How Small Businesses Can Increase Website Conversion Rate – Tips for Entrepreneurs

Driving traffic to your website is one thing, but turning visitors to customers is another and this is equally as important as the traffic you get. Why? Yes, because online traffic to your site does not necessarily determine how successful your business website is doing. Don’t get it wrong, this does not mean that the size of the traffic to your website does not need to increase where necessary. However, if the number of visitors to your site continues to grow without a reasonable corresponding increase in the number of people buying your product or patronizing you in one form or another as expected, then there is a problem.


Enter conversion rate

This is what conversion rate is all about. It is an index that tells you how many people are patronizing you out of the total number that visits your site. Simply put this term refers to the number of potential clients carrying out the desired or expected action that leads to patronage, whether that action is completing a form or purchasing a product. It is usually expressed as a percentage (%) of the total number of visitors to a website or web-page within a given period. That is

Conversion rate =     Number of Visitors performing required action X 100
         Total number of Visitors                 1

Increasing conversion rate

So how can small business entrepreneurs increase the conversion rate on their websites? Really taking complete advantage of the total number of visitors to your website as an entrepreneur can have a tremendous impact on your business. To achieve this may require including offering(s) or changes to your website that works. Whatever the case what this truly means is being all that a potential client wants. Yes indeed there are a number of ways through which conversion rate increase can be achieved. Now below are some of the tips that have been included here to help you in achieving this. They include:

1.    Increase conversion by reducing online steps involved to carry out the required action

Research has revealed that one reason a lot of people do not complete the process of buying a product online is due to the cumbersome nature of filling out forms involved with this process. This means that reducing the number of steps or clicks involved in completing payment or the required action will most likely see your conversation rate improving.

2.     Include different payment options in order to improve conversion

Having just one or a few payment options can also affect your conversion rate. If you cannot include several payment options, then consider including only a few of the more popular payment options to see your conversion rate soar.

3.    Provide a crystal clear returns policy     

Be very clear about your returns policy. In fact, you should always make it a habit to provide all your information in a very straightforward and easily understandable manner. The point here for every small business entrepreneur that wishes to win their customers over is put themselves in their customers’ shoes. In other words, ask yourself if the information you are passing out here as well as in other important areas of your site will be clearly understood by your prospective clients.

4.    Be ready to change and test to find out what works

Optimizing your website to achieve greater conversion rate will involve making some changes regarding images, colors, calls to action, content and what have you. For instance, replacing an image with a padlock image on a site that deals with offering service where security is of utmost importance has been known to increase conversion rate. Nevertheless, be prepared to always test your result with what obtained prior to when changes were made to see if there is truly a difference.

Author Byline
Jason Phillips is author of the post. He is a businessman with strong acumen and business knowledge. see here to explore more about him