Competition for web traffic from paid and organic search has rapidly increased in the past year and is only going to continue increasing as more and more businesses go online. As a result of this increase, it is critical to focus on improving your website conversion rate and not focusing strictly on getting more visitors. Consider a business that spends $5,000 per month on paid ads with an average cost per click of $5. For their ad spend they get 1,000 monthly paid visitors and convert at a rate of 2%, generating 20 customers each month. To add one new customer from traffic alone this business would have to generate 50 additional visitors at a cost of $250. However if they could improve their conversion rate by 0.1% and start converting 2.1% of their paid visitors, they would add that customer without increasing their ad spend. Over the course of the year this can have a material impact on your digital marketing campaigns ROI. Now imagine if they were able to raise their conversion rate by 1.0%! When building your 2015 digital marketing strategy consider these 5 tips to help improve your conversion rates: Modify Your Lead Forms Modifying your inbound lead form to reduce the total number of fields and total number of required fields can help improve conversions because it streamlines the process for visitors to fill out the form. Reducing fields can reduce the amount of users who abandon your form halfway through the process simply because your form is quick and easy to fill out. Improving your inbound lead form can be as simple as removing a single field, as demonstrated below. For more tips on improving your inbound lead form, checkout our post, 7 tips for optimizing your inbound lead form. [caption id="attachment_728" align="aligncenter" width="589"] Removing a single field can dramatically increase your form submissions and conversions[ Install A Chat Client Adding a real time chat client to your website can lead to an increase in conversions because it allows you to communicate directly with visitors to your site in real time. This is powerful because you can answer questions and handle objections in real time. Executed correctly behind a well timed email marketing, pay per click adwords, or SEO campaign, a website based chat client can actually generate real time conversions as chat operators can convert traffic into opportunities while visitors are still on site. SnapEngage and Olark are two affordable chat client options that are easy to use and install. Add Reviews & Testimonials When someone arrives at your landing page from a paid ad on Google or an email marketing campaign, be sure they can read what others are saying about your business. Customer testimonials are a powerful way to create social proof for your services and products. If you ever look up a product on Amazon, you will notice that they always include a star rating and reviews from other customers who have bought that product. Similar to Amazon, your landing pages should include reviews, testimonials, and social proof about the quality of your products or services. [caption id="attachment_736" align="aligncenter" width="726"] Amazon does a tremendous job of providing social proof for its products[ Tweak Your Call To Action Once a potential customer or client visits your site, make sure they can clearly see what you want them to do. Whether that is buying a product, signing up for a newsletter, requesting a free estimate, or making a charitable donation, make sure it is clear to your visitors. If your call to action is not clearly visible on your landing pages try reconfiguring your page layout making sure your call to action and inbound forms are both above the fold. Once you have relocated your call to action, try encouraging visitors to complete your forms in exchange for a promotional item, discount code, or piece of educational content. Accommodate Mobile Traffic Making sure your website and landing pages are optimized for mobile traffic can significantly improve conversion rates. You will bounce mobile traffic if your site does not function or display correctly on mobile devices, which eliminates any possibility of converting mobile visitors. Searches on mobile devices account for half of all Google searches and mobile browsers account for more than half of all web traffic. If you are email marketing, consider that 65% of emails are opened on either a smartphone or a tablet, so email marketing traffic is also arriving on a mobile platform. One major way to explore the efficiency of your mobile site layout is to check your Google Analytics and look at your bounce rates on mobile devices and tablets. If they are both significantly higher than your desktop rate, it is time to explore strategies to improve your mobile website. Failing to accommodate mobile traffic will negatively impact conversion rates. Generating website traffic is a challenging, time consuming, and expensive endeavor, so maximizing conversions is a critical component of driving revenue from your website. Consider that a website that receives 1,000 visitors each month would add 1 new customer, newsletter signup, or prospect every month simply by increasing conversion 0.1%. With the competition for organic search traffic and Google adwords always increasing, focusing on improving conversion can make sure your organization is getting the most out of its web traffic.

---

Ready to learn more about digital marketing strategies and improving website conversion with SEO? Click here to learn how AltaVista can help!

or

Call us at 410-760-6680