Three Tips to Improve Conversion Rates and Increase Sales

by Herman Drost

• Is your website attracting lots of traffic?
• Are you converting visitors into buyers?
• Is it easy to navigate your website?
• Does your web copy captivate attention?

Traffic is the lifeblood of your business. The probability of generating sales or new subscribers increases as more visitors view your website content. If your design lacks professionalism or if the content doesn't captivate the attention of your visitors they will leave and go elsewhere. If the content is not optimized for your targeted keywords you won't generate free traffic from the search engines.

1. Design

When a person first visits your website you only have a few seconds to impress them. Firstly, your web pages should contain plenty of white space between all the elements on the page so it's easy to read.

Secondly, make sure your site is easy to navigate. The navigation links should be at the top, left or right side of the pages. If your site contains many pages include a Site Map so a visitor can scroll through the table of contents.

Thirdly, use contrasting colors (ie black text on a white background) to make important elements stand out from the rest of the page. Only use images that enhance the content.

2. Search engine optimization

Visitors will decide the success or failure of your website, therefore optimizing your website for the search engines generates targeted traffic. Search engines find your website based on the keywords used in your content and html code.

Here are some tips for optimizing your web pages:

• Place your most important keyword or keyword phrase at the beginning of the title meta tag.
• Create a captivating description about your website in the description meta tag.
• Include your keywords in your content, navigation, internal links and file names of your website.
• Use a different keyword or keyword phrase in the title meta tag for each web page.
• Get links (backlinks) from related sites to point to your website.

3. Web Content

When I visit a website the first couple of questions I ask myself are: "what's the purpose of this site and how will the content benefit me?" Usually I only take a few seconds to scan the home page. If nothing grabs my attention I'm out of there.

So what should you do to captivate your visitors' attention?

Here are some important tips:

• Ask yourself “how does your product or service stand out from your competitors?
• When writing your content think from your visitor’s viewpoint ie "what’s in it for me?"
• Place your greatest benefit at the top of the page followed by other benefits
• Use headlines, sub-headlines and bullet points to make it easy to scan your web page content
• Include a clear call to action

Bonus Tip

To understand where your traffic is coming from, what keywords are being used to find your website and what traffic strategies are working use Google Analytics or Awstats to monitor your website traffic.

If you take action on the steps outlined above you'll not only attract targeted traffic but increase sales.

Learn to write copy that boosts your search engine rankings and improves your conversion Rate. The Step-by-Step Copywriting Course let’s you learn at your own pace with real world examples and practice assignments. Get yours now at Step-by-Step Copywriting Course

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