How to Sell More on the Internet by Increasing Your Website Conversion Rate

No matter how good you get at driving traffic to your website, all your efforts are wasted if that increase in traffic does not help you sell more on the internet.

The key to selling more online is getting your website visitors to take action (e.g. by making a purchase or by signing up for a newsletter). That’s called a “conversion” and, as a business owner, you want as many conversions as you can get.

Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink (gotta’ love those metaphors!). Driving your visitors to take the right action at the right time can be tricky and takes patience. To encourage conversions, you need to include the right “calls to action” (e.g. “Buy Now” or “Subscribe Now”) in the right places on your site.

Happily, when it comes to increasing the number of conversions you get on your website, there are a ton of tips, tricks and approaches for you to use. Whether you’re trying to make a sale or collect e-mail addresses, the information you’ll find in the posts below can help you achieve your goals.

Enjoy and, if you have a favorite way to convert your website visitors and sell more on the internet, please share it with us in the “Speak Your Mind” section below.

How to Sell More on the Internet by Increasing Your Website Conversion Rate

Tracking, and Reporting On, Visitor Behavior

The first step in increasing your website’s conversion rate is to set up a way to learn what visitors are actually doing on your site.

Having this information helps you both figure out where you need to make changes and measure the effectiveness of any changes you make.

Luckily, there are plenty of great online solutions that can gather and report site visitor information to you. Best of all, most require little-to-no tech skills to use.

•  15 tools that reveal why people abandon your website – a great post on how to track your website visitors!
• 4 Free Tools To Increase Your Website Conversions
• CEM: 5 Great Tools for Tracking Online Visitor Behavior
• 8 Free Tools For Live Website Visitor Tracking

General Tips

These posts cover website conversion how-tos from all angles, from the basics to more advanced approaches. Lots of ideas and inspiration in here!

• 8 Tips to Boost Your Business Website’s Conversion Rate
• 9 Keys to Increase Website Conversion Rate and Turn Visitors into Customers
• The Ultimate Guide to Increasing Blog Conversion Rates – love the videos and the real-world case studies here.
• How to Increase Online Sales by Increasing Website Conversion Rates
• Website Conversion – Forget About the Obvious
• Lots Of Traffic, Little Revenue? 5 Ideas To Turn Visitors Into Buyers
• 25 Ways to Increase Conversion
• How to Increase Conversions on any Website in 45 Minutes – this is a great step-by-step approach for evaluating and changing a website page that’s not working as well as it should.
• 10 Ways to Increase Conversions on Mobile App Landing Pages – yep, mobile is key, especially with the big rise in the number of visitors who find your site via a mobile device such as a phone (e.g. iPhone or Android) or tablet (e.g. ipad).
• Research: Websites That Follow Convention are More Trustworthy, Convert Higher – building trust is a key element in increasing website conversions. This video puts forth the argument that sometimes the best way to build trust us to think INSIDE the box.

Increase Conversions with Design and Content Changes

Sometimes, the easiest way to increase conversions is to make a change to your website’s content or design.

• 7 Ways To Encourage Your Site Visitors To Stay
• 10 Simple Ways to Increase Conversions by Reducing Friction
• Increasing Conversion with Web Design
• Video converts and here is the proof: 46% increase in conversion rate
• The #1 Conversion Killer In Your Web Design (Are You At Risk?)

Calls to Action: Purchase My Product or Service

As I mentioned above, the right “calls to action” are critical if you want to increase sales on your website. Read these posts for some ideas to try.

• 5 Ways to Improve Conversion Rates on Your Holiday Ecommerce Pages – these holiday tips can be used all year ’round!
• How to Convert Website Traffic into Paying Customers
• 6 Ways to Convert Social Media Traffic Into Leads

Calls to Action: Give me Your E-Mail Address

Sometimes, the action you want your visitor to take is to give you their e-mail address. Here are some ways to increase the number of e-mail addresses you capture.

Click to see an example of a "Mad Lib" style web form

• “Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40% – love this easy way (click on the image to the right to see how I once used this approach) to increase web form submission rates.
• How to Increase Conversions With Google Website Optimizer – this is a great step-by-step approach to effective e-mail capture!

One Last Thought

Finally, remember that your website is only one place where you can sell on the internet and soon, it may be a less effective place to convert people online into customers than other spots.

• Online Sales  Conversion: Web Site Vs Facebook Store

Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I’ve read and share them with you here.

These posts focus on web-based solutions, online resources and up-to-date news for small businesses.

Enjoy!

3 Steps to Mastering Good Blogger Outreach: Spreading the word about your products and services via bloggers can be very effective as many bloggers have a loyal subscriber base that takes their recommendations. While it can be tricky to get a blogger’s attention in a positive way, this post details an approach for doing just that.

5 Press Release SEO Posts & 10 Bonus Tips for Better Google Rankings: If you’ve ever done an online press release and were less than pleased with the results, here are some tips for the next time to make your efforts pay off.

Social Proof Is The New Marketing: Social proof has become a cornerstone of building customer trust. This post is full of examples of companies that have learned to make that trust work for them.

Facebook’s New Analytics Reminds Businesses to Engage Fans: Facebook recently changed the way it tracks and reports on page activity. Get the lowdown here.

Tools and Tips to Effectively Manage Your Online Reputation: These tools and tips help you keep an eye on your online reputation so you can get in front of any potential issues.

10 Ways to “Solve” Facebook for B2B: An interesting, and colorful, slideshow that discusses what works, and what doesn’t, when doing business-to-business marketing on Facebook.

Cyberinsurance: Everything You Need to Know : Is your company covered in the case of data loss? Does it need to be? Lots of useful information here.

31 Experts Share Advice for Buying Web-Based Software: Folks weigh-in on what to consider when buying web-based software.

5 Daily Deal Sites For Small Business: If you’re looking to save money on goods and services for your business, this is a great place to start. BTW..I LOVE AppSumo!

Niche Social Networks Deliver Big Results for Brands: While you may know about the big social network such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, do you know about the smaller, more targeted, niche social networks? Learn more about them, and the role they can play, in this post.