This week I had the pleasure of evaluating a website for a company looking to improve their conversion of website traffic to sales inquiries. One of the major problems with their website is that it’s not sales friendly. Confusing navigation, monochromatic color schemes and zero calls to action are creating an unnecessary obstacle between the visitor and their sales team. A visitor comes to your site because they have a problem and they need to quickly determine if you offer the best solution so you want to avoid anything that hinders this process. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid.
Overly cluttered home pages: When a visitor arrives at your home page, don’t offer them so much information up front that it makes it difficult for them to find answers to their questions. The home page should focus on the visitor’s needs and how you will answer those needs. All content unrelated to those needs should be removed so it’s not a distraction.
Complicated navigation: Be sure your navigation is easy to use and offers only the most relevant choices for the visitor. Avoid using ‘mystery meat’ navigation or JavaScript navigation that requires the precision of a sniper to use. The simpler the better.
Calls to action: What is it that you want your visitors to do? Call or e-mail you? Request a free quote? Each page should have a call to action above the fold as well as at the bottom of the page so the visitor will always see the invitation to contact you whether they read the page entirely or not. Ideally you want to initiate direct contact with the potential client as soon as possible to begin your sales process.
Visual trauma: With regards to your copy, avoid using odd color schemes and small fonts which make reading your copy difficult. You want to clearly convey your message to your audience, not test their patience.
Content: Always address the needs of potential visitors and how you propose to help them. If you have case studies your copy should organically link to them to back up your expertise. Make sure your page copy includes keywords / keyword phrases so it serves a dual purpose by addressing the visitor’s needs as well as give the content more relevance in the search engines.
Search Engine Optimization: Landing pages should have their own unique page titles, keywords, keyword phrases, meta tags, heading tags, and link title tags to give each page relevance in the search engines. Page naming conventions should incorporate keywords relevant to the page’s content. It’s better to use dashes in between words rather than underscores. For example “website-design-services.html” will have more relevance in the search engines than “website_design_service.html” because the search engines treat the dash as a space and the underscore as a character.
Avoiding these common mistakes can have a significant impact on your traffic to sales conversion. It’s important to remember that an effective sales web site addresses the client’s problem and demonstrates you are the best person to solve their problem. Remember, 83% of Internet users will leave a website if they can’t find relevant information quickly.
I design websites, blogs, and develop social media campaigns for creative professionals who want increase their online visibility, promote their latest projects, and attract new creative opportunities.