3 insanely easy ways to convert more website visitors into customers

“Having a website in 2021 isn’t that important,” said no one ever.

Every small business owner has agonized over their website at some point or the other. The issue isn’t that we don’t recognize a need for a website: the issue is how to attract people to the dang thing and keep them on it!

Website design is so much more than coding, choosing the right Squarespace template, or setting up your Shopify website. There’s more to it than just customizing your fonts, adding image tags, or even optimizing your SEO.

While all these things are important, in order for a website to convert (because let’s be real, that’s what we’re trying to do here…) it has to start with brand experience.

But what exactly is your brand experience, and how can you harness this magical superpower to create a website that converts more sales?

It’s actually insanely easy.

Let’s dive into these 3 insanely easy ways to increase your website’s conversion rate.

1. Increase your website conversion rate by making it insanely easy for your visitors to purchase from you

Often, small business owners make purchasing or booking their services really, really hard for their website visitors.

We tend to lay it all out on the table, showcasing everything we have to offer, but never asking for the sale! We don’t want to be pushy, we say; we don’t want to be annoying; we don’t want to be “salesy.”

But before you start adding more “Shop now” buttons everywhere, first you need to start with your website design strategy.

The most “salesy” website won’t convert if it’s not designed strategically.

Get crystal-clear on what exactly you’re offering on your website (if you read our latest post, this is the first of the three Branding W’s) and what’s most important for your website visitors to know.

The purpose of your website isn’t to get people to browse. It’s to get them to purchase. It’s to ask for the sale, make it clear which sale you’re asking for, and make it easy for them to snag that amazing deal you’re offering them.

Your website design needs to be the guide, leading the user clearly and confidently to the desired outcome.

If you have an ecommerce website such as Shopify, how can you organize your products or collections so that it’s insanely easy to browse? How can you direct the flow of traffic on your homepage so that it’s insanely easy to click “Shop now”?

If you’re offering services through a content-driven website such as Squarespace, how can make your big-ticket offer insanely clear? Then, how can you make your other offers on your value ladder insanely tempting? 

A critical component of making it insanely easy for visitors to purchase is letting them know why your offerings should matter to them.

Why should they click that “buy” button? What exactly is this product or service going to do for them? What is the deeper need it will fill, problem it will solve, future aspiration it will secure?

The answers to these questions begin with your brand strategy, which maps out all the offerings you have, which ones are most important, and why they make a difference to your customers.

This will then give you the brand messaging you need to make it insanely easy for them to see your offerings as more than a commodity, as something that serves a greater role in their life.

2. Increase your website conversion rate by making it insanely clear that your website visitors are in the right place

Part of your website’s role as the guide ushering your website visitors to the desired outcome is letting them know they’re in the right place.

But who exactly is in the right place on your website? This is where you have to get crystal clear on who your target audience is. And no, “everyone” is not an answer.

Who exactly are your products meant for? What problems do your services resolve for your clients? How will your audience find a sense of fulfillment, a better life, community, or just an easy solution to a bothersome problem through your offerings? And who exactly are these offerings even meant for?

By nailing down exactly who your target audience is, and more importantly than being able to describe them, articulating what specifically they’re searching for on an emotional, intellectual, and philosophical level, you’ll have the tools in hand to speak directly to those website visitors and reassuring them they’re in the right place.

The most visually-appealing website won’t convert if its visitors don’t feel they’re in the right place.

Ensure your website copy is written using your brand messaging for your target audience’s specific problems and makes it super clear that they are in the right place; that you see their needs, hopes, dreams; and that your website is the right place for them to be.

But what if you have multiple offerings for potentially multiple audiences?

If you’re building a branded house—a single brand that has multiple entities that are all related to one another—make sure that the user flow through your website keeps these channels crystal-clear. Consider having two side-by-side buttons on your homepage, letting your audience know that if they’re looking for offering #1, they should click here, or if they’re looking for offering #2, they should click there.

If you’re building a house of brands—a collective of mostly or entirely unrelated brands—you’ll provide your website visitors with a better experience if you can separate your offerings into a website for each target audience. If the audience for offering #1 will probably never be the same audience as those intended for offering #2, break them off and simply link back to one another if you really need to tie them together in some way.

Making it insanely easy for your website visitors to convert into customers starts with letting them know that they are exactly where they need to be.

Once again, this begins with—you guessed it!—your brand strategy. Whether you’re building a branded house or a house of brands is a larger question that takes into consideration your brand’s vision for the future, your brand mission, brand purpose, brand positioning, target audience, and much more. 

3. Increase your website conversion rate by making it insanely hard for visitors to want to leave your website

One of the biggest issues small business owners face with their website is the dreaded bounce rate, which is the rate at which visitors land on your website and then immediately bail on out of there.

Attracting visitors to your website is one thing: keeping them there is another.

There are a lot of ways to decrease your bounce rate—which means people move through multiple pages of your website before leaving instead of jumping ship after the first few seconds—but a beautiful, strategic website experience is one of the best ways to address this.

Let’s get clear on one thing first:

The most beautifully-designed website won’t convert if it’s not designed strategically.

Having said that, however, the experience they have on your strategically-designed website is still important.

The ease with which you direct your visitors through the content on your website increases the chances they’ll stay longer, which increases their familiarity with your brand, their trust in your brand, and their likelihood of purchasing from your brand.

Wireframe the content on your website, mapping out what information you need to live where, and how to make it insanely easy for people to get where they want to go while also binging on all of the content you have to offer them. You don’t have to make this hard on yourself: a pencil and paper will do just fine.

Ensure your content is clearly-organized, labeled, accessible, and that every page is leading them somewhere else: to another page, or ideally, to the desired outcome we talked about in step #1 above.

Ensuring your website copy is written in your brand voice and using your brand messaging to speak to the problems you solve for your audience and why your offerings matter to them is another key component to keeping a visitor on your website for longer and an easy way to decrease your website bounce rate.

But keep in mind that the less you say, the more they’ll stay. Websites are visual mediums, and if you present too much information at once, you’ll likely overwhelm your visitors and send them scrambling to a website that requires much less mental gymnastics to decipher.

The brand experience someone has on your website is also a critical factor: giving them a beautifully-designed experience that reflects the quality of your offerings and encourages them to continue reading more of that brand-messaging-goodness. Consider how you want them to feel when they land on your website homepage; consider how to use visual elements to present a professional, clean experience that’s easy on the eyes and the brain; consider how you want the quality of your website to reflect the quality of your offerings.

Your website isn’t just a way for your customers to purchase from you: it’s a digital brand experience.

It’s the first place they’ll come looking for you, and the place where they’ll spend the longest before making a purchasing decision. The way it makes them feel draws them in, and the way it looks gives them clues to the quality of your offerings.

It’s worth the investment to make sure you’re giving your website visitors a digital experience that will leave them wanting more.

So, by focusing on the experience you offer your website visitors and ensuring your website is strategically-designed to communicate what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters to them, your website should convert more visitors into customers insanely easily.