Website Conversion : 6 Ways to Force the Issue

Know what you're about; then encourage action

4. Ask for the order. If you want the order, you need to ask for it — gorillas don't get into cages on their own. Don't think that just because you have a site users will know how to navigate or buy from it. Users have neither the time nor inclination to learn anything about you or your site and its intricacies. Just because you have the best product, best service or biggest line of widgets, that doesn't mean a thing when it comes to conversion.

If you want conversions, fight for them. Add a perpetual cart/lead form; employ more buy now/add-to-cart buttons. There should be at least one in every page view. Strengthen your action bar, flesh out your navigation and so on. If you ask for the order and aren't getting it, figure out why this is happening and where you're losing people.

5. Know where people are stopping in your pipeline. Many times companies do all the right things until the checkout (including the view cart page); then all hell breaks loose. You need to develop a funnel. The top of the funnel is the traffic coming to your site; the bottom (the small part) is the orders, quotes or leads you're getting.

These days, many marketers have enough traffic coming in at the top, but then nothing or very little coming out the bottom. (Picture a big lump in the middle of the body of a snake that's just devoured a rat.) If you fit into that category, your conversion rate probably is poor. The good news is that scenario is one of the easiest to improve, as long as you can determine what's broken before you fix it.

6. Look at the metrics that can help you improve conversion. First, look at your bounce rate and exit pages. Determine how many people abandon your site immediately after they get there. Figure out where your users are leaving.

A high bounce rate is often indicative of a weak entry page or bad traffic (meaning the traffic isn't right for your site or offer). Consultants who tell you it doesn't matter usually don't know how to measure it or are clearly biased.

As for your exit pages, the only really acceptable exit page is a confirmation page. If your exits aren't pages where you thank the user for taking an action, what are they? The most successful sites get at least one thing — an order, a lead or an email address — from users. If you don't get at least one of these, you have more work ahead of you.

Amy Africa is CEO of South Burlington, Vt.-based e-commerce consulting firm Eight by Eight (amy@amyafrica.com).

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