Design | 05.27.2015
Optimizing Website Conversions for Long-Term Success
As we’ve already seen in the first half of 2015, optimizing website conversions has gone much further than simply implementing effective SEO practices and selling in-demand products. Today’s website owners need to leverage a multi-faceted approach that utilizes the latest digital marketing tools and some creative thinking to get ahead. Developing a long-term strategy for increasing conversion rates by being active and consistent across all customer channels, and taking steps to improve website functionality, can dramatically improve your results. If your website analytics are showing low conversion numbers and overall poor page performance, it’s time to take action before your business is negatively impacted.
1. Take a Strategic Approach
Most businesses create a strategy for their website development and marketing efforts, but they don’t always take into consideration how to strategize for conversion optimization. A conversion optimization strategy is a necessity for ecommerce sites, as it goes much further than simply coming up with a plan to attract customers to your site. A well-formed strategy includes a long-term approach to steadily growing conversion rates through a series of impactful moves. User experience testing, A/B testing and tracking site analytics are all key parts of an effective conversion optimization strategy. Taking a deep dive into how your customers behave on your site and looking at individual customer segments can help you create a targeted, more effective approach to increasing conversions.
2. Maintain a Multi-Channel Presence
In today’s increasingly digital marketplace, there are so many ways for customers to interact with your business outside of just a phone call or a visit to a brick-and-mortar store. Ensure that you have a consistent, positive presence on social media, your mobile app and your website, but don’t forget to also provide a great customer experience via email, in your stores or by phone. No matter how your customers choose to interact with you, they should always have a positive, consistent experience. Providing helpful services, such as allowing for online purchases to be picked up in a local store and offering specials for social media users can help tie all of your platforms together for the best experience. Just make sure that you provide the same great experience on each channel, as one bad interaction can turn a customer against you forever.
3. Check Your Site Design
In some cases, a complete website redesign is a necessary step in increasing conversions. If your site lacks responsive functionality (a must for today’s mobile users!) or if it lacks the basic functionality that customers are looking for, then no amount of optimizing your current design or content will change things. While a complete website overhaul isn’t recommended if your pages are already performing well, it can be incredibly helpful for sites that aren’t getting the best results. To get the most out a site redesign, hire a team that you can trust and make sure there is plenty of user testing done prior to implementation. Optimizing an ecommerce site through effective design elements and providing a positive user experience from the start is the best way to grow your conversion numbers.
4. Stay Focused on Long Term Success
While making simple tweaks to your content or adding a new feature to a website can help make small, positive changes in the right direction, it takes a long term strategy to get the most impactful results. Stay on top of your website analysis and take note of which parts of your strategy are working and which areas need to be altered to better suit your goals. Instead of looking only at basic data points, such as which buttons users click the most or what page they enter from, take a deeper look at how visitors use your site. Analyzing this information can help you better understand your users so that you can implement improvements to better serve them.
Future Outlook for Conversion Optimization
Devising a flexible, yet strategic approach that can be updated and altered to accommodate changes is the best way to manage conversion optimization efforts. Conversion optimization techniques will continue to evolve as brick-and-mortar shoppers and online consumers develop new shopping habits, and as updated technology platforms are introduced to society. However, by maintaining a clear strategy and goals for your business and making adjustments as needed, you can stay ahead of the game.
Jordan Crown is a website design agency specializing in WordPress and responsive design. Click here to view their services.