5 Barriers Hurting Your Conversion Rates
One of the main purposes of having a website is to convert traffic into leads. If you’re not seeing this happen, it could be that your website is doing you more harm than good. If this is the case, the solution could be something easy, such as a new, responsive website. Websites that are slow and out-of-date will turn people off, making it difficult to convert traffic. But what if the reasons for not converting goes deeper than the design of your website?
In this post, we take a look at five possible barriers that could be hurting your conversion rates, and what to do to fix them.
1. Your pages have no clear calls-to-action.
If you don’t use clear calls-to-action, your visitors won’t know what you want them to do next. Include CTAs on all of your pages, and make sure they are visible. (You can even use more than one CTA on each page.) Something simple like, “subscribe here” or “sign up today” is all you need to keep visitors on the right track. Go through your pages and see if you can add more CTAs, or update them to be more direct.
2. Your website lacks trust signals.
Visitors have to trust you before they will convert. They’re not going to hand over an email address or a name if they don’t believe in you. The problem is that building brand trust takes a long time. It’s not something that you’re going to accomplish in the first interaction you have with a visitor.
That being said, you can instill some trust into people on their first visit. “Fast-acting” trust factors include affiliations, badges of publications you’re associated with, awards, user reviews and testimonials. Include these factors on your pages to show visitors that you are a trustworthy brand.
3. You aren’t giving visitors an incentive.
Sometimes, people need a small push to convert. It’s perfectly acceptable to offer visitors a small incentive for completing a transaction. This can make a significant impact on your conversion rates.
Here are some ideas for incentives.
- Free shipping
- Downloadable ebook
- Exclusive content
- Extended trial
- Discount on future order
- Money-back guarantee
4. You are over- or underselling your offer.
It’s very possible to over- or undersell your offer without realizing it. You may try to spice up your offer so that it sounds better and end up disappointing customers. Or, you may be afraid to mislead people, so you downplay what you have to offer. Both are common issues, but they can hurt your conversion rates.
Always stick to the basics and deliver on what you promise. If you’re direct and honest, you won’t oversell your product. At the same time, it’s up to you to sell your product, so you need to offer a valuable message that entices people to buy.
5. You have no sense of urgency.
People look for excuses not to convert. One of the most convenient excuses is to say, “Oh, I’ll just pick that up later.” To prevent this from happening, add a sense of urgency to your offer. If people feel like they only have a limited time to take advantage of something, they’ll be much more likely to act on it.
For example, you’ll notice that on Groupon, many offers will say “limited availability” or “limited time only.” As a customer, if you want the deal, you need to purchase it now, not later. Adding a sense of urgency can improve your conversion rates and boost ROI.
Examples of urgency wording include:
- Limited time offer
- Limited stock
- While supplies last
- Status: Almost ended
- Only “x” quantity left
We hope that this information has helped you to better understand what may be holding visitors back from converting. If you have more questions about increasing your conversion rates and writing better CTAs, give WSI Star Web Solutions a call at (888) 853-4449! We specialize in small business digital marketing strategies.