Driving more traffic to your website is only the first step in the direction of making more profit. Once you have website visitors, you need to convert them. Increasing your conversion rate is one way to make more money from the same marketing & advertising spend and which business owner doesn’t want to increase profits?
TL;DR
Make your offer clear
When I visit your website as a stranger, can I clearly see what it is that you do, who you provide your services for, what you charge and what the likely results will be?
The top space on your home page is prime real estate. Yet every second website has a big splashy hero image and sometimes these images are stock photos that bear absolutely no relation to what it is that you do!
Often there is also a marketing schmarketing message taking up that space. I don’t care about the fancy things you want to say about your business. I want to know what you can do for me. I’m often accused of calling a spade a spade but it works for conversion so tell me what I need to know.
E.g.
“We specialise in providing holistic, synergistic approaches to environmental stewardship and corporate social responsibility. Our team of experts leverages cutting-edge methodologies in life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprint analysis, and environmental impact mitigation to help organizations navigate the complexities of sustainable development.”
Vs
“We help companies take care of the environment and be socially responsible. Our team uses the latest methods to assess how products affect the environment, measure carbon emissions, and reduce environmental harm.”
Love it!
Before we move on to niching, please please please add pricing to your offer so that people know if they can afford your service. A consumer or business owner will likely have an approximate budget in mind. Even if this is not realistic! They will be less likely to enquire about a service that they are not sure is affordable.
Pricing can be indicative, which is especially useful when the service can be tailored to a particular client e.g. our services start from £x per month or £x per hour. They can be a range or a series of packages to choose from with different features.
The bonus for you as a business owner is that indicating your pricing structure can eliminate time wasters.
Differentiate from competitors
A lot has been written about niching and competitor analysis. Where this matters is when a person is on your website and trying to make a decision about whether to make that phone call. The question you need to think about when you put yourself in their shoes is ‘Why should I buy from you and not your competitor whose website I have just been on or will be visiting next?’
Things that don’t differentiate you:
- Quality – people expect excellent quality
- Service – people expect good service
- Innovative – this is so overused – qualify what makes it special
Things that do differentiate you:
- Verifiable ratings or certifications – do you have a measurable rating or certification that you can use in advertising and can prove? E.g. The Good Care Group say ‘We’re in the top 5% of care providers in the UK’ with an outstanding rating by the CQC
- Guarantees or warranties – can you offer a reassuring guarantee that your service is reliable? E.g. Domino’s Pizza takeaways offer fresh hot pizza delivered within 30 minutes or your money back.
Case studies and reviews
Case studies and reviews demonstrate to your website visitor that you have provided the service before to people or businesses like theirs and you have got them results.
Anonymous reviews are not as powerful as reviews that feature real people. Clearly this can be an issue where the service is of a sensitive nature e.g. health clinics. Always seek permission to use people’s details and reviews.
Case studies help to show the kind of work that was done and what the end results were for the client. Service based businesses can use case studies to outline the way they work, the process they use, and what they actually do. Again this lends to clarity for the visitor.
Make it easy to contact you
People are impatient, especially online. Every extra second it takes for your website to load loses you 10% of your traffic (approximately). The same principle applies when they are looking for pricing and ways to contact you.
Make sure there is a clear and easy to find way to contact you on your website. It is one of the easiest and quickest ways to increase conversions. Preferably include multiple ways to contact you.
Different generations of people chose different methods of contact. Gen Z hates talking on the phone, so they are less likely to choose to call. The older generations prefer to pick up the phone and are less familiar with newer technology. Millennials love live chat. Something to do with the expectation of instant service even outside of standard office hours.
I’ve had great results from live chat, even when it defaults to email outside of office hours. It is easy to use, quick and usually only requires two fields filled in (whereas the average contact form requires 3-4 fields or more).
How to increase conversions
As you can see it is not actually that hard to increase your conversion rate on a service based business website. It’s not difficult to do and it is a no brainer for a business owner. Who would not want to increase enquiries and profits? Not me.
Make a clear offer to your audience. Focus on the benefits to them and try to avoid jargon. Indicate a price for your service offering. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Provide proof that you have worked for similar people or businesses with good results.
And finally, make it easy for people to contact you, offering them multiple ways to do so.
If you need help, let’s talk.
