Below are 4 reasons why your website may not be converting.

You don't have enough, or any, Calls to Action (CTAs)

Call to Action are the instructions on your website to your customers telling them what you want them to do next.  CTAs are important because they prompt your visitors to the next step in your sales and marketing process and will push those visitors along to the next stage. 

We consume information on a website differently than we do in a face to face setting. It is predominantly a one way process where we are passively consuming information. When we are talking to someone in person, particularly in a sales setting, we can ask, ‘do you want to buy this’ or ‘let’s book an appointment’.

These questions are called closing in a sales environment and CTAs are your websites’ way of closing the people they are engaging with.

Do not assume that your customers will know what action you will want them to take. Be clear and specific, i.e. ‘Buy Now’, ‘Email us Today’, ‘Call Now’. If your client has to think about what to do next, they probably won’t and will migrate away from your website. Not only does the Call to action on your website need to be clear on what it is you want them to do but it also has to be easy to do it. So make sure your ‘call now’ is linked with a ‘click to call’ function or the ‘buy now’ CTA is linked to that product in your online shop.

Make sure you have many different CTAs on your website strategically placed throughout your website. However, don’t put too many on there as it will be confusing, or worse seen as spamming.

There are too many choices

We all know how overwhelming it can be if we have too many choices. Imagine walking into an artisan coffee shop for the first time and getting asked you whether you wanted a cappuccino, latte, flat white, mocha, then asked you whether you wanted the Colombian, Moroccan, Italian or French blend, then asked whether you wanted full fat, semi skinned, skinny, oat, soya or almond milk! 

When we are presented with too many options it all becomes too much and we all find it difficult to make a decision, even though you may always have a skinny latte. Too many choices results in paralysis and inertia!

It may seem like a great idea to give your website visitors lots of options but all you end up doing is confusing them and making the choice on whether to engage with your website much more dificult.

The problem is exacerbated with websites where there is no one to identify whether your customer is getting overwhelmed, explain or simplify the choices.

Make sure for each call to action on your website there is just have a single clear choice that your customers can take. 

You're not selling on value

Let’s be clear, it doesn't matter how great your website is or what a great job your website designer did building your new website.  Your prospective customers will only proceed or purchase from you it they are getting value. It is your website's job to tell them what value they will be getting, ‘what’s in it for them’! 

That may not always be some financial value such as a discount it could be free advice or tips on how to improve their website traffic or conversion!

Regardless of whether you are trying to sell a chair or convince someone to book a free marketing audit you must sell the value.  Selling value has been the subject of many books and training courses so it is obviously too big a subject to cover in detail in this blog. But at a basic level you need to avoid what are known as ‘so what statements'.

Let’s take the free marketing audit example above. I could tell you that “Overt Digital Media provide a free 50 point marketing audit” to which you could say “so what”. I could then say “it looks at 50 ways you can promote your company or service”. Again “so what” but if I told you that “our free marketing audit will identify 50 ways you can engage with your customers more effectively, win new customers more easily and grow your business quicker and easier”. All of a sudden you can see the value in spending 30 minutes out of your day to take the audit.  By the way if that's something you'd like to do, please contact me to arrange your free marketing audit.

Similarly, if we take the chair example above. I could say “it’s a chair” but you could say “so what” to which I would say “you can sit on it, it is really comfortable” again, “so what” but if I say “I have this chair, it is really comfortable and allows you to rest and recover so that you feel relaxed and will have more energy to do things you want to do for the rest of the day!” All of sudden you can see the value of buying that chair.

Your website isn't mobile friendly.

It is a fact that the majority of website searches are conducted on mobile (54.8% in the first quarter of 2021). If your website isn’t mobile friendly you will find that visitors to your website will move on very quickly and your bounce rate will be high.

Simply put if your website isn’t mobile friendly you need to speak to a web designer and get a new website on a modern platform that is easy to navigate on mobile devices.

The latest generation of websites incorporate Artificial Intelligence that can adapt the design of your website for each user based on their device, the time, number of visits and location. This improves the experience of users making your website much more engaging.

For example if someone was visiting your website on their mobile during your opening hours you could change a Call to Action from ‘Email Us’ to ‘Call Now’. Or if they were near your location rather than ‘Call Us’ it could be ‘Visit Us’ and a map could appear with your location!

Artificial Intelligence has been shown to increase the conversion rate of websites by up to 19% and can become a game changer helping you to significantly grow your business. 

We have been incorporating A.I. into our customers websites for a long time now and we have see massive improvements in their conversion rates.  Often this has resulted in significant growth for our customers.   You can find out more about A.I. websites on our website.

Conclusion

There are many moving parts to a great website.  Not only does it have to have fantastic design and be pleasing to the eye it must also guide your prospective customers along a journey.  To do that you must incorporate several elements which can be summarised as, great design, compelling content, and a clear path to follow.  Fail on any of these and you will be losing business.

Building a website is cheap and easy, building a good website is hard and building a great website is a work of art and it is worth employing a professional web designer to ensure that your website works for you and not the other way round.

About Overt Digital Media

Overt Digital Media are a digital marketing agency based in Christchurch on the edge of The New Forest.  We specialise in website design, mobile Apps and affordable search engine optimisation.

Our websites, mobile apps and SEO services are designed to be affordable for small businesses and to deliver tangible results.  We use the latest technology and platforms and combine that with proactive advice and consultancy for our customers to help them acquire more customers and to grow their business.