In Part 1 of our website tip series, we talked about the basics, such as stray copy in your footer and old social media logos. Welcome to Part 2 of the website tip series: GETTING THE CONVERSION. What is conversion? Conversion is probably the most important factor to the success of your strategy and goals in online marketing. It basically means getting a user to do what you want them to do, such as signing up for a newsletter, contacting the company, or purchasing a product. The following are some issues that could have a negative impact on your website conversion.

PART TWO: GETTING THE CONVERSION

1. Email Links:

Why: Email links are not good to have on your website for a few good reasons. You can't track it through Google Analytics to see who is using the website to send you an email. You also can't ask questions in advance, which could help create a conversation that could lead to sales or donations. Spambots find email links on websites and fill inboxes with spam.

Solution: Use a contact form. You can add security to help decrease spam, save results to a database, and even export them to a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel. However, you should be careful about how the form is developed, which brings us to tip #2.

Email links are not easy to track for conversion and can lead to more spam. While you can still get spam using a contact form and captcha, it is much less than displaying the email address for everyone to see.

2. Long Forms

Why: They take too much time to fill out and when a user answers all the questions that are asked, it's hard to create a conversation when everything is answered.

Solution: Ask for basic information only, such as contact information. Ask a simple question, such as why they are contacting you or what service they have an interest in. That way, you can ask additional questions when you follow up with that person.
 

3. Confusing Calls to Action & Submit Buttons

Why: A simple example of this is when you state on your website to watch a video, but instead it brings you to a signup form to fill out before you can watch it. A submit button doesn't make the action you want the user to take, interesting.

Solution: Get creative in button labels. Focus on the benefit of the action, and only specify a particular action (such as "download now") if the user can do it without going through other steps. A good example of a call to action is "sign up to take advantage of this limited-time offer."
 

4. Dead End Thank You Pages

Why: Simply, a "dead end" thank you page tells the user that there is nothing more to do on the website, and therefore they are more likely to leave the website.

Solution: Put some content on the page to entice the user to take more action on the website (conversion), such as contacting the company, viewing a related page, or shopping the online store.

This is an example of a dead-end thank you page. For an easy fix, add a call to action to guide users to either a different part of your website or even your social media pages.

Thank you for reading part 2 of our helpful website series. You can find Part 3- Content, here!