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Increase Conversion Rates, Anyone Can Do It |
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Author: M.K.G.
Increase Conversion Rates, Anyone Can Do It
If your online business is just getting it's start, it is important that it continues to grow. Stagnant businesses will eventually fail. The best way to ensure that your business does not become stagnant is to improve your conversion rates. A conversion can be a lead or a sale or whatever action you desire your visitors to take. When a visitor completes the desired action, we call that a conversion. Conversions are the lifeblood of your online business. They make the difference between bank and bankruptcy.
Let's look at an example:
If you sell a product for $29.99 at a $10.00 profit you would need to make at least 10 sales to justify spending $100 in advertising. For the sake of the demonstration, let's assume your current conversion rate is 7%. We'll say your advertising gets you 100 visitors. 7% of 100 is 7 sales, netting you $70.00 in profits. With this conversion rate, you are losing $30.00 by advertising. Now let's assume your conversion rate is 14%. This increases your profits from the sales to $140.00, making the advertising well worth while.
Use the figures that apply to your business:
Obviously the figures above have just been grabbed out of the air. A 7% conversion rate is actually really good. 14% is phenomenal. The advertising and profit assumptions were toyed with to make the demonstration easier to understand. Hopefully, 100 visitors will not cost you $100.00. However, if you are earning enough profit per sale, such numbers may be realistic for you.
Increase conversions, it's crucial:
The point I wish to make is, advertising is great but you must be able to get the conversions to justify the advertising. Better conversions are crucial to the success of your online business. Your visitors must see the value in your product. There are lots of ways to help make this happen but that is not what I'm addressing in this article. Variations in online businesses make it impossible for me to give you advice on this. However, there is an area that every web entrepreneur must consider no matter what product they are selling. What I'm talking about is consumer confidence. When a visitor considers making a purchase at your site, they need to have a reasonable assurance that they will actually receive what they are paying for and the product will reasonably represent what was described. Unless you already have international brand recognition like Chevrolet, Alltel, Google or some other large organization, you'll need to take some steps to improve consumer confidence.
Option One - Get approved by a third party trust organization:
Adding an address and a guarantee will help to increase conversions but there's nothing like having a third party back your product, or better yet, your business. What better way is there to reassure a consumer about the legitimacy of your business than to show them that you've already been checked out. Posting testimonials is a good idea but a third party will also post complaints. Since they are impartial, a third party can be a trusted source of information on your business. The best third party organizations will not penalize you by posting complaints from customers who have been refunded or who have obvious unfounded complaints. For this reason, I feel the Internet Trade Bureau is the best choice for new merchants. You can get your site approved within one day and memberships are only $2.95 monthly. This is the simplest way to increase conversions.
Option Two - Implement a satisfaction guarantee:
Why would anyone choose not to offer a satisfaction guarantee? Perhaps their product does not live up to the hype around it. This is what I think when I'm considering an online purchase. Let's say you are selling a magic time machine with no satisfaction guarantee. I highly doubt you would get a single sale. Now let's say you offer a guarantee and do actually make some sales (use your imagination). Most of those sales would be reversed due to your guarantee but there will always be a certain percentage of people that will not go to the trouble of returning the item or otherwise completing the steps required in your guarantee. I'm not suggesting that you try to rip people off by selling time machines or any other sub-standard product. I'm just trying to illustrate a point. In my opinion, a satisfaction guarantee is always worth the trouble and WILL increase conversions.
Option Three - Give them a multiple ways to reach you:
You can add credibility and increse conversions by giving your customers a real address and phone number. You can use a P.O. box but a street address is more likely reassure unsteady buyers. This may not be an option for you but even home business owners can use their street address. Just add "Suite 413" to your street address. The post office will still deliver mail and you'll have a new address for your business.
Hopefully I have provided you with some information that will help you to increase conversions and therefore, increase sales and profits.
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