No doubt one of your goals for 2010 is to make more money from your website, but question is how? One option is to double or triple your website traffic (assuming it’s of the right variety) or to try and convert more of your visitors into customers (aka conversion rate). If you’ve heard the term ‘conversion rate’ during 2009, expect to hear it even more in 2010. Assuming you’re looking to increase your conversion rate to meet your 2010 goals and impress your boss here are 15 tried and tested tips.

15 Tried and Tested Tips To Increase Online Conversion Rates:

1. Make sure you’re still relevant – Use Google Trends and your historical information to make absolutely sure the products you’re offering are still popular with market demand. If your competitors offer new products by RSS, by all means sign up. They might be onto something.

2. Stay competitive – Price match your products vs. your top competitors. It’s very easy to loose track and miss their price reductions.

3. Keep delivery charges to a minimum – Now that you’ve made certain your prices are competitive, don’t mess this up by overcharging for delivery. Reduce your delivery charges to the lowest rate you can, this plays a huge role in the buying process.

4. Offer a search functionality – Large numbers of visitors will start their buying process by using a search functionality. If your shopping cart doesn’t have a search functionality upgrade now, consider embedding Google Custom Search or Free Find.

5. Pay close attention to error pages – Error pages are a sure fire way to miss out on potential sales. Track your error page in your favorite web analytics software and fix these pages as soon as possible. If you’re using Google Analytics it’s a breeze to track them.

6. Custom build your error pages – Ok, some error pages are well beyond your control, but still you can turn this into an opportunity. Don’t just say ‘the page cannot be found’. Offer a search functionality on the page and direct links to your top sellers.

7. Fine tune onsite navigation – Without getting into complex site structure issues, try and place your top sellers one click away from your landing pages (i.e. home page or category page). If you’re struggling to visualize how it should look, try the free wire frame tool from mockingbird.

8. Capture warning messages – Warning messages vary from ‘product out of stock’ to a ‘missing field in the registration process’ (which we’ll get to in a minute) and might reveal potential problems.

9. Make the checkout process short – Size matters when it comes to converting visitors to customers. If your site has a lengthy checkout process you’re asking for trouble. Capture only the most relevant fields needed to complete the purchase because you can always follow up later and ask for more details.

10. Try a guest checkout process – Many customers will tell you, they’re tired from opening another account and having to remember another username / password. Offer a one page checkout process which captures the customer details, but does not open an account. You’ll make yourself more attractive to a lot of people I know.

11. Offer alternative checkout gateways – There’s a lot to be said for using the likes of PayPal and Google Checkout. Putting their fees aside for a moment, there are a lot of customers who are more likely to pay like this vs. giving their credit card details to a site they have never heard of.

12. Look credible, add a physical address – Visitors are always looking for reassurances you’re a genuine site. Adding your physical address is a sign that you’re a credible seller and here to stay.

13. Visibly show terms and conditions – The goal of showing terms and conditions or a privacy policy is to eliminate any doubt in the buying process. Your visitors might not read it, but nowadays it’s a hot topic so make sure you’ve got one.

14. Communicate with visitors through different channels – Some visitors might want to talk on the phone, some might want to chat online and some consider Twitter as their communication line to you. Visitors who take the time to communicate could very well turn into customers. Cater to as many communication channels as you can and prioritize your response.

15. Always test – You might find some of my tips useful or you might have some of your own. An important tip is to carefully test changes you’ve made using various tools from analytics software, to user session capture and a/b testing software.

What are your tips to increase online conversion rate?

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Guest post by Michelle Strassburg who is the co-founder of oak flooring store Wood and Beyond. Michelle has many years experience managing online sales and is an active blogger.

Posted under Online Marketing

Remember that old saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover!” Well you can forget about it! I regret to inform the world that when it comes to business, first impressions are everything.

First Impression: In the Blink Of An Eye!

First time visitors to your website have very little time to spare. The initial impression will be formed in the span of 2-5 seconds. According to Canadian Researchers, “Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second).” (1) Don’t believe me? This theory was tested by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard at Carleton University in Ontario. Their conclusion supported the following:

“Even though your site may have superior products, services, or usability, an initial negative impression from a poor or slow design can steer customers towards your competition. You only get one chance to create a good first impression, make it count. A clean, professional, and fast-loading site can ensure that your first impression will be a good one.” (2)

If you’ve managed to make it past the 1 second mark, congratulations! You have now entered the “pitch” zone. Comparable to a sales call, you have about 5-10 seconds to make your initial impression to gain their interest.

Make Their First Time Online A Memorable One

Assume, for a minute, that your website visitors have never used the internet before. They come to your website and immediately, they are presented with flashing images, endless menu’s, buttons, content and more. It’s like driving cross country without a map – you’ll get lost and even worse, won’t ever bother making the trip.

Many web development companies pride themselves on flashy, colorful websites…but remember, your visitor came to the site for a reason and it’s your job to make it as easy as possible for them. Web presence doesn’t have to be expensive in order to be effective. Millions of small businesses are getting ripped off by expensive agencies that don’t even deliver effective results.

The best way to get results is to simply ask friends and family for their opinion. Want a specific demographic to test it out? Put up an ad in Craig’s List and if need be, offer an incentive. 2009-2010 is all about gaining the user’s opinion and putting it in to play. Once you get enough feedback, use that information to implement the necessary changes. Now it’s time to sit back and wait. Your visitor will either stick around or bounce…

The “EVIL” Bounce Rate

Bounce rate simply represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. “Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.” (3) Relevant…or attractive! If you operate a site where users can find what they want immediately on the entry page, then this doesn’t apply. To find you’re bounce-rate, contact your web-master or consider using free analytics software, Google Analytics.

Google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik has stated: “It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying.” If you’re above 50%, then chances are, your first impression could use a make-over.

80% of Your Sales Come From 20% of Your Clients

YES, first impressions are everything, BUT…how you follow up with your first impression is just as, (if not more) important….and To best illustrate what I mean, let me refer you over to Timothy Ferriss’s “The 4- Hour Workweek“. In this book, he refers to the Pareto Principle, aka: The 80/20 rule.  This rule states that “for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”. Among the many ways Tim applies this rule, he refers to a common rule of thumb in business: “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.” In most cases, this is due to either big sales or residual/repeat customers. See what I’m getting at?

Customer Service is key. The businesses that spend millions on marketing, but lack customer service are comparable to Bug Zapper. They draw in their customers and immediately burn them. (It may be a weak comparison…but I like how it sounds!) The best way for you to figure out what your customers want is…yep, you guessed it…ASK THEM! Surveys, questionnaire’s, poll’s, website comments, etc. Give them what they want and they’ll keep coming back for more.

This article continues here: Problem Areas: Room For Improvement…

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Article By: Joshua Russak | FirstTimeOnline, LLC.

With over 2 years of Web Development and Online Marketing experince, Joshua finds himself very passionate about the interactive space. Due to high levels of demand, he founded First Time Online LLC, a Web Design/Marketing agency helping Small Business break into the online space. Joshua is also a passionate blogger, writing for MarketingBlog.NET, providing Tips, News & Entertainment covering the Online Space.

Posted under Online Marketing, web design