Do You Make These 8 Conversion Mistakes?

Converting leads into customers is at the cornerstone of every successful business.

Unfortunately, many business owners make serious mistakes that sideline their efforts, often increasing overhead while leaving revenues stagnant.

Here are eight conversion mistakes you’ll want to avoid like the plague.

1. Slow Loading Time

Here’s a very serious problem that can be hurting your website without you even knowing, particularly if you only visit the site via the administrator portal to add a blog post.

To at least have a feel for how fast your website loads, visit your page once in a while the same way visitors would, or check analytics that measure page load time.

Otherwise, you’re turning customers away by offering them a website that takes a long time to load.

Why is load time important?

[Tweet “Desktop users expect a site to load within 1-2 secs, mobile ones are +patient, for now. @hobo_web “]

The first and most obvious reason is because no one wants to wait around for anything anymore. Just like the apps on their smartphones, users expect fast and reliable service at the touch of a button.

Therefore:

Relying on visitors to be patient while your website loads is a gamble you shouldn’t take.

Put simply, if you make your customers wait, they can always press the back button and the possibility of them coming back to your site becomes unlikely. If you notice a troubling bounce rate despite your content and the rest of your site being 100% on point, slow loading time is one avenue worth investigating.

Take note:

Your visitors aren’t the only ones who care about how long it takes for your website to load. Google does, too.

According to WooRank:

“Google considers page speed to be one of the 200 ranking factors that influence a website’s position in organic search results.”

If your site doesn’t load quickly, your search rankings are affected, and you lose prospects and customers to the competition.

What’s the ideal loading time?

A Hobo-Web article has this to say:

“Desktop users expect a site to load within a second or two in 2015. Mobile users are a little more patient, for now.”

2. Unclear Unique Selling Proposition

There are a number of things that separate your company from its competitors.

Many of these things are probably fairly minor—the name of your business, your color scheme, where you’re based out of, and so on—but there are still many other things worth thinking about.

One important differentiating factor is your unique selling proposition.

Your unique selling proposition is just that:

What is unique about what you offer your clientele compared to others in the industry?

[Tweet “Focus on your product’s most unique selling proposition. Make a niche happy! #CRO”]

Consider this:

Your unique selling proposition isn’t limited to just your products or services. In reality, it’s what your company is about as a whole.

• What do you stand for?
• What is your mission?
• What made you start this business in the first place?
• What do you do better than everyone else and for whom do you do it the best?

It’s tempting to be everything for everyone, but being the best at everything and the best at it for everyone is where the obstacles lie.

Instead of ending up a jack of all trades and mastering none, focus on your product’s most unique selling proposition.

In other words, make a niche happy and you’ll see conversions.

3. Vague Calls-to-Action

Even worse than a poor unique selling proposition is a vague call-to-action. Calls-to-action are where conversions happen, or they don’t.

Everything else may line up in your favor, but if the last step in the process involves a poor call-to-action, expect zero results for all your troubles.

Because you can’t afford a vague call-to-action, clearly tell a lead exactly what you want them to do. This also means creating a sense of urgency when possible. You want them to click right now – not later in the day or tomorrow.

The longer time you give them to make the commitment, the more likely they won’t.

Consider the following examples when crafting your calls-to-action:

• Force the issue: “I’ll only be offering this special for 48 hours.”
• Point out that the sooner they make the commitment, the better off they’ll be: “Begin your journey today and I guarantee you’ll see results within a week that you once thought unimaginable.”

Now, the urgency is great but definitely not enough. Adding numbers is helpful, as people react positively to numbers.

• 48 hours to act
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• 7 days to a healthier you!

Also, be as specific as possible. Clearly spell out each step you want your visitors to take.

And finally, don’t forget to test your calls-to-action. The perfect one will be different for everyone, so test them again and again.

4. Information Overload

In writing, if it took you 1,000 words to say what can be said in 100, you screwed up. It’s as simple as that. When it comes to conversions, there are no prizes for being long-winded. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

We all have that friend who can’t tell a story well. The story itself may be interesting, but they spend forever getting to the point. They get distracted and go off on tangents.

What happens when your friend does this?

You lose interest, right?

You’re doing exactly the same thing when you provide too much information to your leads. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this, but information overload is real and doesn’t do you any favors.

Instead:

• Think about any post you do as one long call-to-action. This should help you streamline things a bit.
• Throughout the course of many posts, you should have provided your readers all the information they need under the sun. In the short term, keep your efforts focused.

5. Poor Design

There’s another factor that can make or break your conversion goals, and it has nothing to do with content.

Two words: website design.

Designing a website has never been easier. You don’t need serious web design or development chops to build the website of your dreams. Countless web design companies can do this for you. Or you can take an afternoon off to learn some WordPress and create a fully functional website on your own.

In either case, a good rule of thumb is to keep things as simple as possible.

A poorly designed site is a really stupid way to ruin your business. It’s an expensive one, too, because convoluted sites generally take a lot more time to make.

What does a poorly designed site look like?

Here are some good examples.

If users have difficulty navigating through your site, expect a negative impact to your bottom line.

Consider these questions when designing your website:

• Upon arriving at your homepage, does a lead know exactly what your company offers?
• How many steps are there before a user finally gets to the checkout page?
• Is your unique selling proposition easily identifiable?
• How hard is it to find other resources on your website (e.g., blog, customer support, contact page, and so on)?

6. Failure to Optimize for Mobile

Mobile marketing is the future. Rejecting this reality is the equivalent of doing the same to social media 10 years ago or email before that.

People use their phones more and more these days, for both personal and business purposes. This means if your site isn’t accessible on their phones, you’re missing out on prime opportunities to engage them.

If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it will:

• Be difficult to use
• Get you punished by Google for running a site that isn’t mobile-optimized

Yes, you read right. Google now considers mobile-friendliness as a search ranking factor, an event online marketers call the “Mobilegeddon.”

It’s more than just Google and page rankings, though. Mobile marketing is the closest you may ever get to your customers. Connecting with a lead via their mobile device means you’re almost always in contact with them.

What mobile marketing means to your company largely depends on your unique needs. It can mean anything from social media marketing to sending text messages containing special deals.

When you combine analytics with mobile marketing, you’re on a path toward understanding lead conversion in a way your predecessors could only dream of.

7. Not running the proper tests

Earlier, when we brought up calls-to-action, we also touched on the importance of testing them over and over.

This principle applies to other features of your business. Your website alone is packed with elements that you absolutely must optimize for better usability and increased conversions. Testing allows you to do this better than any other method.

One common form of testing is A/B testing.

If you’re trying to test which title for a blog post works best, use A/B testing to pit one idea against the other. Using A/B testing software, 50% of your site’s visitors see option 1, and the other 50% see option 2. After a while, you’ll know which option converts better.

A/B testing software doesn’t limit you to just two options to test. Find the tool that works for you, and test everything about your sales funnel. Better conversions will follow.

8. Too long forms

Gathering as much data as possible about your customers can be tempting, especially with the rise of Big Data monetization. However, your interest in data can cost you customers’ conversions.

How much do you really need to know about your customers? How much is too much?

According to an infographic used by Oli Gardner from Unbounce, the optimum conversion rate is:

• 25% CR for 3 fields
• 20% CR for 3 to 5 fields
• 15% CR for 6 or more fields

Besides, its shows that using “Submit” in your forms reduces conversion rates by almost 3%. Testing your forms length can be a good resolution since, according to the same study, Imagescape conversion rate increased by 120% (from 5.4% to 11.9%) by reducing their contact from 11 fields to 4 fields.

Thus, Stop losing customers and optimize your forms to create more conversions!

Few recommendations would be to test:

• The form’s length
• The type of the information
• The button to submit
• Labels

Final word

Converting a customer takes a lot more than just showing them what you offer and then asking them to buy. You need to put a bit more effort into it. Start by looking at your current efforts and identifying which of the above mistakes you’re making, if any.

Take them out of the equation, and you’ll be on your way to greater profits.