Before we jump onto the mistakes which are causing the low conversion rate we must first know what actually is a conversion rate. Conversion rate is not just a number which appears on your analytics report, it is the percentage of customers who are actually doing or taking an action which you want them to do while they are on your website. Most of the online business do not even know their conversion rate and on the other hand who do they blame it on the low volume of traffic and end up paying more to get more traffic directed towards their websites. Now what we need to understand is that having high volume of traffic is good but if you have a low conversion rate you might as well not have the traffic at all because your customers are bouncing off your website which will put your website further down the search results if your bounce rates keep increasing. But on the other hand if your bounce rate is low and your conversion rate is high then even with low traffic you are going to make good money with is worth the effort as well.
Now coming to the topic what are the 5 most common mistakes which can cause your conversion rate to take a dive. Here is the list:
Having a good conversion rate depends upon having the right traffic to your website as well. For example you are selling shoes on your website whereas your SEO specialist somehow got you all the traffic that you need but they are looking to buy food items and they end up on your website. This will definitely increase your bounce rate which is bad but it will also have a huge negative effect on your conversion rate. So, make sure that your SEO campaign is consistent with your nature of business this way you will not only save money but in fact make money by having the right audience on your website.
Whenever there is a customer online on the website it is potential lead and in order to convert this lead into a sale your Call to Action or CTA should be able to attract the customer to take the action desired by you. Now it depends on various factors like color, placement, text, image etc used in the CTA.
We all know the phrase Opposites Attract this applies to grabbing customer’s attention as well. Instead of sticking with consistent colors on your website use a different color for your CTA that makes it stand out from the rest of the page hence getting customer’s attention which lead to more chances of closing the sale.
Increasing sales is all about having a good follow-up, now a days with the latest technology and algorithms used in building and maintaining the websites it is very easy to gather all the information required to identity a new and a returning customer. Most of the people are likely to make a purchase from a familiar or previously visited website. Since we already have the information from the analytics it is good time to check-in with the customers who have not returned to the website in long time and tell them about the new promotions which coming up or offer them a deal best suited with their previous search results in order to increase your sales.
Now there are also customers who have already submitted a query online regarding a product or service which is offered by you, this way you have your own database of leads for your business but in order to convert those leads into sales you will need to follow-up on them. You need to get in touch with those customers and offer them the information which they are looking for to help them make the decision and finalize the sale. But remember while following up with the customers the key to sales is patience, not everyone is going to make a purchase on your contact or follow-up, sometimes it can take a couple of follow-ups and sometimes it may take 7-8 follow-ups before the actual sales is done, so be patient and do not take your eyes off the target.
Flaws in shopping carts are not just ordinary flaws but these huge blunders which are caused by the tiniest mistakes which were overlooking while developing the cart. For instance your item or service is sold at $39.95 but when the customer actually tries to make a purchase he sees $49.95 instead of the actual price he is definitely going to go away and not return back to make a purchase. This is cause your conversion rate to go down the hill. Now what we need to realize is that what has caused this glitch? May be it is some glitch with the shipping cost which was not disclosed prior to the customer or may be some error in the conversion rate but you need to figure it out and fix it. The best way to identify and fix these issues is to do a test or demo run of the shopping cart before actually applying it to the live website.
Marketing and live chat service is all about creating demand and awareness about your product and service and making sure that you are always ahead of your competitors. Once you have started a marketing campaign you will see customers pouring in and sales will be high but over the time your message and campaign will be lost. Why because everything changes over time and everyone is attracted to what is new and up to date. You product or service might seem ahead of time when it was first launched but now there are several other companies offering the same thing. So, in order to stay on the top your marketing team need to come up with new ideas about how to market your product and services in order to stay ahead of your competitors and have a good and positive conversion rate.