5 Ways To Immediately Improve Conversion Rates

It’s hard getting people’s attention, isn’t it?

You’ve got to spark their curiosity and make them wonder what’s coming next.

Because we get very bored, very quickly.

Like now, your attention is just slipping away, so I’m clawing it back to remind you while you’re here: People aren’t buying enough of your stuff.

How do you make them?

Apart from blackmail, extortion or other easier illegal tactics?

You work on your conversion rates.

Here’s five quick ways to do that. Let’s go!

1) Speak directly to your reader

Remember that McFly song “it’s all about you”? Well, it really is all about you. Or rather, the power of “you”.

Have a quick look through your website’s home page and count every time you use personal pronouns “me” and “our” and compare that with how many times you use “you” and “your”. “You” should outweigh “our”.

If you’re talking about yourself, you’re missing out on money every single day. By not using “you”, it’s like talking about your customer behind their back. They’re listening in to your conversation, rather than being invited to be part of it. Not cool.

So make your reader the focus of the attention.

Speak to them. You got it? Niiicceeee.

2) Start where your reader is, not where you want them to be

Presuming knowledge is one of the fastest ways to bamboozle your reader and make them click off your website faster than you can say “WTF?”

Think about how much your customer knows about your product or service and start from there.

What questions do they need answered before they’re ready to buy from you?

Make sure you answer how your product/service works, who it’s for and why they can trust you.

Prioritise being helpful over conversion rates, and your conversion rates will improve.

3) Jail for jargon

I’ve gone into a bit more detail about this here, but when discussing conversion rates it’s worth mentioning again.

The average reading age of people in the UK is nine years old, so keep everything as simple as possible. Web apps like hemingwayapp help with this. You want to make sure your reading age on there is under four.

Jargon in itself is jargon, so what I mean is to delete any industry-specific terms and speak in plain ol’ English. Using jargon makes you seem disingenuous, and people won’t buy from you if they don’t trust you.

So, as Ali G says, “keep it real.”

4) Talk about benefits rather than features

People don’t buy products, they buy transformations.

That’s a quick line from Ryan Deiss, the head of Digital Marketer, that I think perfectly sums this up.

Your customer isn’t buying a plastic spider catcher, they’re buying the peace of mind that when an unwelcome eight-legged-freak reveals itself, they can put it outside without crying on their sofa until someone gets home.

Your customer isn’t buying a new watch to tell the time, they’re buying it because they want people to know that their first year of self-employment has gone very well.

And they aren’t buying a water bottle, they’re buying the health benefits that come with staying hydrated like the fact they’ll get less headaches, feel less tired and be more switched on for longer.

Get it?

5) Tell your reader to do something

And don’t be weak about it.

It’s so annoying when I read websites that are almost great but don’t ask the reader to do anything.

In Newcastle, we have a saying “shy bairns get nowt”, which means “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” and it’s especially true when it comes to improving your conversion rates.

We’re going to go one better here and say that we aren’t going to ask the reader to something, but rather we’re going to tell the reader to do something.

• “Download my free eBook now to take your homepage from “meh” to “mint”
• “Call me today for a FREE quote”
• “Email me right now before all 50 spots are gone”

What you don’t want to say is things like:

“if you have time”“can you please”

“if you could … it would mean a lot to us” That’s the call to action version of begging.

Tell them what to do. Do it. Now. And hurry.

And that’s your wack for conversion rates

But it doesn’t have to be.

In the spirit of point five (tell your reader to do something), what you’re going to do right now is click here and join my mailing list.

What I’ll do is send you an email every now and then to help you improve your conversion rates.

Tips that will make you more money. It’s a good trade. So go do it now.

And once you’ve done that, make sure you’re following these tips to do better customer research in 2021.