You built out a beautiful website with amazing landing pages and the highest definition images – but you’re not getting visitors to do what you want them to do. You’re left wondering why all your hard work is going to waste.
If you’re having trouble converting visitors into life-long customers, you can do some research and tests to see what’s stopping people from converting.
These 5 reasons are a good place to start looking.
1. You Don’t Know Your Audience, So You’re Targeting the Wrong People
Even though it’s nice if you have tons of visitors going to your website, it’s useless if they aren’t connecting and engaging with you. You’ll need to define your audience so you can speak to their needs and engage in conversation with them.
Another problem you may be having is a traffic mismatch. No matter how great your website is, you won’t be able to convince the wrong people to buy your product or service. For example, if you ship only to the US and most of your visitors are from the UK. Mismatches can come from the wrong sources, or the wrong pages, or just not having any visitors.
Find out who your target audience is, where they hang out online, and what their needs are.
2. You’re Too Focused on Design and Not Your Goals
A pretty website can only get you so far if you don’t truly understand your customers. Once you define your customer’s goals, you can create a website that speaks to their needs and converts.
Another thing that could be killing your conversion rate is a bad mobile experience. You may have spent a small fortune creating your website, but it’s not responsive so your visitors are having a terrible user experience on their phones.
Rockstarr Tip: Don’t overload your pages – it will slow down your page load speed and also be distracting to your users.
3. You’re Guessing at How to Improve Conversions Rather Than Looking at Your Data
If you aren’t measuring your website analytics, how do you know what’s wrong? Look at your business goals, and then decide upon the key metrics that help you reach those goals. Regularly spend some time with your analytics to see if your numbers are improving.
Testing will be important for refining your content. Test your CTAs to see which ones are working. Any content can be improved – a small increase in your conversion rate could equal huge profits for your business.
4. Your Copy is Confusing
You have 0-8 seconds to make an impact – after 8 seconds, most people will leave your site.
From bad calls to action to headlines that don’t deliver what you’re promising, if your copy is unclear and confusing, your visitors will likely abandon your site. By not guiding users through the customer journey with attention-grabbing headlines and clear CTAs, they may not do what you want them to.
Don’t get caught up in technical jargon and specs. Instead, focus on keeping it simple and showcasing the benefits of your products or services. Making your unique value propositions clear can help you convert visitors into customers.
5. You Haven’t Built a Relationship With Your Users so They Don’t Trust You
If you want people to buy your product or service, you need to show them that they can trust you. That is why you’ll have to nurture your visitors. How will you do this? By creating a customer journey of how you want the experience to look like.
Help move them along the journey with campaigns like email marketing and social media. But, remember that your visitors have already heard every sales pitch under the sun, and more than likely have visited your competitors. Before they do business with you, they need to make sure that you have their best interests in mind – that you’ll provide value to them. To develop this relationship, you will have to nurture them with valuable, personalized content that speaks to them.
Not quite sure how to build an offer that converts? Try out this resource.
How to Tell Which of the Five Is Your Problem
Five reasons is a lot to fix at once. You probably have one or two. Here is a 30 minute way to find them.
- Open your analytics and look at where visitors come from. If most of your traffic is from places or searches that have nothing to do with what you sell, it is reason one. Wrong people.
- Pull up your homepage on your phone. Count the seconds until you can tap the main button. If you have to pinch, scroll or wait, it is reason two.
- Ask yourself what your conversion rate was last month. If you do not know, it is reason three.
- Hand your phone to someone outside your industry. Give them five seconds on the homepage, then take it back. Ask what you sell and who it is for. If they cannot say, it is reason four.
- Look for proof. Named clients, real results, a face. If the only thing a first-time visitor can do is "Contact Us", it is reason five.
Write down which ones failed. Fix them in that order, since the right audience and a working page matter before anything else does.
A slow month makes a new website feel urgent. Check the math first.
Say your site gets 1,000 visitors a month and five of them fill out your form. That is half a percent. If you close one in five, you get one client a month from the site.
Now say you rewrite the headline, replace "Contact Us" with a specific offer, and add two client results near the button. Ten visitors fill out the form instead of five. Same traffic. Same close rate. Two clients a month.
You doubled the output of the site without a redesign and without buying a single extra visitor.
That is why we tell founders to fix conversion before they chase traffic. More visitors poured into a page that does not convert just gives you a bigger number to feel bad about.
The Redesign Trap
Here is the failure we see most. The site underperforms. Someone says it looks dated. Three months and a lot of meetings later there is a beautiful new site with the same vague headline, the same buried button and the same results.
A redesign changes how the site looks. Conversion problems usually live in what the site says and what it asks people to do.
So change one thing at a time on the page that gets the most traffic. Headline first. Then the main call to action. Then proof. Give each change a few weeks, or a few hundred visitors, before you judge it.
If the form fills go up, keep it. If they do not, put the old version back and try the next thing. For a longer list of what to check on a single page, see these common landing page mistakes to avoid.
A redesign makes sense when the site is broken on mobile or impossible to edit. Otherwise, fix the words first.
2>Need Help Clearing Up Conversion Blockers?Are you looking to boost conversion? We can help. The Rockstarr Sound Check will arm you with the framework to tune-up your site to optimize conversion, drive engagement, and make your audience go wild.
Frequently asked questions
What is a website conversion? A website conversion is a visitor taking the specific action you want, such as booking a call, filling out a form or buying. Your conversion rate is the number of people who took that action divided by total visitors. Five form fills from 1,000 visitors is a rate of half a percent.
How do I find out why my website is not converting? Find out by checking five things in order: who your traffic is, how the site works on a phone, whether you track conversions, whether a stranger understands your homepage in five seconds, and whether you show proof. The first check that fails is where to start.
How can I improve my website conversion rate without a redesign? Improve conversion without a redesign by changing the words on your highest traffic page. Rewrite the headline to name the problem you solve, replace a vague button with a specific offer, and place client results near that button. Test one change at a time so you know what worked.
What is the biggest mistake businesses make when a website does not convert? The biggest mistake is paying for a full redesign before diagnosing the problem. A new look with the same unclear message produces the same results. Most conversion issues come from the wrong audience, confusing copy or a weak call to action, and all three can be fixed on the current site.
How long does it take to see results from website conversion changes? Most sites need a few weeks, or a few hundred visitors to the changed page, before a conversion change can be judged. Low traffic sites need longer. Compare form fills or booked calls for the same page before and after, and avoid changing several things in the same period.