying positive reviews and testimonials from your customers or clients.
- Publications + Mentions: Expand your reach by sharing insights in well-known, niche publications that are relevant to your prospects.
- Case Studies: Show off the wins you’ve helped clients achieve so your prospects can imagine what working with your business is like.
- Google Business Profile: Setting up your business on Google Business Profile increases your visibility, making it easier for prospects to find and contact you.
- About Page: Put a face to your business by telling your story, explaining your mission, and highlighting a personable side of your business.
- Social Media Presence: Build your brand on social media to expand your reach, share insights, and build community.
Building trust and authority isn’t complicated. It’s about knowing your audience, having the right assets in place, and being consistent.
6. Build or Improve Your Blog
Blogging is a simple yet effective way to build direct connections and customer trust. Blogs can convert cold (new) and warm (existing) traffic into sales.
Through well-crafted content, you can communicate your value proposition, connect with your target audience, and address their pain points with your offerings.
When writing new blog articles, remember to focus on quality over quantity.
High-quality content helps establish trust and nurture leads. It provides valuable information, insights, and advice.
This type of content will help your business create an authentic relationship with prospects and existing customers, leading to more conversions.
7. Optimize Content for Search Intent
Your content needs to match search intent. Otherwise, it will frustrate prospects and drive them away from your site, decreasing your conversions.
Search intent is simply what people were looking for when they landed on your site.
To understand search intent, search the main keyword for a post and review the top search results. Put yourself in the mind of the searcher.
Ask yourself, “What problem are they trying to solve?” And determine whether or not the content there satisfies search intent or if something is missing.
Creating better content or content that’s more aligned to search intent can increase conversions because you’re giving prospects more of what they want.
They will see you as an authority and appreciate your insights. As a result, they’re more likely to take further action on your website.
Not matching content to search intent creates the opposite effect. You’ll drive prospects away and frustrate them. And they may be less likely to convert in the future.
8. Create Sales Enablement Content
Sales enablement content addresses potential buyers’ pain points, anxieties, and desires. It also reduces objections and frustration during the buyers’ journey.
This type of content shows that a business knows its audience and has the exact expertise needed to solve its problems.
It also works as a differentiator.
Most businesses work with generalized audiences. Finding someone who knows your niche, the challenges you face, and how to overcome them is rare.
This accelerates the buying process, converting more prospects into customers because people are more willing to work with businesses that understand their needs.
9. Repair Holes in Your Sales Funnel
When customers slip away from the funnel without buying, it causes what marketers call “leaky holes.” These are missed opportunities.
To avoid this, you must optimize the customer experience for each touchpoint.
Start by mapping out the entire sales cycle. Analyze all the steps a prospect goes through before they become a buyer.
Avoid sending visitors backward. You want to guide traffic in one direction: deeper into the funnel.
Instead of pushing traffic from product pages to the blog, point them toward sales pages like demo sign-ups, pages, case studies, gated content, or contact forms.
Use Google Analytics or another tool to find leaks.
You want to see which pages have high bounce rates, high traffic and low conversions, low time on page, and high exit rates.
Use tracking tools to analyze site behaviors and test changes. And create assets to bridge any gaps in the sales cycle.
10. Optimize Landing Pages
An optimized landing page is a gateway for potential customers, giving them the information they need while encouraging them to take action.
When a landing page instantly addresses your prospects’ pain points and clearly presents your offerings as solutions, it is more likely to boost conversions.
Optimized landing pages have:
- A clean and professional appearance: Keep it simple and clutter-free, so prospects stay focused on the goal.
- One CTA: Use one clear call to action (tied to a goal) that’s easy for prospects to understand.
- Strong hero copy: Captivate prospects with a strong headline that ensures them your solution is exactly what they need.
- Social proof: Establish trust and reduce anxiety around the conversion with customer reviews, awards, or other types of social proof.
- No other links: Avoid distracting the reader with links to other pages, especially blogs and other top-of-funnel content.
- Customer-centric language: Use language that resonates with your target audience.
- Mobile optimization: Make sure your page and content look great on mobile devices.
- Relevant images: Provide visuals that help users better understand how your product or service can improve their lives.
- Lead capture forms: Use short, simple forms that collect vital information that helps qualify leads.
11. Use Pop-Ups Effectively
When used correctly, pop-ups are effective strategies for gathering client information and promoting conversions.
Use it excessively, and your website visitors will find it overwhelming, intrusive, and bothersome.
These are the best types of pop-ups for increasing conversions:
- Exit-intent pop-ups can offer discounts or gather email addresses when a user is about to leave your page.
- Scroll pop-ups appear when the user has scrolled down to a particular point on the website. This is an excellent opportunity to promote products or services relevant to the screen content.
- Landing pop-ups appear when a user lands on a page. They’re effective for capturing prospect details before they convert.
- Sale pop-ups entice customers to take advantage of an offer during sales or other promotions.
12. Eliminate Unnecessary Form Fields
Unfortunately, people are lazy. Having forms with lots of fields to fill out will decrease your conversion rates because people don’t want to do extra work.
Points of conversion can induce anxiety in prospects.
There is a degree of uncertainty around sharing your information, booking sales calls, and buying.
Friction points make this anxiety worse. And if there are too many of them, people will bounce.
To improve your conversion rates, remove unnecessary form fields. Only ask for essential information.
For example, you can infer a company name from a business email.
If you have numerous form fields that prospects must fill out, consider breaking up the process into multiple steps. This makes the process feel much easier.
13. Use Overlays, Embeds, and Banners
Overlays, embeds, and banners engage users, boost conversions, and inspire traffic to take action.
- Overlays are content boxes that “lay” on the current page, creating an obscured, grayed-out background.
- Embeds are interactive media content like videos “embedded” into a page.
- Banners are images or graphics that link to other pages within or outside a website.
They direct people’s attention to actions that align with your business goals.
For example, if you want more newsletter sign-ups, you can use overlays, embeds, or banners to remind people to sign up.
Just be careful about banner blindness.
Users tend to ignore content that looks like ads. So, you want to make your overlays, embeds, and banners stand out without looking like an advertisement.
14. Use Calls to Action (CTAs) Strategically
Creating strong, attention-grabbing CTAs is not enough. You must also place them strategically throughout your website.
On your landing pages, they should be prominent. Put CTA buttons in the navigation bar and in relevant sections of the copy to encourage action.
In content, they should be more subtle. Weave them into the text, so they don’t distract users from your content.
While it’s sometimes relevant to wait until the end of the content, you shouldn’t always put your CTA at the end. Most readers skip the conclusions in content and will leave without taking further action.
Conversely, you can add banners and popups to encourage action. Just be careful that it doesn’t distract users from their experience.
If you overuse CTAs, people will get annoyed and leave without converting.
15. Use Live Chat (and Chatbots)
Live Chat helps users get immediate answers to their questions and concerns. This boosts conversion rates because users are more likely to buy when they have all their questions answered immediately.
When prospects stand by for a customer representative to pick up the phone or need a day or two for an email response, they have more time to change their mind.
Or, reach out to a competitor…
Customers and prospects tend not to like chatbots. But, they can still be effective for some businesses.
It’s all in how you use them.
You can collect information from site visitors that are more willing to interact with a chatbot than a contact form.
They can also provide insights into the type of visitors you have on your site. And you can use those insights to improve your website.
16. Focus On One CTA
A single piece of content can effectively move your target audience from one stage of the buying process to the next.
It’s rarely possible to move a cold lead through several stages of the buyer’s journey with a single piece of content. (Unless the offer is especially compelling.)
Instead, each page and post should have a single goal: one page, one message, one action. That action should be tied to your business goals.
For example, if the goal of your blog is to generate leads, your blog posts should ask for newsletter signups.
Or, the post should direct people to a lead generation magnet on a landing page where users can download a piece of content in exchange for their contact details.
You don’t want to try and drive a cold audience straight to booking a call. There’s too much friction. Prospects will be much less likely to convert.
Additionally, you don’t want to have too many CTAs.
You’ll water down your message, overwhelm the user with choices, potentially frustrate prospects, and reduce your conversion rate.
17. Don’t Over Sell
Overselling can be counterproductive as you might turn your audience off and lower your conversion rate.
Rather than consistently pushing your products or services, leverage reciprocity.
Provide meaningful content, advice, and expertise. Consider offering free trials or a portion of your product or service as a “freemium”.
Remember: solving your audience’s pain points, frustrations, and anxieties should come first. Your product or service should complement your insights, not overrun them.
You should also build trust and relationships with your audience outside of your website.
Take the time to connect with prospects and existing customers. Engage with them on their preferred channels.
This will keep your brand front of mind, making it easier for them to convert when they’re ready.
18. Don’t Leave Your CTA Until the End
While you don’t want to oversell, you also don’t want to undersell.
We see a lot of blog posts and other landing pages that leave the CTA as a single boilerplate at the bottom.
This is often a missed opportunity to convert audiences earlier on. Website visitors will miss your CTA if they bounce before they reach the end of a page.
To avoid this, weave CTAs naturally throughout pages and posts. This gives readers more opportunities to take action as they scroll.
You want to make it easier for them to go deeper into the sales funnel.
19. Customize Your CTAs
Think beyond the standard CTAs: Sign Up, Get Your Demo, Contact Us, etc. Depending on the goal, CTAs can be more effective if they’re personalized and engaging.
Use phrases that inspire curiosity and prompt them to act. For example:
- Download Now
- Give Me the Template
- Show Me the Demo
- Tell Me More
- Let’s Chat
You can find other custom CTAs here.
The key to finding an effective CTA is to know your audience and test the copy.
20. Don’t Forget to Optimize for Mobile
Search engines use mobile-first indexing to prioritize mobile content when indexing and ranking web pages.
This means that Google will use the mobile version of a website for ranking and indexing, even if a user searches from a desktop computer.
To ensure your content is optimized for mobile-first indexing, you’ll need your mobile pages to be as robust as their desktop counterparts.
This includes providing all your landing pages with adequately sized images, clickable buttons, easily legible text, and quick loading times.
If your site contains any interactive elements like maps, contact forms, or videos, ensure these function correctly on the mobile version.
21. Nurture Leads with Email Marketing
When people visit your website, they’re usually not ready to buy. Email marketing can help nurture prospects in their journey until they’re ready to convert.
One way to create a robust email list is by creating lead magnets.
For example, you can offer free downloadable templates, whitepapers, and how-to guides to provide value in exchange for contact details.
You can also ask users to sign-up for your newsletter in your blog and on LinkedIn.
Great content can make or break your email nurturing. It’s the difference between providing value and spamming your audience.
By regularly engaging with prospects and current customers using great content, you’ll continue to showcase your value.
You’ll stay front of mind, build trust, establish expertise, and highlight new products/services, making it much easier for prospects to convert.
22. A/B Test Continuously
A/B testing helps you figure out which elements work best on a website or landing page. It removes any guesswork around page optimizations.
Instead, you get the data you need to make informed decisions to improve elements on your website.
For example, you can test two versions of the same landing page with different CTA copy. This allows you to see which copy works better at converting prospects.
Use A/B testing as part of an ongoing cycle of optimization and experimentation to maintain higher engagement, greater retention, and ultimately more conversions.
23. Use Free Assets and Opportunities
Offering free items such as guides, lead magnets, webinars, or other resources provides an excellent incentive for potential customers to complete the desired action.
This strategy builds trust with prospective customers and creates an opportunity to convert them into leads or buyers.
Free trials also allow your prospects to experience a product or service without making a purchase upfront. The higher the learning curve for your offerings, the longer the free trial should be.
A study discovered that B2B companies offering free trials witnessed an average conversion rate of 66% among users.
When your target customers get a taste of your offerings, they’re more likely to consider paying for them in the future.
24. Use Guarantees
Guarantees are a great way to provide assurance and security to customers that their purchase is risk-free.
Money-back guarantees are the most common. But it’s also possible to offer guarantee types such as a warranty or satisfaction guarantee.
Guarantees reduce conversion anxiety.
Plus, they also help build trust between businesses and customers by proving you believe strongly enough in your product or service to take on some of the risk.
25. Leverage Testimonials + Reviews
Leveraging testimonials and reviews instills confidence in the quality of your product or service.
Other people vouching for your product or service lowers the risk and anxiety around converting for your prospects.
The key is to use them in the right places.
Avoid testimonial pages. These are mostly ineffective. Most people won’t click to view a separate testimonial page.
Instead, you should strategically place testimonials on your landing pages and in your content where relevant.
Adding them next to your calls to action (CTAs) and other areas where customers need to convert can reduce any anxiety around purchasing.
26. Track Conversions Across Your Site
You need to set up analytics from the start to establish a clear baseline of data. This will ensure that you make informed decisions on future campaigns.
You can use Google Analytics or other analytics tools to provide detailed information on how visitors interact with your websites.
Start by identifying your business goals and mapping those to actions on the site. You’ll capture goal data as users click on forms, sign up for newsletters, download assets, and book appointments.
The sooner you set this up, the better.
Most goal-tracking platforms can’t capture data retrospectively. That means you’ll only start gathering insights once you set up goal tracking.
Start Converting Website Visitors into Paying Customers
You need to optimize your website for conversions if you want to get more out of your organic traffic and drive more revenue to your business.
While it may seem daunting, it is possible to transform your website into an organic revenue-generating machine.
You just need the right approach.
Lead Comet can help you.
We offer a conversion optimization sprint where we analyze your sales funnel to find and fill gaps, driving more conversions.
Contact us to learn more.
