MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

Great Tips for Increas­ing Online Con­ver­sion Rates

How Can You Increase the Online Con­ver­sion Rate of your Main Page?

Sum­mary

In a phone con­sul­ta­tion this week we shared with Bill some tips for increas­ing online con­ver­sion rates. In par­tic­u­lar we showed him how to increase the online con­ver­sion rate of his main page.

Sce­nario

Bill owns a web­site sell­ing lan­guage courses. Nat­ural search is work­ing really well — he gets 1200 vis­i­tors a day from Google, 600 go direct to his tar­geted pages and 600 end up on his main page.

How­ever despite a very attrac­tive site that appears to get many things right browsers sim­ply aren’t click­ing past his main page to his tar­geted pages. Sound familiar?

Are you falling into the easy errors that your com­peti­tors no doubt will be as well?

Here’s what Bill’s site looked like:

This is what Bill’s site looks like and I’ve illus­trated 4 pit­falls that he’s sadly fallen into. I’ll iden­tify these pit­falls, show a strat­egy to put it right and then show you how Bill would go about it.

 

4 Errors Bill has made

1) Side­bar on the Left

So many tests have proven that the most dom­i­nant ele­ment of a web­page is the upper left hand cor­ner. This means that it’s the area peo­ple are most likely to con­cen­trate on. The last thing you want to hap­pen is for your cus­tomer to be put off in a flash.

The first thing you see in the dom­i­nant upper left hand cor­ner is the side­bar and links to “Ara­bic” and “Alban­ian”. These aren’t even the core prod­ucts that Bill sells.

2) Plain, Unemo­tive Text at the Top Dom­i­nat­ing 

Once again first impres­sions count –you should be ask­ing your­self … How can I make a Last­ing and Emo­tive Impres­sion on the poten­tial cus­tomer? There should be a hook there to trig­ger a browser’s inquis­i­tive side.

3) Images of People

It’s also been proven that images of peo­ple actu­ally have a neg­a­tive impact on con­ver­sion rates. They have the effect of dis­tract­ing a browser away from some­thing you want them to see, like the com­pelling copy, head­line or a list of key benefits.

4) Reg­i­mented, unin­spir­ing for­mal infor­ma­tion and jar­gon

“Mul­ti­me­dia PC CD Roms for Begin­ners, Inter­me­di­ates and Advanced lev­els” might be infor­ma­tive but the term ‘Mul­ti­me­dia PC Cd Roms’ is off­putting, irrel­e­vant jar­gon. The whole para­graph does not con­vey the key fac­tors that sets them apart from the competition.

Strat­egy For A Killer Main Page

4 Solu­tions

1) Make a Good First Impression

Make your upper left hand cor­ner excit­ing and tar­geted to what they are look­ing for. The first thing they see could be the head­line, for example.

2) A Head­line that pro­vokes them and leaves them stunned

Instead of plain text being the first thing to catch the browsers eye they should be imme­di­ately smacked in the face by a punchy head­line that also answers their most per­ti­nent question.

3) An Image of the Product

Instead of hav­ing a human image why not have an image of the prod­uct? Tests have shown that this increases the con­ver­sion rate by mak­ing the prod­uct look more attractive.

4) List of Key Ben­e­fits that set the Prod­uct Apart from its competitors

Entic­ing ben­e­fit laden copy con­densed down into con­cise bul­let points will have a phe­nom­e­nal impact on your site. By edu­cat­ing your browser what is totally unique about your prod­uct you will set it apart from its competitors.

Here’s what we’d do for Bill

How Imple­ment Strategy

 

 1) First Impres­sion is very impactful

Instead of see­ing the side­bar ini­tially now the browser will imme­di­ately see the head­line and an image of the product.

2) A Punchy Head­line that answers their most per­ti­nent question

See how this head­line com­pares with the plain text previously:

“When the Waiter Mis­took me for a Native on Hol­i­day with my Friends they just Laughed … That laugh­ter soon turned to Amaze­ment when I Answered him Flaw­lessly in his Native Tongue”

 

Hit­ting the browser with incred­i­ble copy should be one of your biggest pri­or­i­ties. This head­line is a vari­a­tion on a clas­sic head­line that’s been used no end over the years.

3) Image of the Product

This has been proven to improve the con­ver­sion rate. Peo­ple are inter­ested to see the pack­ag­ing of the prod­uct. You can eas­ily design a prod­uct cover by Photoshop.

4) Ben­e­fit Laden, Com­pe­ti­tion Crush­ing Copy

Here’s what Bill should put:

• Unique Dig­i­tal Soft­ware Pack­age that only we offer
• Down­load­able MP3s, Ipod Compatible
• All text and learn­ing from Native Speakers
• Com­pletely revamped and Rev­o­lu­tion­ized for 2007
• Patented Soft­ware Process Sci­en­tif­i­cally Trains you to embed a for­eign lan­guage in your long term mem­ory, you remem­ber more much faster!

If you com­pare this to before there are some major differences:

• Stresses key benefits
• Iden­ti­fies Strengths over competitors
• stresses unique­ness and how mod­ern the prod­uct is

When Bill imple­ments these tips we’re sure he’ll see great results. The top sec­tion of your main page has to be impres­sive to stop your poten­tial cus­tomers click­ing away. These tips are easy to exe­cute and don’t take very long.

Let’s see if they actu­ally work

Does it Work? Here’s The Statistics

Bill’s imple­mented a few of our rec­om­men­da­tions in the last cou­ple of weeks and is already see­ing dra­matic improve­ments in his con­ver­sion rate. The click through to his prod­uct pages has gone from 40% to 45%. This has resulted in a 12% increase in sales, a truly rapid transformation!

Truly remark­able results that can turn your busi­ness around in a mat­ter of weeks. Infor­ma­tion on how to increase your online con­ver­sion rates is rapidly increas­ing. Gain a bet­ter idea of how to increase your online con­ver­sion rates by read­ing more Tips for Increas­ing Online Con­ver­sion Rates.

Last 5 posts by

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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