5 ways to increase sales on your website
It seems like the whole world is slowly moving to the online realm when it comes to shopping.
People nowadays use the internet for almost everything. You can buy food, groceries, gadgets, games on a website now and you can even find sales of flowers or book flights and accommodation online.
Consequently, this trend brought with it many modern entrepreneurs who want to get a nice slice of this new cake. Every day, thousands of people (or even more) are looking for ways to stand out from the rest and thus increase sales on their business website.
If you too are looking for ways to do this, you have two options — either find a successful online business for sale or start your own online business and succeed.
If the latter option seems better to you, take a look below and learn what you need to do to dominate the conversion rates and rake in revenue!
Utilize the right CRM software
It’s of the utmost importance to provide the best possible experience for your customers. These past few years really showed that the way businesses handle customer issues and interact with them can often make or break a company.
In order to maximize all efforts regarding this issue, you need to implement the best possible customer relationship management system you have available.
A CRM system is a software solution that keeps track of all the interactions (conversations) you have with your customers. This covers all channels your company uses for communication — social media, email, blog, company website, and so on.
This software solution is there to help you achieve the best possible communication with customers. And good communication is crucial for business website sales.
For instance, using Salesforce can help. Many praise Salesforce due to its efficiency and ease of use. However, the best bit is that you can integrate it with many other platforms.
And if you run a large business, you will surely benefit from integrating a data warehouse for Salesforce to function even better.
Honest (sales) copy goes a long way
It should go without saying, but being honest when writing all kinds of copy (especially sales) is essential.
Being honest in your copy is critical to your company’s reputation. However, it also fosters and encourages trust in your brand.
Therefore, do not dare make claims you can’t really substantiate. Also, do not use hyperbole lightly. Consumers nowadays are very cautious when it comes to marketing. They are quite sensitive and will not tolerate misleading information.
The entire copy needs to be accurate, straightforward, and approachable. Starting with your homepage and social media accounts all the way to your email campaigns.
Being honest should be a principle that rules all of your business operations. That is the only guarantee that people will take you seriously.
So, if you own a small organization, do not act like a multinational corporation. Instead, take pride in what you really are.
Get those testimonials up!
No one can deny anymore that customer feedback is important. We are living in the age of social media and this kind of trust signal is crucial.
But, what does this also mean? It means that your satisfied customers can provide you with one of the most valuable weapons — testimonials.
Dozens of satisfied customers are considerably more influential than even the best-written sales copy on your website. Make sure you include testimonials and reviews from your hardcore brand fans gushing about how wonderful your brand is.
Place these on your product pages, landing pages, pricing page, and even on your home page.
Testimonials are one kind of trust signal, but if you have other kinds such as certificates or professional accreditations, make sure you put them up on your website.
Do not be afraid to display your brightest medal. Those can only help other people make purchasing decisions on your website.
Create a simple way to the checkout
When a customer decides to buy from you, be careful not to mess everything up with a complex checkout process.
Ensure that your visitors aren’t having a difficult time finding their way to the finish line. You don’t want too many distractions keeping your customers from clicking the purchase button.
For instance, there are a few things you could do:
- Try to be minimalist — limit the website design to three colors and avoid background patterns and heavy graphics.
- Provide an easy-to-spot check-out — try to make the process as simple as possible with as few steps as possible (such as the classic shopping cart).
- Never link away from your website — If you have to include links, make sure that they are set to open the link in a new tab and never redirect the customer completely away from your website, as they may not come back.
Build up a sense of urgency
There is no doubt that being honest and transparent about your offers is critical, but there are no rules against building up a sense of urgency to persuade potential customers from buying your products.
Many consumers respond positively to incentives that create a sense of urgency. These can include time-sensitive special offers and limited edition products. Of course, it is not limited only to these.
Although the ways you can accomplish this are as diverse as the products you can buy online, various strategies may be more effective than others.
For instance, if you don’t (or can’t) make a limited-edition product to grab the attention of your prospects, maybe you can offer a financial incentive to customers who commit to a purchase right away, such as free shipping or a discount.
Also, you can use ad customizers to show a countdown timer on a seasonal offer or limited-time sale. This is just one example of how you can build up a sense of urgency. Nonetheless, it is a great way to increase sales.
Bonus tip — less is more
Many entrepreneurs think that the more they offer, the likelier it is to close more sales.
However, offering less might just be the key to more sales. Yet, some businesses may deem this to be unthinkable. But, bear with us for a moment.
In many instances, a greater variety of choices on your website can lead to indecision on the part of the prospect, which in turn results in lost sales.
If you currently have a lot of products, at least consider structuring your website or product pages in a way that offers visitors as few choices as possible, just like with the check-out process. This reduces the possibility that the visitor will be overwhelmed by a lot of different products.
To turn this into reality, try to arrange your products into increasingly narrow categories or place greater emphasis on fewer individual products. Additionally, this provides an added bonus, which is offering visitors a bigger emphasis on fewer individual products.
Whatever you decide to do, just don’t forget that the more choices you provide, the more likely a customer will leave your website and seek similar products somewhere else.
