All the off-site link building in the world doesn’t mean anything if your site doesn’t convert the targeted traffic being delivered to your site. At the end of the day it is your site that is going to convince a visitor to act. If your site isn’t seeing an increase conversion rate like you had hoped, consider making these three changes:
Break up blocks of content
Ever heard the phrase “too long, didn’t read?” It means that someone found a piece of content (blog, article, webpage, etc) but didn’t bother to actually read the whole thing because it looked like it was too long to bother. Huge blocks of text can be very intimidating to your visitors, and it may turn them off from further exploring your site. It’s also a lot harder to find the one piece of information you’re looking for when you have to scroll through a dozen paragraphs before you get to it.
To keep your website from scaring visitors away at first glance, break up your big blocks of text into more manageable bullet lists, headlines and sub-headers, shorter paragraphs or even create new pages if need be. I’m not saying that you have to sacrifice all of your long content for 140 character (tweet sized) lines, but recognize that there is a way to have long form content without it reading like long form content. If you’re looking for some good examples, Copyblogger.com puts out some really great, juicy content that is still easy to read through.
Include prominent call-to-actions
If you check out the Brick Marketing site, on every page you’ll see these big yellow banners placed throughout the content. These are my call-to-action buttons. First off, they are easy to spot. I incorporate them above and below the “fold” of each page so that visitors to the site always know what I want them to do next. Consistent repetition is important! Secondly, the banners are clickable, making it easy for someone to actually complete the action I am asking them to do.
You want to lead your visitor down a predetermined path of conversion once they arrive on your site. There is a lot of noise that could potentially distract them or pull them away from your site, so you want to make the conversion process as simple as possible. How can you simplify a three click conversion process into one click? It’s the same reason you include social share buttons on your site instead of asking them to login on Facebook and then share your content; make it that much easier for your visitors to act.
Reorganize high level navigation tabs
A good rule of thumb is that it should never take more than 3 clicks for a visitor to get from your homepage to any internal page of your website. This flattened site architecture helps with the overall user-experience, making it easier for them to get where they want to go. It also can help increase your conversion rate because it’s harder for your visitors to get lost along the way. You can’t give visitors so many options that they don’t know where to go next. Don’t turn your website into a “choose your own adventure” book! By reorganizing your high level navigation, you make it easier for visitors to maneuver around your site; they don’t have to backtrack through your site to find a new page.
