You can blow your entire budget on getting your website to rank for the most competitive keyword terms in your industry, but if your site isn’t designed appropriately there’s every chance that it won’t convert. Unfortunately, this most probably means that all of that expense that was dedicated to the marketing of your company’s site is down the drain.
A website that is able to easily convert sales doesn’t need to be over-optimised for the search engines – after all, it needs minimal traffic to net those valuable company sales. This means that if you are going to spend your budget on anything, it should be the design and usability of your site. If you can perfect that, and maximise your chances of online conversions, you can start to work on search engine optimisation later as your business grows.
Fortunately, there are few rules when it comes to improving online conversions. In fact, having looked at this Suffolk marketing company’s policies, we’ve found that the following are usually sufficient for most businesses.
Website Design
While you may have been able to get away with a basic website design several years ago, now the competition is so high that only the best will suffice. Make sure the web development firm you have outsourced pays particular attention to the design and makes it as usable as possible for the end visitor. This means keeping the design as simple as you can without compromising your business’s image – something that is easier said than done.
Payment Process
If you are directly selling your products via your website, you need to make sure that the checkout and payment procedure is again as simple as possible. Countless websites will make it mandatory for users to register as a customer before buying and while this can be acceptable, if you are shooting twenty must-answer questions to them you’re likely to lose sales.
Therefore, the aim is to make the process as sleek as possible and not bombard the user with information. If you are looking to implement a registration process, perhaps try and link it in to the order itself so a new account is automatically made for any new individual who purchases an item on your site. Again, it’s all about removing as many obstacles from the customer as possible, in a bid to minimise the amount of people who decide they can’t be bothered with the whole process and click the back button.
Give Your Website the Authority Feeling
This is arguably the most important point, but links in with the above two issues somewhat. The first thing you want users to feel when they visit your site is that it is credible – especially if it is an ecommerce one. If they see spelling mistakes, no contact form or anything else along those lines, the chances of them spending money with your company have just dropped profoundly. Therefore, tidy up every little issue to make your website possess that authority that all businesses require.
