Everyone already knows that a big part of building a successful website is getting people to visit it. More traffic = a more successful site. Makes sense, right?
But here’s the thing that some people overlook:
- Traffic helps achieve your goals
- 1. Define your goals
- 2. Identify your target audience
- 3. Show some personality
- 4. Your headline is the hook
- 5. Content matters!
- 6. Use one clear call to action
- 7. Build credibility and trust
- 8. Use social proof
- 9. Use scarcity to spur action
- 10. K.I.S.S.
- 11. Keep readers focused
- 12. Use popups properly
- 13. Use simple form fields
- 14. Add live chat and talk to visitors
- 15. Offer a money back guarantee
- 16. Include a countdown timer for a limited-time offer
- 17. Perform A/B testing
- 18. Address client objections
- 19. Make it easy for people to buy
- 20. Choose your offer carefully
- 21. Use abandoned cart tools to increase conversions
- Save time with conversion-ready website templates
Traffic helps achieve your goals
And conversion rate is what helps you determine that. Conversion is the percentage of people who do what you want (buy a product, sign up for your email list or fill out a form…) versus the total number of visitors to your website or landing page.
If you want your website to be successful, the number of people who convert is what matters.
But what actually makes a website generate conversions? How can you build your website, or your client’s website, so that it converts as many visitors as possible?
In this post, we’ll share 21 tips you can use to boost the conversion rates of websites you build with WordPress.
1. Define your goals
If you don’t know what action or benefit you’re hoping to get from driving traffic to your website, you’ll never be able to make it conversion-friendly.
So – step #1 in the journey to improving your conversion rate is to define the actual purpose and objectives for your page.
Typically, you will have one of these goals:
- Sales – Getting people to buy a product from your website
- Brand presence – Many businesses are just looking to provide information about their brand. For example, the Coca-Cola company website
- Lead generation – Getting people to sign up for your email list or fill out a form
- Calls – Getting people to call your business
- Click through – Getting people through your sales funnel
Once you know exactly what you want to accomplish, you can use the rest of these tips to help you achieve that goal.
2. Identify your target audience
Once you know your page’s purpose, the next step is to define the type of person you’re hoping to reach, your target audience.
You should then create a website persona to be able to communicate with that audience.
By taking the time to write down the persona(s) you want to reach, you’ll be able to design your website specifically for those people.
By making your website more relevant to the people you want to reach the most, you make it more likely they will convert.
So personas matter. But how do you create them?
Basically, you want to build out a full profile of your target visitor by answering questions like:
- How old are they?
- What is their gender?
- What is their education level?
- Which industry do they work in?
- How much work experience do they have?
- Why are they coming to your site?
- What problems do they face?
- How technologically-savvy are they?
By the end, you can come up with a detailed profile that looks something like this:
If you’re interested in learning more about user personas, Usability.gov has a detailed guide, which is also where the example above came from.
3. Show some personality
Some people have this idea that “you have to please everyone”, which often leads to a bland website with no personality.
Most visitors won’t feel excited or motivated by the boring “please everyone” approach.
Don’t be afraid to show your personality, especially if you’re a big part of your business (e.g. a freelancer, manager or co-founder).
Show your smiling face, or the smiling faces of your employees. Add a touch of your own voice and don’t be afraid to share some of your real personality.
Sure, there’s always the small chance that your personality turns someone off. But guess what? That person probably isn’t your target market, anyway!
Remember – you don’t have to please every single visitor. Just focus on connecting with your target audience.
That’s how you get a high conversion rate!
4. Your headline is the hook
Newspaper advertising guru David Ogilvy knew back in the 1960s that most people just read the headline.
While a lot’s changed since then (hello websites, goodbye newspapers!), Ogilvy’s main point still stands:
Your headline is what grabs readers and encourages them to stick around.
The Nielsen Norman Group does evidence-based research on how people use websites, and here’s what they found:
“Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.”
Your headline is what lets you communicate that value proposition within 10 seconds, keep visitors on the page and eventually have a chance to convert them.
So what makes for a good headline?
Make it:
- Clear and comprehensible. You don’t want people to have to guess what you’re trying to say. Remember, you only have 10 seconds
- Make your value proposition obvious. This tells visitors what’s in it for them, and why they should bother to stay around and learn more
- Stay customer focused. Use wording that focuses on the visitor, rather than yourself or your business whenever possible
If you need some inspiration, KickoffLabs has ten good examples of headlines that hook.
5. Content matters!
If you get your headline right, visitors will understand your core value proposition and stick around to learn more.
Now, the rest of your content needs to deliver on the promise in the headline.
Spend the time to create content that keeps people reading and explain more about your business, product or offer.
This is also where you can show your personality and give readers the information they need to make a decision.
If you’re not sure what makes for good copy, Henneke, a successful copywriter, has great tips at Copyblogger and her Enchanting Marketing site.
6. Use one clear call to action
Once you’ve hit your visitors with the clear headline and quality content, your call to action (CTA) is what guides them to the next step.
For most websites, a CTA takes the form of a button. This button should be the step you want your visitors to take.
For example, on the Astra theme homepage, the CTA is “Download Now” because we want you to download the theme to see how awesome it is
You always want to have one primary CTA. You will see some sites successfully include a second CTA, but this almost always employs a less attention grabbing design.
If you browse the website templates for the Astra theme, you’ll notice that most of them have a single, clear CTA already in place so that they’re conversion-ready from day one.
You should follow a similar approach no matter who you’re building your website for.
Beyond design, the text on your CTA button matters, too.
To create a great CTA:
- Use a command verb to imply action. For example, “Get…”, “Download…”, “Start…”
- Add urgency with words like “Now” or “Today”
- Appeal to deal-seekers with words like “Free” (if applicable) or “Save”
If you need more inspiration, WordStream has another good article on CTAs and AdEspresso put together a great list of 31 examples.
7. Build credibility and trust
You’re more likely to interact with someone you trust, right?
Well, it’s no different for your readers. They want to buy from, sign up to, and just generally use credible websites that they trust.
So how do you create that trust and credibility?
It all starts with website design. While people say you should never judge a book by its cover, we all know they do.
People will definitely judge your website by its cover!
If your website doesn’t look professional, people won’t trust it. And people form their impressions remarkably quickly – even before reading a single line of text.
In a study from Behaviour & Information Technology, researchers found that people make a decision about a website’s visual appeal in as little as 50 milliseconds.
Once you have a professional design, you can use other tactics and features to further build trust and credibility:
- Logos – Logos of places you’ve worked with or been featured by can help build credibility by association
- Testimonials – Authentic testimonials show that other people trust you, which builds trust by itself (more on this below)
- Security badges – Using trust badges or seals builds trust. ConversionXL has good research on the most effective trust badges
- HTTPS/Green Padlock – 90% of surveyed users were “more likely to leave details or purchase when they know that their data is sent over a secure connection”
8. Use social proof
Social proof is a well-studied psychological phenomenon where people base their own actions on the actions they see from others.
While it’s by no means limited to websites, it’s one of the most effective elements to further build trust and convince people to convert.
So much so, most conversion optimization experts say it’s an element that your site can’t afford to be without.
You can implement social proof in several different ways, some of which you’ve seen before:
- Social follower counts from your profiles
- Numbers – For example, “Join 30,000 other subscribers”, “Over 40,000 happy customers”
- Testimonials and reviews
- Places you’ve been featured
- Friendship – For example, use the Facebook like button to show people some of their friends who have liked your site.
- Credible certifications – For example, “USDA Certified Organic”
9. Use scarcity to spur action
All of the other tips on this page encourage people to act. But none specifically encourages people to act now. And you definitely want people to act right away.
Otherwise, they might forget about you and all that work you’ve done on conversion optimization goes to waste!
Scarcity is how you add urgency to your site. Once you understand what scarcity is, you’ll start seeing it everywhere.
For example, Amazon shows how many items are remaining, as well as how long you have to order to get it delivered by a certain date.
Every hotel booking site in existence will tell you how many rooms are left and how quickly they are being taken.
So what are some ways that you can add urgency to your website?
- Use a special time-limited offer or coupon
- Highlight a limited number of items or otherwise restricted availability
- Add a countdown timer
Creating a limited time offer with a countdown timer can create a sense of urgency to purchase products and services immediately or lose the opportunity.
If you can’t use real urgency, you can still add something called implied urgency by incorporating words like “now”, “today”, “soon”, and similar phrases.
10. K.I.S.S.
Since you have established urgency, don’t make it hard for your clients to see what to do next, where and how to do it.
Keep things as simple as possible.
It can be tempting to add lots of images, effects, and text, especially now that drag and drop page builders have made it possible to add new elements with just a few clicks.
Resist the urge!
When you build a website, you’re not trying to win a design award. You’re trying to meet specific goals.
Eliminate elements that are just there to look nice and focus on the elements that will get results (like all the stuff we talked about above!).
11. Keep readers focused
Another way of keeping things simple is by eliminating distractions.
Don’t pull your clients in too many different directions. Instead, focus on what we have discussed earlier which is a single clear call to action and talk only about things that they need to know.
Stick to your goal and focus only on the following:
- Your headline and its subheadings
- The features and benefits of your products or services
- Reviews and testimonials
- Clear context with visuals
If you want to know where visitors are looking on a page, try using a heatmap analyzing tool to track them.
Website heatmap is an analytical tool that can help you understand the behavior of visitors by showing which part of your website they are clicking on.
If they are clicking on unnecessary product options, links and excessive information, it will decrease the conversion rate for your website.
Try to minimize or totally do away with elements that may distract your prospects to keep them focussed on thinking about what they need to do next.
12. Use popups properly
Popups can be annoying and/or distracting for visitors. But if you learn how and when to use popup properly, it can generate a high conversion rate.
Sometimes, visitors are undecided and are still looking for more specific features or products.
Then you can use popups to offer premium content, other similar products, freebies, and other offers until the visitor converts.
Keep your popup timely and related to the clients’ current interests.
A slight delay in your popup can make it irrelevant and annoying.
To avoid this negative impression, make it easier for visitors to close your popup. You can also use a cookie to make sure that your popup appears only once for every visitor.
13. Use simple form fields
Another annoying part of a website is filling in too many form fields.
If you really need to include forms on your website, use only the fields essential to achieve your goal and remove unnecessary fields.
Visitors won’t mind signing up if there are only a few form fields to fill. But if your form fields are lengthy, they will start to think twice.
People will immediately close your website if from the very start they have to fill-in lengthy form fields.
We recommend starting by only asking for their name and email address.
Ask for the minimum early on and save any other data collection for further down the funnel.
People will be much more likely to share information once they have built a relationship with you.
14. Add live chat and talk to visitors
Another effective way of encouraging your visitors to take the steps is by offering to chat.
Using tools like Kommo CRM, visitors can reach out using their preferred messaging channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, and even Instagram DM.
They can ask specific details about what you are offering and what benefits they can get.
A live chat feature creates an impression that you are confident with your products that you can talk about it and address any concerns your client has in mind.
It also reassures them that you’re happy to invest time and effort in answering those questions and making sure they have everything they need.
It also helps with building credibility and trust as we discussed earlier.
Live chat tools are easy to add to your website and are very helpful in objection handling and tackling any last minute resistance to purchase.
15. Offer a money back guarantee
Offering a money back guarantee is a simple but very effective way to remove doubts about a purchase.
Consumers avoid risks and like to make sure that they get what they paid for. If not, they can get their money back.
Offering a money back guarantee makes your customers feel more confident and secure enough to purchase.
An easy, secure and risk free shopping experience is the best reason for customers to buy your products or services.
This helps increase your conversion rate and can encourage repeat purchases.
16. Include a countdown timer for a limited-time offer
Since what you have to offer is easy, secure and too good to resist, giving them a limited time offer will create a sense of urgency to avail of your products and services immediately or lose the chance.
Adding a countdown timer in your limiter-offer sign will quickly boost your conversion rate.
This will also give more satisfaction to your clients and make them feel lucky to be one of the few customers who have availed of your limited offer.
17. Perform A/B testing
The best tip we can give to improve satisfaction and conversion is to do A/B testing across your website.
A/B testing, or split testing, is a tool to test your website’s conversion rate. It allows you to make two versions of your website (webpage A and webpage B) with different designs.
An A/B testing tool will direct 50% of your site visitors to webpage A and 50% to webpage B.
You can then use data to help refine your layout or design and decide which page is best.
18. Address client objections
In sales, “No” often means “Not now”.
If a visitor says no, it doesn’t mean they don’t like your product or service. Most of the time it only means that it is not the product they are looking for at the moment.
They still have some doubts, or they are just not sure what they really want.
To avoid objections, you need to list all the possible objections that your customers might have and provide the answers on your website.
List as many as you can and add FAQ sections on your homepage and product or service pages.
This should overcome any objections and help increase conversions.
19. Make it easy for people to buy
A key element of a successful conversion is making it as easy as possible for someone to buy.
Always guide visitors on what to do next, where to proceed and how to pay for purchases.
Streamline your sales funnel, keep checkout short and sweet and ask for as little information as possible to help complete the sale.
If you can enable guest checkout, that’s an easy win that could encourage more customers to buy. Here’s a guide on how to accept payments with WordPress.
20. Choose your offer carefully
If your website is still not generating high conversion rates, maybe you’re just using the wrong offer.
Continue to experiment on your offers and track the results of each product or service.
Use A/B testing, use customer surveys, use social media to get feedback and experiment until you find the best offer that generates a high conversion rate.
21. Use abandoned cart tools to increase conversions
Just because someone didn’t complete conversion and left your website, doesn’t mean you have lost the sale.
Abandoned cart tools can help recover those lost sales in a (mostly) unintrusive way.
Using tools like CartFlows, you can send followup emails if a visitor leaves checkout before completing it.
As long as you can capture their email address before they leave, you can configure the tool to send emails to help recapture that lost sale.
Once configured, abandoned cart tools can automatically help recover lost sales. It’s an easy win for very little effort.
Save time with conversion-ready website templates
Building a conversion-ready website from the ground up takes time.
When you use the Astra theme, you don’t have to start at ground zero. We’ve baked all these conversion principles into the templates in our Starter Templates pack.
When you use one of these templates, you’ll instantly have a conversion-ready foundation that you can adapt to your needs.
Have any other questions about how you can build conversion-ready websites? Let us know in the comments and we’ll try to help out!
Disclosure: This blog may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, we may receive a small commission. Read disclosure. Rest assured that we only recommend products that we have personally used and believe will add value to our readers. Thanks for your support!
Nice Blog with awesome tips. Thanks for sharing. One should also focus on SEO Aspects while creating a site.
Great points and you used value proposition!
Great article. ?
Thanks Sujay
Namaste Sujay,
It is very good read, I can see all of your experience in it. I am also working on my own agency website re-design. I read it on right time.
I helps me to focus on the essential things. Soon I will be writing a small article about web design process flow, I keep these points in mind.
Thanks for the article.
Keep writing and inspiring us.
Can’t tell you how many clients want the bling when we try and nudge them in another direction to show results.
It’s simple things developers can do to bait the hook and have people stay.
Nice!
Wow, very helpful.
That’s Really Awesome
Thanks for sharing the information.
The article is quite informative and helps beginners alot.
Great post
Great article! But our traffic has raised +75% and we have the same sales. After reviewing the traffic raise, the reason is because that traffic comes from international countries (where we don´t sell) and to non transactional pages. Shoul we filter this traffic from our stadistics?
I like,Congratulations!
Great post
Really really inspirational for Growth Hackers !!
& most loved quote from post is: “Traffic is only good when it helps you meet your goals.”
Thanks, & keep motivating us 🙂
Great article. Thank you for the tips.
Very good post!
Thanks! ?
Really like it, thank you!
Great piece of intelligence. Thanks for writing this well researched blog. I can’t wait to read more from you.
Hello,
Nice article and these points are completely right. Having an optimized page and building your person is one of the most important aspects when it comes to conversions. This tutorial will help a lot of people.
Thanks
Dragos
Helpful tips for a conversion-optimized website! It was interesting. It is comprehensive and straightforward.
For tip #7: Build Credibility and Trust. As a visitor, I usually stay on a website with a beautiful theme or layout. Perhaps a simple, not too crowded look.
Then, I look for the comments or testimonials of the viewers or users to make me more interested in the product and trust it. Like in the Play Store, I download apps that have more stars and downloads.
Stars somehow look childish, but yes, it is useful.
It works on me.
Event plugins are a staple in my industry. I work in the entertainment and music inustry so having a plugin like this is really essential.
It’s hard to keep track of attendance, and dates and such with so little to go on with WordPress alone. Speaking of which, I didn’t realize there were that many. I’ve been using WP Event Manager and it’s been great, but I might try these other ones too, just to see.
If you recommend anything in particular, do let me know. Anyway, great job on the list. Highly appreciated.
From a marketing point of view, this is all true that you need to present your proposition and make an excellent impression to your client within 10 seconds.
So, for a website, the trick is on your headline. And you can have a good headline in 3 steps this is awesome. Thanks.
This article is such a tremendous help.
I like your tip number 3 Show some of your unique personality.
I like the idea when you say, “you don’t have to please every single visitor – just focus on connecting with your target persona,” I love it.
But it is a big slap because I thought many visitors equals more profit. At least you catch their attention even for a few seconds. But not all true. It makes sense now.
Thanks for the tips
Awesome!
Great tips!
I got so many ideas from you. I will keep this in mind.
Thanks!
Thanks for the tips!
I’m going to make a checklist for optimizing websites. This tip is a good start.
Great tips!
Good article! It was very helpful.
The usual thing I do is not good at all. I usually get overwhelmed with a lot of images and effects. Perhaps I should stick with simplicity is beauty as long as it meets your specific business objective.
Thanks for the tips.
Hello Philip,
Glad you found this article useful! 🙂
Helpful tips for a conversion-optimized website! It was interesting. It is comprehensive and straightforward.
For tip #7: Build Credibility and Trust. As a visitor, I usually stay on a website with a beautiful theme or layout. Perhaps a simple, not too crowded look.
Then, I look for the comments or testimonials of the viewers or users to make me more interested in the product and trust it. Like in the Play Store, I download apps that have more stars and downloads.
Stars somehow look childish, but yes, it is useful.
It works on me.
Some of the plug-ins mentioned on this articles are not free. However, as I checked online those plug-ins you mentions are indeed good deals, although I am still contemplating whether I will purchase them for my own site.
I also like that you included some free plug-ins which definitely helpful for start up online stores via woocommerce like myself. I find it very helpful and surely try to apply them to my site.
Good article. Nice write up and very elaborate!
Hello Georgina,
Glad you found this article useful! 🙂
The quality of website is key to any businesses. The website should be impressive in order to attract more number of visitors to your site. The article written is excellent and explain all the points in depth. Thank you for sharing this amazing article.
Glad to hear such kind words, Vedavyasa!
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment! 🙂
An excellently written and well researched practical article.
This should be read by all beginners and those who are developing the websites now.
Follow the above steps and half the battle is already won.
Using astra since long & my team completely moved on it.
Simultaneously astra blog is worth reading. This article is excellent & will help me & my clients.
Bookmarked!
Cheers to that, Makarand! 🙂
Thanks for sharing useful information, especially the first 4 points which cover almost all major issues. I will definitely try tips to increase my online selling. Keep updating continue…!!
Thank you so much, Kishanu!
We are very glad to hear that these tips were so helpful! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! I totally agree that pop-ups should be regulated as this annoys visitors, especially if other pop-ups consistently reappear and blocks the texts on the site. Is it necessary to hire an SEO company to monitor and correct your website on your behalf?
Thank you for the helpful and informative content.