Improve Your Conversion Rate

April 24^th 2012 Sally Ormond boosting converstion rates, Getting traffic, seo

You have a website, so you’ve got this Internet marketing malarkey nailed - right?

Well, that depends on your traffic. You do get traffic, right?

How many leads do you get through your website every week?

At a recent networking event I was deep in conversation with a business owner about websites. I asked how his was working for him, how many leads it generated from his traffic. This was his response:

“No, I don’t have an ecommerce website so that doesn’t apply to me. My website is there because a business is expected to have one. I means, it’s not as if a business like mine will sell through a website, that’s simply not possible.”

That kind of attitude to online marketing will mean that he’ll probably never sell through his website. And the fact that it’s not generating any leads would strongly suggest that his website’s structure and content is pretty poor.

If your website is built with your SEO strategy in mind, easy to navigate and contains professional SEO copywriting, it will attract visitors and convert them into customers. But there are also other factors that can reduce your conversion rate that are often ignored. Let’s take a look at one of them.

Your website’s loading speed

Did you know that if your website is slow to load, you will lose 7% of your potential conversions?

According to a post on Bryan Eisenberg’s blog, a one second delay in your download speed could result in:

7% fewer conversions
11% fewer page views
16% reduction in customer satisfaction

So what factors will affect your download speed? Well it could be image size, social media buttons or simply the size of your webesite.

The optimum download speed is under 2 seconds, so how do you get your site to load faster?

1. Check your speed

Tools such as Google Analytics will help you find out what your download speed is. In his post, Bryan also recommends The Web Page Speed Report, Yahoo’s YSlow plugin, Google’s Page Speed plug-in, Loads In and WebPagetest.

Although you’ll want to pack as much functionality as possible into your website, remember that for every button and image you add there will be a knock on effect for your download speed.

2. Coding

This is probably one to discuss with your designer. Regardless of the type of coding behind the scenes, it can also affect your download speeds. So if you are concerned about it, give your designer a call.

3. Images

Images are great for websites and I’m certainly not suggesting that you shouldn’t use them. To make sure they have a minimal impact, condense them, make sure you use the right format and use them sparingly - in this case less is definitely more.

Why this is important

After investing in your website, it’s essential you get a return in that initial outlay. Your website is not, and should not be viewed as an online brochure - it is so much more than that. It has the potential to sell 24/7, reaching customers and markets you could only have dreamed of before.

If your website isn’t generating leads as yourself why not. Review its structure, content, load time, keywords and analytics.

A website that doesn’t perform is like a High Street store with its doors locked.

Take a look at your website now and make sure it is performing for you.