(On this page, Kevin Gold explains how to build bottom-line growth for your online business. See the previous page of this article for how to create top-line growth.)
Implement These Website Conversion Strategies
There are website conversion strategies that will improve conversion rates for all online businesses regardless of their individual objectives. These strategies include improvements to...
- Website’s sales copy, including writing headlines and sub-heads with stronger visitor appeal, defining stronger calls-to-action, using more visitor-relevant and benefit-oriented words and positioning popular visitor keywords in prominent areas to connect with visitors and persuade them to action.[/li}
- Graphics and layout design to generate visual relevancy and message consistency for your visitors.
- Guarantees, returns, shipping, privacy, customer support and security policies you present to gain confidence and trust from your visitors.
- Navigational structures to make it easier and more convenient for your visitors to locate the products and services they desire to purchase.
- Buying or contact options to increase the ways in which a visitor can purchase or receive contact from you including alternatives to a shopping cart or online form like phone, mail, fax, online chat, and email.
How to Decide Between Top-Line or Bottom-Line Improvements
Your decision to pursue “top-line” or “bottom-line” improvements to your online business should be evaluated by (1) the objectives you plan to achieve, (2) the amount of money you have to spend, (3) the time-line established to meet your goals, (4) the amount of visitor traffic your website currently receives and (5) the conversion rate your website currently achieves for your calls-to-action.
Establishing a plan before you make any decisions is critical. As the old joke goes, “I’m making progress climbing the ladder of success - I just don’t know if it’s leaning against the right wall.” The plan for your online business should include measurable goals based on your current performance metrics.
Knowing your budget is essential in the selection process. Certain conversion enhancement strategies can be implemented for a small investment of your time and effort, while traffic generation efforts may require greater investments of time, effort or both. Figuring out your budget enables you to also forecast the potential return you may receive from improving your top-line versus your bottom-line. Obviously the areas that provide the biggest bang for your buck are the ones to start one first.
Understanding your time-line is also essential since many website conversion enhancement strategies will offer quick improvement to your conversion rates while traffic generation efforts like search engine optimization have long lag times before delivering ample visitor traffic.
Identifying your current visitor traffic volume and conversion rates, especially for new online businesses, is also very important when determining top-line or bottom-line improvement. If you currently have low visitor traffic then you will have difficulty in determining if a website conversion enhancement strategy had a real effect on improving your conversion rates.
For example, if your website receives 100 visitors a month, it will take you at least a month or two before any real measurable changes occur to your conversion rates. In this case, you would be better off focusing on top-line (traffic generation efforts) first and then returning to bottom-line improvements for increasing your conversion rates.
Likewise, if your website currently has strong visitor traffic, say 15,000 visitors per month, yet your current conversion rate produces only 5 sales, then obviously you need to improve your bottom-line and focus on conversion enhancement strategies.
Take time to review your “top line” versus “bottom line” opportunities and to decide which one offers you the best return for your dollars spent. If you concentrate on improving one of the two areas over the next month, you can be confident that measurable sales growth is achievable for your online business.
Kevin Gold is a Founder of Enhanced Concepts and a published author. If you’re interested in increasing your leads or sales, get a free copy of “Understanding Your Conversion Rate” and “12 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Website Conversion” by visiting www.enhancedconcepts.com.
