Having a website is a fantastic way to generate leads and sell your product. However, if it’s not in tip-top shape, there’s the chance it could negatively affect your revenue.
Generating a return on investment (ROI) means driving conversions. A conversion is a goal you want to achieve by having a website. If you run an online store, a conversion would be someone making a purchase. If your website provides information about your financial services, a conversion would be having someone fill out your contact form.
So, how do you ensure conversions take place on your website? Let us take you through five key elements you need to get it right.
Content
Having good content – this refers to the text on your website – is an excellent way to generate ROI. After all, the copy on your website is what helps you sell, keeps people on your website for longer, and improves your organic SEO rankings.
What makes good website content? It needs to be optimised. This means it needs to include keywords that will help your website appear in search results when people search for things related to your website. Optimised content is also concise, to the point, and doesn’t leave any pertinent information out.
It’s important to keep your target audience in mind when you write the content for your website. You want to speak directly to the people who you want to convert. If you’re alienating your target audience through your content, they’re going to bounce off your website.
Good content is a sure-fire way to convert visitors into leads and keep them moving through your funnel.
Calls to action
When people visit your website, you need to tell them what you want them to do there…and you need to tell them this right away. The first thing a customer should see on your website is a clear call to action (CTA) in the form of content and a clickable button – also known as tap targets if viewed from a mobile phone – that tells them what to do next.
Strategically placed CTA buttons guide users to where you want them to go. Do you want them to contact you? Then a ‘Contact Us’ CTA button is essential early on in your home page design. Do you want people to browse your store? Lead them directly where you want them to land to make a purchase.
Strong calls to action in your content and well-placed CTA buttons steer your customers where you want them to go and gives you control over the user’s journey on your website. Ultimately, if you tell people where to go – rather than have them figure this out themselves – they will end up going there.
Website speed
There’s nothing more frustrating than finding a website you want to browse only to have it load really slowly. In fact, slow loading speed is one of the top reasons why people bounce off your website before it’s even fully loaded. Why? Who has the time to wait for things to load in this day and age?
It’s also been proven by eCommerce giants like Amazon that having a slow website can significantly impact ROI. This is because, as keen as someone may be to buy your product, a slow website is the quickest way to deter them from doing so.
User experience
The experience a user has on your website, also referred to as user experience (UX), is another important factor you need to consider if you want your website to generate ROI.
There are several aspects of a website that impact how the user will experience it. These include factors like:
- Navigation
- How often users are presented with pop-ups or forced sign-ups.
- Being bombarded with too much information.
- The design and functionality of your website.
- The mobile-friendliness of your website.
When you design a website, consider how the user will experience the website and how the website will influence their decision to move to the next level of your funnel.
If, for example, a user finds it difficult to navigate your website because an important link like your contact section is hidden away in a burger-style menu, they are more likely to bounce off and look someplace else for what they’re after.
Mobile-friendly design
In a world where over 90% of internet users access websites from their smartphones, it should come as no surprise that your website needs to be mobile-friendly if you’re looking to generate ROI.
Your website might look absolutely fantastic on a computer – and that’s most likely because it’s been built on a computer. But does it look good and function as it should on a mobile phone?
Put simply, for a website to be mobile-friendly, the design and functionality of your website should work just as well on a phone as it would on a computer. Images and visual elements should easily resize to a phone’s screen size. Content should be readable even though it’s now displayed on a smaller screen. Additionally, you should have tap targets that help users navigate just as they would on their desktop.
If you are looking to build a website that generates ROI for your business, our team of web experts are ready to help. Contact us, and let’s chat about building and developing a website with all five of these essential elements and more.
