You built a website but you’re not getting any enquiries. You had high hopes that it would increase your sales and grow your customer base but nothing has worked so far. So what’s gone wrong? It’s time to re-evaluate your web design and figure out why your website is not driving sales. Let’s take a look at some of the key factors that affect user experience and how both creative and technical issues influence online sales and other conversions.
Web Design
In a Digitaledge study 72% of business owners agreed that having a website was crucial for business. Another study found that 79% of consumers are less likely to return to a website that performs badly. So why would a business owner need to be aware of the principles of effective web design? The answer is simple – sales. Essentially, effective website design means delivering a great user experience that motivates visitors to perform a particular action on your web pages. If someone is interested enough to visit your website you have a golden opportunity to convert them into a lead or a sale. Navigation, calls-to-action, content creation and technical SEO all play critical roles in converting visitors into customers. There are many ways to influence this process but the point is you are always trying to guide visitors towards some kind of conversion. If you are wondering why your website is not driving sales it may well be because your web design makes it too difficult for consumers to buy or make an enquiry.
Navigation
Navigation underpins overall user experience which in turn influences your sales funnel. A great user experience that satisfies the visitor’s needs stands a much better chance of converting into a lead or a sale than a poor user experience that leaves them feeling frustrated. There are several navigational methods that can improve your website performance. Let’s begin with the most important one.
Internal Links
Links act as sign posts to make your visitor’s journey easier and guides them toward specific actions you want them to take. Clear menu tabs and strong call-to-action buttons are essential to this process. Having a web page full of quality content without a decisive call-to-action is really a wasted opportunity to move interested visitors along the sales funnel and convert them into customers. After viewing your content on a web page never leave the visitor hanging. Use links to motivate them to take further action and move them closer to a sale.
Conversion Optimisation
Two types of website conversion are transactional and transitional. A transactional conversion is one which guides the visitor to make a purchase directly from the payment page on the website. These call-to-action buttons are simple but highly effective because they clearly tell the interested visitor what to do.
A transitional conversion motivates the visitor to take another significant step along the sales funnel. This could be filling out a form to obtain a free downloadable asset like an ebook or an industry whitepaper. Or it may be a call-to-action to sign up for a newsletter. The point is to obtain the opt-in contact details of your website visitors then feed them directly into your email database to be used in your email marketing campaigns. These are people who have not yet become customers but they have the potential to be, therefore deserve to be in your sales funnel.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engines periodically ‘crawl’ websites in order to identify what a website is and where to rank it in their search results pages. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of trying to get your website to rank as high as possible on those search engine result pages for keyword searches relevant to your business. It’s a continuous battle fought on several fronts – technical requirements, content creation, links and keywords.
Technical SEO
Understanding code is crucial as search engines favour websites that are technically well built. Technical SEO involves the expertise of the web developer to deliver web pages that improves the readability of your website for search engines like Google. Clear site maps and well-structured lines of code will make it easier for search engines to identify what your website is and where to rank it in search results pages. This helps Google deliver quality search results relevant to its users.
The speed at which your web site responds will also affect user experience and potentially affect sales. Correlations have been found between faster page loading times and higher sales. Kissmetrics research revealed that 47% of users expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less, with 40% abandoning a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Even a one second delay in page loading time can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. One factor that can slow a page down is having too many large image files, so try to reduce the size of your image files and make sure they are tagged correctly preferably using keywords relevant to the page content.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are self-contained goal-oriented web pages requiring the visitor to perform a specific action. For example, filling out a form with your name, email, contact number and other information in exchange for access to valuable content such as an ebook or an industry whitepaper. Other popular examples are competition entry pages, donation pages, purchase pages or sign-up pages for a training course or special event. Whatever the goal, getting these landing pages right is vital as you will be sending people to these pages from other sources like social media channels or through email. When curious visitors arrive on the landing page you have an ideal opportunity to convert them to a lead or a sale.
Mobile Friendly
The smartphone generation is an incredibly active and fast growing market with more than a third of internet users now accessing the net via mobile devices. Therefore it’s essential to make your website mobile friendly and that means investing in responsive web design. Google is now favouring mobile friendly websites over non responsive sites in mobile search results. That change can have a direct impact on sales so it’s in your business interests to invest in responsive web design as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
These are just some of the elements that go into great web design! But they are crucial to your sales funnel so you need to get them right. Remember you may only have one chance to make the right first impression. If you’re a business owner looking to increase online sales, then investing in a fully functional, goal driven and professional website is a necessary part of your digital marketing strategy, and strategy really is the critical factor here. This is where Digitaledge can help. When it comes to finding expert providers of web design in Galway look no further! We build websites to support business goals and drive online sales.
Get in touch with us to discuss ways your current site can be improved and optimized for sales. Or if you need a new website built call us on 091 704830 or click here to use our contact form.
