Your website isn’t just there to look pretty. It has an important purpose; to turn visitors into sales.

The start and end points may differ, but taking users from point A to point B is what every business is trying to do. Doing this successfully requires an in-depth understanding of the ins and outs of website conversion.

So, if you’re looking for proven ways to increase conversion rates, read on:

1. Improve your landing page headline

It's always important to make a good first impression. Even more so when it comes to the headline of your landing page. Don’t forget, if you make a bad first impression, you might never get the chance to fix it.

Legendary copywriter, David Ogilvy said: “On average, five times as many people read the headline as those that read the copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

The better your headline, the more traffic you’ll drive to your pages. Do this and you’ll see your product sales increase.

It’s not about turning headlines into clickbait though, it’s about making them relevant to your target audience.

Ideally, your headline should reveal the benefits a user will get from reading your content. If your visitor gets to your page by clicking on an ad, make sure your headline is similar to the ad to maintain relevance. In turn, it’ll hold their attention and help to build trust.

Most importantly, use your headline to tell visitors how to solve their problems.

Additional Resource:  Have a look at this Outgrow blog about high converting landing pages if you want to know more about increasing conversions.

Quick tip: Add a number to your headline to increase click-rate. Having a number (e.g., 7, 10, 21, 60) in your headline is eye-catching and will generate more clicks.

There are many headline formulas that work, any number of which may be useful for your business.

Try A/B testing your headlines to see what resonates with your particular audience.

By testing headlines and subheadlines, eMove boosted their conversion rate by 67.8% at a 98.7% confidence rate.

This is their first headline which was question-based.

As users weren’t responding well to it, they changed to the following.

(Source: Growthmanifesto)

2. Integrate live chat to engage and nurture prospects

Live chat used to be considered a fancy feature for a website to have. But it’s fast becoming essential if you want to increase your website conversion rate. One of the main reasons prospects leave your website is because they can’t find what they are looking for.

In some cases, they might have questions about your services they need urgent answers to. If the only options your website offers are a contact form or social media, there is a high chance you are losing customers.

The average response time for live chat is 2 minutes. When you consider the likely response times for social media and emails are 10 hours and 17 hours respectively, live chat looks an extremely attractive prospect.

Considering the responsiveness of live chat, many customers actually prefer it. According to an eConsultancy survey, 79% of customers said they prefer live chat support because they can get their questions answered on time.

But that’s not all. Customer satisfaction is higher when live chat is used as a means of customer support, rather than other channels.

In fact, 73% of customers are satisfied with their live chat experience.

One of the biggest benefits of live chat is the boost it gives your sales figures. A report by eMarketer found that 35% more people made a purchase online after using live chat.

Thanks to live chat, HDFC life raised customer satisfaction to 94% and Acquire grew its customer base by 48%.

3. Use a clear and persuasive unique selling point

Why should your prospects conduct business with you rather than your competitors?

Knowing and defining your USP is critical to answering this question.

The first thing you need to be clear about is why your business is unique. Is it price? Is it customer service? Is it product features?

Think about the pain points your product can solve better than any others. Drive this point home to persuade your customers about the uniqueness of your business.

For instance, FedEx states they are fast and reliable. That is their unique selling proposition. So what’s yours?

Bellroy sees their unique selling point as as slimming down customers’ wallets and communicate this clearly to their prospects.

Best Buy uses low prices as their unique selling point. They dare you to ‘Find a lower price and we’ll match it.’

4. Use cobrowsing to quickly solve customer queries

When you combine chat, audio, or video with cobrowsing, it boosts your conversions far more than you would get by using those channels alone. This is because cobrowsing allows you to use visual cues to explain things to your visitors through their screen displays.

You have the power to walk them through exactly what to do, right there in front of them on their screen. This makes it much easier to resolve issues for your customers.

Several small businesses found that combining chat and cobrowsing provided a conversion lift of 69% more than chat alone. They also found that audio and cobrowsing provided a 78% lift while video and cobrowsing provided a 138% lift over chat alone.

5. Use chatbots to answer customer questions at any time

Live chat is fast, but the best way to make sure you answer your users’ queries as quickly as possible is through chatbots.

According to one survey, chatbots are most likely to be used for getting a quick answer in an emergency, resolving a complaint or problem, and getting detailed answers or explanations.

According to the same survey, the biggest benefits of chatbots to your business are that they can provide 24-hour service, customers can get an instant response, and customers can get answers to simple questions.

When Amtrak integrated a Chatbot AI on their website, it answered over 5 million questions in a year, increasing bookings by 25%. Amtrak also generated 30% more revenue on bookings through chatbots, with an 800% ROI.

6. Improve the usability of your site

When visitors find it easy to use your website, it creates a better user experience. Ultimately, that means more conversions for your business. There are lots of ways you can increase the usability of your website:

i). Make your website mobile responsive: These days, a large chunk of web comes from mobile devices. A mobile-responsive website makes sure your mobile visitors don’t miss out on the same great experience as desktop users.

When Offspring made their website mobile-responsive, it improved their mobile site usability score from 60/100 to 100/100 on Google, leading to 15.19% increase in mobile conversion rate and 102.58% increase in mobile revenue.

ii). Use a simple navigation layout: All the important parts of your website must be easily accessible from any other page on your website.

iii). Improve page loading speed: If your website takes too long to load, it could mean users will leave your site, causing a drop in conversions. In fact, according to a survey by KISSmetrics, 40% of shoppers will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

iv). Use personalized triggers: Try sending automated greetings to your visitors in the language of the country they’re visiting from. You could even send a message to returning visitors to welcome them back to the site. After users have spent a set amount of time on your pricing page, engage them in a chat, or send them a special offer.

7. Focus on your key traffic referral source

There are lots of different online traffic sources, but a business site usually gets the majority of its traffic from just a few. For some businesses it’s search engines driving organic traffic, for others, social media networks (such as Facebook).

Using Google Analytics traffic stats, it’s easy to identify your main traffic referral sources.

Once you identify these traffic sources, invest more effort into them. In doing so, you are increasing your chances of scaling traffic.

Neil Patel knew that LinkedIn drives the most engaged users to his blog. By increasing his LinkedIn engagement by 386%, he almost doubled the social media traffic to his blog.

The last word

To provide the best service possible, bring your customers’ needs to the fore. In turn you will improve conversion rates on your website. Use the tips in this guide, and you’ll gain your customers’ trust in no time.