In order to run a successful online business, you need to put as much effort as you can into every possible detail. The simple act of creating a website does not guarantee that you will actually make any money. There’s a lot of advice out there about improving websites and increasing conversions. To get off to the best start possible, you should check out the following five tips. They have been handpicked for their ability to produce the best results.
Poorly Written Content Scares Customers Away
The quality of the content on your site communicates a lot about the overall quality of your company. Customers are understandably suspicious of sites that include content that is riddled with misspellings and glaring grammatical errors.
In addition to being free of such errors, the content on your site needs to be engaging, convincing, informative and entertaining. It is well worth it to pay someone else to write exceptional content for your site if you are unable to produce it yourself.
Highlight Licenses and Bonds
If your business is licensed, bonded or insured, you should make that obvious on the main page of your website. People who are searching around for specific services are often aware of these types of things. To get licensed or bonded, a company has to undergo a rigorous screening or certification process.
After investing so much time in becoming licensed, bonded or insured, you should advertise that fact with pride. Whether you own a plumbing business or a lending company, highlighting your license or bond status is a smart thing to do.
Allow Customers to Create Accounts
Although it requires a little more work and maintenance on your end, it’s well worth it to allow customers to create accounts on your site. They’re more likely to return to make additional purchases if they know they won’t have to input all of the same information again.
Take advantage of easy account creation options that allow people to import information directly from services like Facebook and Google.
Be Transparent about the Checkout Process
It sometimes isn’t possible to offer a truly quick and easy checkout process. If that’s true about your online business, don’t mislead your customers.
You don’t have to scare them away by warning them about the long, involved checkout process, but you shouldn’t brag about how easy it is and trick them. Doing that is sure to backfire, and many customers will leave without completing their purchases.
Add Security and Trust Badges to Your Site
Online shoppers are savvier than ever. Many of them immediately look for common trust and security badges to determine whether or not they should do business with a company. For example, a prominent Better Business Bureau badge that advertises an A+ rating inspires a great deal of confidence. A badge that confirms your identity is useful too, and a Verisign badge is a prime example. It shows customers that you are not an impostor and that they can trust you with their sensitive financial information.
As you can see, it isn’t necessarily complicated to improve customer trust and increase conversions. The best rule of thumb is to always put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Would you feel comfortable doing business with your own site? The answer to that question will reveal a lot about the overall quality of your online business.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for sharing this interesting article.
I agree that conversion is very important for a website. If we bring a lot of traffic to our webiste and if the conversion is low, then we will not make many sales.
After few months of working on promoting traffic to our website through different avenues, we are at the point of increasing conversions. It does take dedication and using the right tools. Thanks so much for your tips.
You make a very important point about blogging, that is grammar. Now I am not the best at it but I try to read and reread my posts before I finish. I find it very hard to post on somebodies blog when I can’t understand where they are going with the post.
As they always say, content is king. So you must really invest in quality content to start with. Once your readers are staying on your page to read for more, this can possibly be converted into sales.
As someone that focuses not just on getting traffic, but on getting conversions no where NEAR enough time is spent talking about “security badges” and I was glad to see it as one of your top five methods for increasing trust.
What few people realize though is that my testing across 43 markets and literally millions of hits of traffic is that when those security badges are placed prominently and visibly at the TOP LEFT of the page they help to increase conversion rates.
Those badges do not belong hidden in the middle or bottom of some navigation section. Put those puppies up where people see them first thing. Like you said, they help to build trust and confidence … and that helps to increase sales.
Hi Alex:
These are excellent tips! I definitely look for these things when I am visiting a web site.
Thanks!
Kevin
You think this would be something we all would know to do. But you bring up some really good points Alex, especially about the badges for site security and your checkout process, etc. I have been working on my disclosures for my site but now will go back and add in those badges and images as visitors I think will feel more confident that the site is legitimate and one they will probably come back to.
Appreciate you sharing this information and I have shared it on all my other social sites as well.