If your website metrics are showing a good amount of visitors, but your conversion rate is low, the reasons for it can be directly connected to an ineffective call to action, bad user experience, the site is targeting a broad and wrong audience, it’s unclear to the visitors what you are offering, and the copy isn’t persuasive enough.
The reasons behind low conversion rates can be easily fixed and are usually basic mistakes that most businesses get wrong. You may identify with one or more reasons, and we’ll easily explain below how you can increase your website conversion rate.
Conversion rate tends to be the number one metric used to measure the success of a website or business as it will indicate the percentage of visitors to your website, e-commerce, or landing page that are doing what you indicated and asked them to do.
The most common types of conversation rates can be the purchase of a product or service, subscribing to a newsletter, submitting their contacts, registering on the site, making a download, or anything else your business or website needs. So, to understand the reasons why your conversion rate is low you need to investigate what is stopping the visitors from doing what you want them to.
The overall conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions you had by the total number of visits you had in the time frame you want to see, then multiplying it by 100%, so it’s easy to see what your metrics are. You can also get the conversion rate percentage that a campaign, a specific marketing strategy, or the keywords had as those will give you a more specific look into your strategy and help you shape the website for the future and quickly fix the low conversion rate.
A good conversion rate depends mainly on your website traffic, which niche your business is located in, what you are offering, and the specific strategies you implemented. The average conversion rate is around 2.35%, so most businesses are looking at their metrics and seeing that number. So a way to see if your conversion rate is too low is to compare it with the average.
Top businesses can reach around a 5.30% of conversion rate, but it all depends on the conditions mentioned above. If your metrics haven’t reached this percentage yet, you can make it a target. Double your current conversion rate, try to reach the average first, and then go for the higher percentages.
If right now you’re looking at your metrics and not understanding why your conversation rate is low, we’ll list the possible reasons below and help you fix it fast and easily.
Call to action (CTA) is the content you create to encourage or ask the website visitor to complete the action you want them to do. There are no rules about the right way of doing a good call to action, it just needs to be effective according to the website and the products or services provided. This content can be a small text, a button, an image located on the page or, an image.
The better the call to action the more it’ll convert, so it needs to be attractive, clear, and engaging. Anyone that visits your website needs to look at the call to action, understand what you need from them and do what you ask, so for example, if the call to action on your website is a button the users need to feel the urge to click on it.
The number one reason why the call to action on your website is not converting is because it’s too generic. CTAs that say “sign up”, “start the free trial” or “download now” are not persuasive and can be found on most websites out there.
Visitors won’t feel engaged to do an action if they are tired of seeing the same thing everywhere, they need to feel like what you are offering to them is unique in a way they won’t be able to find it anywhere else.
Another reason for low conversion rates on your call to action is not making it visible as it should. When the visitor opens your website page the CTA needs to be immediately visible and obvious to find. Make your website design with the color and location of the call to action in mind, so it doesn’t get lost in the middle of the page or the content.
Ideally, a good CTA needs to be located at the top in order for all the visitors to see it. Make a few tests, change the color, the text, and the location of your CTA and see which works best.
And the last reason for the bad conversion rate of your CTA is that you’re asking too much from the website visitor or making him feel like doing your call to action is actually a hard task. The visitor will do what you ask when he sees that he’s gaining something instead of doing it. Prefer to use words like “get” or “earn” instead of “give” and “start”.
If you feel like the reason for your low conversion rates is the CTA, check the tips given above, see if any of them apply to your current call to action, and start testing the changes.
If your website is too confusing and the information about the products and services is not clear, then the user experience is not good and the visitors will not stay on the page to read what you have to offer. You’ll lose the visitor and the possible conversion.
Websites are supposed to leave everything clear for the visitors and serve them in the most complete way, or they will close your page and go look for what they need at the competitor’s website.
When designing your website you need to have as a top priority a good user experience — map the user journey inside your website, all the steps he will have to follow, from the moment he opened the first page until completing the call to action, to see how easy and intuitive it is. A good user experience will make the conversion rate increase as satisfied visitors have bigger chances of doing what you ask them to, return to your website to see if there’s more, and even recommend it to friends and family.
If you think that the user experience is the reason why your conversion rates are low, then it’s time to start fixing it. Organize a visitor journey map, go through your website the same way a visitor would, and see what would stop you from completing the call to action. Ensure that all the buttons are well located, the instructions are clear and every step is well detailed. Leave no room for possible doubts.
One potential reason why your conversion rate is low is because you’re trying to target a broad audience or the wrong one.
One of the first things you need to understand before creating your website and offering your products or services is who is your audience. Who are the people that will use your product, where do they live, what’s their online behavior, where they spend most time online, how do they like to purchase things, what are the things they search the most, how much they are willing to spend, and so on. With this information in hand you will design a good user experience and create an engaging and effective call to action.
But what happens if you are targeting the wrong people? You’ll not connect with the audience, they won’t feel the need to purchase your product or service, and you’ll lose the possibility of turning visitors into customers. The message you create needs to speak with your audience, they need to feel like you understand their problems and is offering a solution. Speak that message to the wrong people, and they’ll not understand or care about it.
Develop a strategy with your possible customer in mind and narrow the entire content for him. This visitor needs to open your website and connect with what you have to offer, this is the person that will convert at the end.
The data is available for you to research and there are specialized agencies that will help you not only research your target audience, but also create a buyer persona — a buyer persona is a fictional persona created with the exact characteristics of your ideal target audience in order to understand how they behave and what their needs are.
Target the right audience, speak to the right people and see how your conversion rate will start to increase. These people will be the ones doing what you want them to.
If your website visitor can’t understand what you are offering, what solutions you provide or what you sell, he won’t be able to purchase your product and service or complete the call to action. At the end, they will go look for competitors that makes it very clear what they are offering.
The information about who you are and what solutions you are providing for the visitors needs to be clear and succinct, but without being too vague to avoid possible questions about your business. Ensure that all the useful information is well located and easy to understand.
If being too vague or unclear is the reason why your conversion rate is low, you can start fixing it by creating a Unique Value Proposition (UVP). The UVP is a simple statement that will describe very clearly what you offer, what are the benefits of this thing you are offering, how it’ll help solve the problems that your target audience has, and how you are better than the competition. The Unique Value Proposition should be highlighted and always appear first on your website, campaigns and newsletters.
To start your UVP you need to first assign a few things about your product or service. Start by thinking about the value you can bring to the customer and why is this value so unique. Then address why what you have to offer is better than what the competition has to offer.
If you are selling products, ensure that all their specifications are included on the website with unique descriptions and high-quality images. If you are offering a service describe everything that the service provides and what the user will receive if he purchases it.
A user with questions and doubts will not make the decision to complete your call to action and do what you want him to. Vague and unclear websites are one of the main reasons why your conversions are getting lower or not increasing. Start fixing it, and you’ll see the improvements.
A good call to action will only work if you were persuasive enough to convince the website visitor to do it. And to be convincing you’ll need to have a high-quality and persuasive copy that attracts the visitor, engage him, and make him complete the action you want.
The copy will embrace all the other reasons that were already listed above, but specially the CTA, the target audience, and the UVP. If your website copy is bad, then it wasn’t written to the right audience, the call to action won’t work and the UVP will not be enough.
To be persuasive you need to describe or address the problem that your visitor has and show him clearly that you can solve his problem. And to do that you need to again make sure that you know your target audience. Knowing who you are trying to convince is the only way to be specific on what this person needs, speak on terms he understands, and communicate the right message.
Your website copy also needs to tell a story. Being persuasive is not enough, you need to share with the visitor that you know about his problem, explain elements of it, and then offer the solution. The copy needs a good start, a well developed middle, and an end that will show the visitor that you’ll help him go through his problem or issue.
But something that people tend to overlook when creating a copy is that users are already aware that websites are all the time trying to sell them things, so if the copy isn’t interesting to the user, he’ll not even bother to read it. Try to make it look less like an advertisement and more like a story with a casual tone that will sound like a conversation.
To fix your website copy and increase your conversion rate you can start by applying the AIDA formula. This formula means Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Basically, the copy needs to follow a journey in order to be successful. This formula always generates incredible results and is super simple to apply.
There’s no right answer when it comes to a good conversion rate. Of course, you want to be better than the average and have a successful business. If your conversion rates are low, the reasons can be easily investigated and fixed.
To fix low conversion rate you’ll need to make tests and see what works. It’s the type of thing that a small change can create a huge impact, so sometimes just changing the color of the CTA button can make the conversion rate increase exponentially.
Focus on making one or two changes at a time, make slight modifications on your strategy if needed, and then observe the metrics to see the results.
Never settle for anything, everyone is looking for better ways to increase their conversion rates and generate growth in their business, and so should you.
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