It’s Making Visitors Think Too Much
For every site, the answer is different, but there’s one overarching site design principle to keep in mind as you ponder your site’s performance: don’t make your visitors think. Usability guru Steve Krug wrote the book on this (Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability), and he points out the disconnect between visitor expectation and the experience many sites deliver.
That disconnect is especially blatant when sites unwittingly bury the information prospects are looking for. Long-winded introductions and big blocks of text further frustrate visitors’ task-oriented goals. They want to get in, get the info they need and get out. If the info isn’t easily accessible, they have to be very motivated to stay and keep digging.
It Lacks Clear Messaging
“The first thing we all ask when we land on a Web page is, ‘What’s in it for me?,’ says brand strategist and entrepreneurial coach Erika Napoletano. (Find her helpful article, “3 Copywriting Mistakes Hurting Your Business and How to Fix Them” here). Without that clear message, if it’s not clear to your visitor within seconds of arriving that you have the answer to her prayers, she’s moving on.
You can fix this by looking at each page on your site and asking this question: “If a Web visitor only had seven seconds on this page before she had to decide what to do next, what’s the one thing you’d want her to remember?” The “one thing” is important. Don’t muddy a page’s message with extraneous info.
It Has No Calls to Action (CTAs)
And the “what to do next” piece is also critical. Make sure every page has a call to action. These shouldn’t be the old school, seal-the-deal type of CTAs. Most people visiting your website are researching and probably don’t know you too well yet – if they know you at all. They’re closer to the top of the funnel, and in the same way you wouldn’t propose marriage on a first date, your website CTAs should be appropriate to the business relationship. Offering a free white paper download is a better “first date” CTA.
As Napoletano points out, CTAs are “not about being bossy. Telling your site visitors how to get what they want is just good customer service. It’s frustrating when you land somewhere that looks interesting and you can’t figure out how to learn more or how to get your hands on some of the magic.”
It Asks Visitors to Make Too Much of a Commitment
Another usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, says that the level of commitment required to take the next action can negatively impact a site’s conversion rate. “It's easier to get users to read 5 free articles than to get them to sign up for an email newsletter, because people don't feel that they need to commit to something simply to browse a website,” he says in this paper. “Thus ‘read 5 articles’ will tend to have a higher conversion rate than ‘subscribe to newsletter’ even for the same website.”
It Offers Too Many Choices
Decision paralysis is another enemy of conversion, especially on e-commerce sites. Research by Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar shows that choice overload demotivates, even though the prospect of many choices is appealing.
In her study, customers were presented with six jams to sample from a booth at a grocery store. A week later the same booth was set up with 24 jams to taste. Only 3% of the group that sampled 24 jams purchased any jam, while 30% of those who had six jams to sample decided to buy. Those with more choices were 10 times less likely to buy.
Ultimately, upping your online conversion rate depends most of all on how good your site is at persuading prospects to take the action you want them to take. If you know your market and exactly what you want them to do online, you’re well on your way.
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