At the end of the day, the single most important thing for most business owners is to increase conversions on their website. In marketing, a conversion occurs when a visitor takes an action such as filling out a form, making a purchase, requesting additional information or contacting sales, etc. Whether you’re a small mom-and-pop shop or a large billion dollar corporation, the principles for building consumers trust and getting a potential customer to take action remains the same.

Below, I’ve put together a list of three (3) things that will help improve your chances of gaining more conversions and increasing the conversion rate on your website:

1. Tell Your Story (and keep it real!)

Not enough people/businesses tell their stories on their website. Whenever I visit a website and I don’t see authentic information about the person or people in charge of running the business, my security antenna goes up and I begin to doubt and speculate. Telling your story is possibly the most important and the easiest thing anyone can do to help increase conversions. People generally buy from people or businesses they know, trust and like. Give people the opportunity to like you by telling your story. You can do this by:

- Writing a detailed history on your about page
- Including a time-line of the history of your business
- Shooting a welcome video of yourself
- Posting pictures of behind-the-scenes of your business

Tell your story, period. Get it out there where visitors can see.

2. Improve Visibility of Your Product or Service with Photos and Charts

Whether you provide a consulting service or you sell a physical product, providing visitors with enough visuals is vital to driving conversions. Pictures and info charts are worth a thousand words. It can turn a prospect into a buyer.

In most cases, one measly photo isn’t good enough. It takes several photos and detailed information to get a prospect on the fence to take action. Take a look at Carmax.com, and take a look at their used car selection. Notice that they provide between 30-35 photos per each vehicle. This gives a prospect just enough information to seek additional information. It may not get him to purchase the car instantly, but what it does is get that prospect in the door.

The same goes with consulting services. If you provide a service where you’re not selling a physical product, you can do the same thing by including detailed info graphics and charts of your process, methodology, service and results.

It can be in the form of a video, photo, graphic or illustration. The point here is giving the user more than just a single paragraph description of what you do. Offer more detailed information with photos and visuals to spark their interest and get them excited to take further action.

3. Improve Your Site’s User Interface and Overall Architecture

If your visitors can’t easily and quickly absorb all the information explained in #1 and #2 and get to where they need to go, you just lost another visitor. Everyone understands this principle, but many fail to implement it correctly.

Too many times, small shops bite the bullet and end up either controlling the entire design/UI process themselves and large organization too many times overlook the skill and human behavior thinking that goes into laying out a complex structure for an overly complex informative site. The UI and Architecture of a site is huge. If done right, users feel less overwhelmed, in control and empowered by their ability to control and access the information they want and when they want it. If done wrong, users will begin to doubt the situation and begin to feel less certain about what it is you’re selling, and they will eventually leave.

Think of it like a clean desk. If you visit a co-worker and their desk is clean, neat and in order, you will feel confident that you can ask them for something and that they’ll act on it. You’ll feel empowered. But visit a co-worker where his or her desk is messy with papers piled high, old soda cans piling up, 3-day old coffee sitting on the inbox,…your confidence in doing business with this person is gone. Try again with someone else. The same principle applies to the internet.

In conclusion

The three things pointed out here is by far not the end to all you conversion optimization troubles. No, but these are things that you can take advantage of to help improve the possibilities of converting more and at a much higher rate.

Be honest, tell your story, give users information they need to make a purchase or follow-through on a contact form. Finally, get organized in your site design and architecture. Allow users to feel empowered that if they do decide to take action, that they’re dealing with an organization, a company that will act and respond to their request in a timely and professional manner.

Hope you enjoyed these few tips.

Would love to hear your thoughts?