Let’s talk about shop fronts. You want your shop to have the best fit out in terms of aesthetics and your shop front should be built in a way that encourages its visitors to look at focal points, which will ultimately end in them spending money.
Your website is no different. The best websites are built to convert, they are aesthetically pleasing and take their visitors on a journey of discovery, forcing their eyes to gaze at focal points with the hope of compelling them to whip out their credit card and purchase your product or service.
So, what does a website that drives conversions and sales ultimately look like and what are the elements that make a website appealing to its visitors?
In this article, these questions will be discussed in depth. With the hope that you, the reader will understand what makes a great website that drives leads and conversions.
Before we even start discussing the elements that make a website great, we need to discuss targeted traffic.
Targeted Traffic
Targeted traffic is traffic that is relevant to your business. It comprises visitors to your website who are either interested in what you’re selling or have an interest in the information you’re providing.
These aforementioned visitors may originate through pay per click advertising (Google Ads, or Facebook Marketing), SEM (search engine marketing) or word of mouth.
Obtaining targeted traffic is essential when having a website that drives leads and conversions.
Without targeted traffic, you’re just a website without visitors and with no visitors, there can be no leads, nor conversions.
That’s why the initial step to creating an amazing website that drives leads and conversions is obtaining targeted traffic.
Once you’ve developed a marketing plan and have an understanding as to where you will be obtaining your targeted traffic from, the next step is to identify the elements that make an amazing website.
Essential Website Elements That Drive Conversions
When it comes to creating a website that takes customers on a journey to purchase your products or services, there are essential elements that assist with driving conversions.
In marketing circles, this facet of analysing trends and making changes for a high conversion rate is known as conversion rate optimisation or CRO.
When creating a website, it’s a great idea to divide the website’s homepage into separate partitions.
In terms of website anatomy, the top of a website’s page is called the ‘section above the fold’, the middle section is ‘content’ and last section of the website is titled ‘the footer’.
Above The Fold
This is the first section of a website; a user sees upon landing and is arguably the most important facet of a website’s homepage. It is the part of the home page that a user sees before they scroll.
We monitored the traffic behaviour on four of our client’s sites and found that 99% of visitors see this particular section of a website.
Think of this as the door of your shop front, it sets the tone for the rest of your website.
If you have a professional, aesthetically pleasing section above the fold of your website, targeted traffic is more likely to turn into paying customers.
There are 5 essential elements that a website should have above the fold. These can differ depending on the industry but generally, the fundamentals remain the same.
- A lead capture form: This is a form which must capture the visitor’s name and email address. We recommend our clients also try and capture service or product requirements.
- Human Faces: It may come as a surprise but people relate to people and your website having a minimum of 3 human faces above the fold, leads to greater conversions. Bonus points
- Reviews: Review examples are a means of social proof and social proof generates trust, which leads to great conversions.
- A contact telephone number: This is pretty self-explanatory but having a contact phone number further helps with trust and a trustworthy website is a website that sells a lot of products.
- Call To Action Button: This could be attached to your form or be a separate element. Either way, the text on the button should entice the visitor to take a specific action.
The next part of your website that drives leads and conversions is the content section.
Content Section
The content section is the section of your website in which all the content related to your product or service is situated.
Through our tracking of user data on our client’s websites, we noted that 33% of users will drop off before reaching the middle section of your homepage. That’s why it’s imperative to optimise this section of your homepage for conversions.
This part of your home page will contain the majority of your page’s content (hence the name).
Like the above, there are 5 essential elements that will drive leads and conversions.
- Calls To Action: Like the above the fold section, these call to action buttons compel users to complete a specific action. In the content section of your website, ideally, you want more three of more.
- More Human Faces: Again, humans relate to humans, try not to use stock photos unless you specifically have to.
- Reviews, Reviews, Reviews: Make sure to have a section in your content specifically related to customer reviews.
- The products you sell: Have an overview of the specific products or services you sell. Make sure to always try and sell the benefits and how the product can change the way your customer feels.
- Information about any warranties: Have a section about any warranties you provide on the products and services you sell.
The ultimate aim of the content section is to drive your users to take a specific action. To do so you want to make sure that you include as many trust elements as possible.
Again, we want our websites to convey enough trust that our visitors will be more than happy to whip out their credit card and purchase our product or service
The Footer
The footer section of our website is generally the least important. For a website that drives leads and conversions, we’ll generally just have quick links to all of our important pages, this is strictly for SEO purposes.
After monitoring the websites of our competitors, we found that generally, less than 12% of visitors will reach the footer, that means that 88% of visitors either find the information they require, go to another page, book a service or leave the website entirely.
To convey more trust, we’ll have further contact information in the footer, like an embedded Google map of our office address or an alternate phone number that our clients can text.
Essentially building a website that drives leads and conversions, is about building trust.
We do our best to include all of the aforementioned trust elements, with the goal of having our visitors be comfortable enough to enter their credit card details into our payment processing widget.
It’s really that simple.
If you wanted more information on creating amazing websites, built to convert or you want to buy a website, we’re available 24/7 to meet your needs
