You’ve conceptualized your business, built a website, done everything necessary, and even started operations, but somehow you’re getting very poor website conversion – business is very poor. Yes, we are focused on your website because if you’re like most businesses, your website is an important part of your marketing strategy.
But for all the time and energy you put into getting it up and running, are you getting the results you want?
Of course, this shouldn’t happen in theory with all you’ve done, there’s no reason your website shouldn’t be turning every visitor into a customer. You’ve put in the time and effort into creating a website that you’re proud of, after all! But if your site isn’t generating the results you want, it may not be that visitors don’t like what they see—it could be that they’re just not seeing it at all.
There are several reasons that your website might be failing to convert, and it will take a concerted effort to fix them all. But don’t worry—we’ve got everything covered in this article, check out our breakdown of some of the most common causes of poor website conversion rates and how to fix them:
The 2 Reasons for Poor Website Conversion
If your website is struggling to convert visitors into leads, there’s a good chance that you’re failing in one or both of these aspects;
- Technical area
- Non-technical area
1. Technical Reasons
These are reasons that have to do with the site structure and architecture. Some of them include;
Poor design and User Experience
When users land on your site, they should feel like they’ve arrived at the right place immediately. Poor design, confusing navigation, and broken links all contribute to a poor user experience, which leads to visitors bouncing off of your site before they have even made a purchase!
Poor design can be the result of a lack of knowledge or experience, but it’s also possible that the designer just didn’t care to put in the work. Either way, it means that your website isn’t converting as well as it could be.
Aside from poor designs, broken links can be a contributory factor to poor conversions on your website. Links can be broken and sometimes lead users over to some strange places (like 404 error pages), this can be very frustrating and cause your visitors to leave your website when they cannot find what they are looking for. It is important to check your links regularly to ensure they’re working properly.
If you don’t have time or budget for a redesign or maintenance of your website, don’t despair. You can still make some simple changes on your current site that will increase conversions and get you more leads without having to hire new designers or pay for outside help. Let’s explore a bit further to see how you can fix all of these.
A mobile-unfriendly site
One of the biggest reasons why your website has poor conversion is because it’s not mobile-friendly. Most of us use our phones to surf the web these days, and if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’re going to lose a lot of potential customers.
According to Google, 52% of smartphone users make purchases on their phones while they’re out in public (and another 14% do so using their tablets). That’s nearly two-thirds of all smartphone users spending money! But only 33% do so on desktop computers. So if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices (which I’m sure it isn’t), then you’re missing out on most of your customers’ online buying habits.
An Unresponsive Website
If your website is not responsive, it can be a major turnoff for visitors. No matter what device or browser they are using, you want them to have a seamless experience on your website. Anything that causes an error or glitch in the process of browsing and purchasing will only frustrate them and make them leave quickly. You don’t want this! You need to make sure that your website works with all devices, browsers, operating systems, and networks so that everyone has the same experience when viewing it.
Poor Site Speed Optimization
The average load time for websites is about 2 seconds; anything longer than that can make people lose interest before they even look at what’s inside! While there are plenty of tools out there that can help speed up your site’s loading time (like Wp-Optimize for a WordPress website), sometimes all it takes is making sure everything loads quickly when someone visits it—and then making sure they never have to wait. You can achieve this by getting your web developer to use only relevant text, images, and videos on the website, and also to optimize the site speed.
2. Non-Technical Reasons
While there are technical reasons for the poor conversion rate of your website, there are also non-technical reasons for this. They include;
Poor content quality
The most obvious reason that your website has poor conversion is a lack of good content. If people don’t find what they’re looking for on your site, they’re not going to convert. This can be fixed by improving the product descriptions and making sure that your copy is clear and easy to understand.
If people land on your site but don’t stick around long enough to convert into customers or subscribers, it’s probably because the content isn’t engaging or helpful enough for them. This could be due to poor writing or lack of information; make sure that whatever content you’re pushing has been thoroughly researched before publishing so that everything on it is accurate and useful!
Lack of social proof
Another reason that your website might not be converting well is that it doesn’t have any social proof to back up its claims, which leads customers to question whether or not what you’re saying is true (and if so, why would anyone else believe it?).
People want to know that other people like what they’re buying before they buy it themselves. Social proof can come in many forms: reviews from real customers who have bought from you before; testimonials from satisfied clients; an endorsement by a third party like a well-known blogger or magazine; or even celebrity endorsements if you have them available.
If people don’t trust that they can trust your product or service, then why should they give their money over to you? It’s as simple as that! Make sure that every aspect of your business is trustworthy and this should reflect on your website too so that customers never doubt their decision to buy from you!
Missing or incorrect contact information
Your contact information is a critical piece of your website. It’s what people will use when they want to talk to you about your product or service. You need to make it obvious and easy for them to get in touch with you, so be sure that this information is clear, easy to find, and easy to understand.
In a case of change in an email address, physical address, phone number, etc. make sure to reflect the new and correct information on the website so that your visitors can easily reach you when they need to. This also builds their trust in you and what you say on your website.
Complex forms
If you’re asking people to fill out a form and then sending them to another page, make sure it’s as short as possible.
If the form is too long or if it asks for more information than necessary, people will get frustrated and leave. Instead of making your customers jump through hoops before they can buy from you, keep things simple and make sure that their experience isn’t filled with any unnecessary steps.
Too many choices and calls to action, or none at all
You’ve probably heard the phrase “less is more.” It’s a good rule to follow when it comes to making your website more effective. If people have too many choices, they’ll get overwhelmed and give up.
If there are too many calls to action on your site or if they’re divergent (such as asking visitors to subscribe via email or Facebook), you’ll lose out on potentially valuable user information.
Too many colors can make your site look busy and distract visitors from their main task at hand—converting! Keep it simple with a clean layout that ensures easy navigation between pages and allows users to easily find what they’re looking for.
Knowing the Conversion Rate of Your Website
Your website needs to be optimized for conversions to succeed in today’s competitive landscape. But how do you know if your site is working as it should?
You could rely on gut instinct or guesswork—but that kind of approach would be a huge mistake. Instead, try these three key steps to improve your site’s conversion rates:
Step 1: Find out what percentage of visitors are converting to your site by looking at Google Analytics. This will give you an idea of how well your marketing efforts are working.
Step 2: Look at what percentage of those people who convert have done so within the first 30 days after they first visited your site. This will tell you whether or not they were likely just browsing or looking for something specific.
Step 3: Look at what percentage of people who don’t convert have done so within the first 30 days after their first visit to your site (this will help determine whether there are any problems with user experience).
Identify where people are dropping off. It might sound obvious, but it’s important not only to identify what content isn’t being read by visitors but also why they aren’t reading it. Are they leaving too soon? Do they click away from certain pages too quickly? Is there something preventing them from reading further? If so, then there’s room for improvement!
Use heatmaps to see what they’re clicking on. Heatmaps show where visitors are clicking on your page—and whether those clicks are leading somewhere useful or not
All of these will show you whether you need to rework your website, and what areas of your website you need to be working on – the technical or non-technical aspect.
In Conclusion
With a carefully designed site, you can convert more visitors into customers. A good design is not just about looks. It’s also about functionality. For example, a well-designed website will help people find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, which makes it easier to convert them into customers.
Design is about how people interact with your site (and therefore how they use your site to convert). It’s also important that the design is consistent across all of your pages and channels—this helps build trust with potential customers who may be unsure whether or not they want to give up their email address or sign up for an account on your website at first glance.
For all of these things to happen, you have to know your customers. If you don’t know who your customer is, how can you make sure that your website meets their needs? It all starts with knowing who they are and what they want and then designing a site that speaks directly to them. If you’re struggling with this one, try taking some time out of your day to do some research—it’ll pay off in the long run!
In this article, we covered some of the most common reasons why conversion rates are low. We also discussed why some sites convert better than others and how you can increase your own site’s conversion rate. The key is to audit your current website and make changes based on what you find. Look at the content, design, and functionality of your website as objectively as possible to determine what is working well and what isn’t working so well. You can get website professionals like Effe Towers to audit your website and show you areas where you need to improve to boost your conversion rate.
