Before we discuss website conversion, let us take a look at the background of the world from which website evolves. A few years back, when there was less Internet dependency, little exposure, slow Internet connections and limited multimedia accessibility, many people who had the talent to entice and engage the audience with their skills, had a little or limited scope to showcase their work.
People were unable to establish their charisma beyond certain boundaries. There were rare platforms where they could gather an audience, and they were really really expensive. So unless you spent a hefty sum on an extravagant campaign, you hardly got noticed by the market.
Time changed and so did the technology. A new virtual sphere evolved in form of online world. The internet connectivity enhanced and the connection speed increased. Wider multimedia accessibility and online video streaming platforms now provided an instant exposure to masses. Many small artists who were hopeless about their future got a place to showcase their skills to a wider audience.
Today, there is a new class of people who are known as ‘Influencer’ in the online world. They have a wide social following and extensive public outreach. Everything changed for them within a matter of months. They grew their social status through a virtual world that became a canvas to share their talent with everyone effortlessly.
Website Conversion; a Shortcut to Success!
As the technology enhanced, business opportunities also got bigger and better. But when you talk about using the Internet for bigger and better market exposure, it is by and large restricted to profits. Businesses soon realized that the Internet is not just about advertising, it is much more than that.
The Internet is vast and so are the opportunities it creates. The use of a website to attain business has been remarkable and it continues to grow. The concept of website conversion compelled more and more business due to obvious reasons such as –
- Cost Efficiency, Cost Effectiveness
- Direct Outreach, Convenient Targeting
- Better Presentation, Easier Conversion
- Data Intelligence, Smart Sales Pitch
But keeping all fundamentals aside, many businesses tried to exploit the Internet by using profit centric approach and one that blindly ignored the interest of a user in lieu of profit. Thereafter, things tend to get negative. More and more business shifted their focus to online world aiming for higher website conversion rates.
But sadly, only selected few are user-centric, rest of all are busy in manipulating the users toward sales, even if the user doesn’t pay heed to their ‘blabbering’. More than 80% business never care to follow the basic fundamentals of the online world and simply adopted a ‘hollow’ tactic which lacked soul. Most business websites blindly went on with a motive to ‘catch customers’ for sales.
The failed business are often found guilty of ignoring the user interest in their greed of conversion. They forget that the Internet has remarkably increased the general awareness of public conscience. This makes it harder for business to fool around hoping for success, that won’t work now.
A person using the internet has complete freedom to explore the content of his own interest. If finds it irrelevant, he has the choice to move on and switch to any other website. He has the authority to ignore. On such an open platform, the value of user interest is the most decisive factor.
Mere ‘Profit orientation’ can’t sustain for long. Even if it manages to sustain, it won’t succeed beyond a certain limit. Why? Because a user doesn’t give a damn about what you convey unless you are interesting. Who wants to waste his time on a website that is clearly different from what he seeks?
A business that focuses on profit and ignores the user interest, is clearly living in an illusion. The website is often a sales oriented advertisement and people find no apparent reason to spend their valuable time and Internet on a nonsense.
3 Fundamentals That Govern Visitor Conversion
For making the best use of a business website, you need to value the guiding principles that ‘people’ seek from the Internet. You can’t just believe that setting up ‘sales trap or conversion funnel’ is enough to gain business through a website. There are other variables that actually prepare the background for a ‘conversion funnel’ to work ably. Any trap is useless if your visitor doesn’t stay on your website for some minutes.
To learn the conceptual usage of Internet, you need to understand the ‘target’ of a website i.e its visitors. It must catapult the interest of a visitor by providing him the right solution, one that he is looking for not that which you want to impose ‘being’ a business.
While that may not promote your business directly, but nevertheless, a website isn’t meant for that purpose at first. It is for the user’s convenience, something which informs him, something more relevant.
Here are 3 fundamental principles that your website must not ignore while trying to reach higher conversion rates.
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Intent
A person who lands on a website has a purpose in his mind. Anyone doesn’t come to a website unknowingly. He has a clear idea about why what he is surfing and there are plenty of ways to reach relevant pages. This is called ‘User Intent’.
You can find the intent of your user very easily by taking use of Analytics data. It would help you determine the actual intent behind a visit by a visitor. In other words, you can easily know that your visitor is a genuine candidate to target or not.
Many businesses have very incorrectly prioritized ‘conversion optimization’ as the solo strategy behind their website. After optimizing their websites, they try to converge traffic towards their site, may that traffic come from any source.
What next? These websites may garner traffic by ‘hook or crook’, but their visitors hop off within moments of landing. Their bounce rate is disastrous, at times even around 80%. So, their conversion funnel doesn’t get to play a role by any means, whatsoever. (6 Reasons behind Poor Lead Conversions that you usually ignore!) The visitor didn’t come to your website with an intent to see your manipulation skills and I believe you wouldn’t like it either.
Once you understand the intent of your customer, you have a better idea of how to charm a person and assist him in finding an apt solution(supposedly your product). After learning the intent of your visitors, it becomes easy for you to find more people with similar intent or those who are looking for a similar solution.
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Interest
When the visitor lands on your website and finds your website relevant to what he seeks, he tries to take a brief view to adjudge whether he should stay on the page or it is uninteresting or boring. The user intent has to be satisfied with not just a relevant website, but also with a qualitative, informative and engaging content which evokes general interest in the mind of a viewer.
The fact that you follow a ‘sales funnel’ should not be an obstruction. The overall spirit must represent an exciting prospect that feels interesting to a visitor. So, it would be much better to use intuitive designs, website tools and other customizations that mix with the website. Using intuitive tools as a part of your sales funnel don’t feel awkward or ‘out of place’.
So what this basically means is that you have to present yourself in a manner which your customer wants you to see, but not on the basis of how you see yourself. It is the visitor whom you want to impress, right? So why not show the courtesy that appeases him. Forget being biased to yourself, instead get biased towards those whom you want to impress.
It doesn’t mean you are free to make illogical, unethical and false tactics just in order to match your customer. If you do that, either your product is impotent or you are targeting the wrong audience. Better avoid unreal commitments and give an impression of being a service scam.
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Interact
Being a business, the purpose of using a website is to interact with people and convince them to purchase your product. An interaction is never one sided. In the online world, business interactions are generally content-centric as you can just show graphics and images and not the real ‘product’.
Website interaction is potentially one of the most successful ways to approach your customers. So using it, you can initiate a conversation with those visitors who are keen to learn more about your product/service. That means you have successfully spotted the user intent and effectively induced an interest in your visitor.
This is the perfect time to approach your visitor for a direct interaction as you have created an opportunity, and if you are unable to captivate the interested users, all your efforts will be lost. You need to obtain the basic details of such visitors in order to approach him for a direct conversation.(7 Ways to Increase Sales Conversion Rates With a Business Website!)
But, you must not forget the basics. You need to make it look subtle and completely professional or else the visitor might show skepticism in sharing his details. You have to make a call to action that is hard to ignore. That could be a special offer, or a freebie or any tempting invitation which motivate the visitor to share his details.
But making ‘call to action’ doesn’t mean that you bombard 10 call to action’s on every page of your site. In case you find it hard to choose a better call to action, use the A/B Testing(split testing) and choose the one that produces better results. Don’t use them in excess as this takes away the relevance of your call to act.
Using contact us form is also helps the cause. But please, don’t waste the time of your user by asking too much information which isn’t relevant to you. At times, people just skip sharing their details after finding a lengthy form or one which feels boring to fill.
I mean what’s the point of asking the name of parents and grandparents of your visitor when you have to sell it to the son or grandson. Even I personally skip such type of forms. Ask only those things which you need for the sales pitch, that’s it. Or rather try to bang your head against a wall. It will be as much helpful in conversions as asking the details of a visitor’s parent. Both will unarguably harm you.
Always Remember, to take care of users is caring for conversions.
This is a fact that the user which lands on your website will never convert if he doesn’t finds you trustworthy. Caring is one of the best things that generates genuine trust. After all, it is the user himself who is going to get converted. Remember, people are smart enough to spot a business that intends to serve and one that is just ‘profit-minded’. Unless you try to read user intent in order to evoke interest so that the interaction is easy, you can’t convince him for sales.
Want to learn more about how a business website works; Build Your Website Around Visitor Psychology; It Works!
