How much time does your website need to convert its next visitor into a sale? A minute? Two – perhaps three or even six? What are we dealing with here? Now how much time does your visitor have? And what happens if they have less time than you need to convert them?

 

I know – lots of questions for this early in the year. Nevertheless, I believe that most websites need to offer their visitors more time in order to make the essential visitor conversion. This is in part due to some fundamental errors made in online marketing that end up chewing through valuable visitor time.

 

This short article will guide you through making the best use of all the time you have. I’ll also share some ways to actually create more time – so giving your next visitor a greater chance of converting than ever before.

 

Sound good? OK – let’s get started.

 

So how much time do you actually have to make that conversion? Dig into your Google Analytics account and:

  • Look at the average session duration to find the aggregate total.
  • Then segment this by those who went on to convert and you will see how long these people took.
  • Now look at the difference between the two numbers – the aggregate and the converted – to determine the size of the task ahead of you.

 

For instance if the average session is 1.5 minutes and those converting take 6.5 minutes then we have a sizable 5 minute gap to work with. Figuring out what they are doing or thinking for those extra five minutes it takes them to convert is the first job.Another-big-step-on-the-way-to-create-your-blog-and-monetize-it-in-one-time

 

Are you asking them to take too big a step to become a conversion?

 

For instance, the website may require them to fill in a detailed quotation request form which asks for a myriad of details, some of which they may have no idea of. Perhaps a simple contact form that just asks for their phone and email may be super easy for them and just enough info for you to start the process off.

 

Or perhaps your e-commerce website is gobbling up too much time for first time shoppers. It may not allow for guest-only purchasing. So they HAVE to go through the new user registration phase – including perhaps coming up with a dastardly complex password that only your system requires.

 

Aarrgghh – all too much and too hard and taking way too long to make purchasing that nice little Art Deco lamp from your site just a distant memory.

 

Your website copy could be a problem too. Maybe you take an age to get to the point, describing exactly what you do and why you are so much better than the rest in your market. Technology service companies can struggle here. Distilling all that clever stuff into a headline and top of page body copy is never going to be easy. But it could pay big dividends.

 

Video can be a lifesaver here. A well-written and well-produced 60 second video can get very complex theories across with total clarity. We added another 30 seconds to ours to get our Pay Per Click advertising and Search Engine Optimisation services across in a “hefty” 90 seconds. It works – results show that those who play the videos are far more likely to buy.

 

Misconfigured advertising can chew through valuable visitor time too. For instance let’s say you are using Pay Per Click advertising and your ad places the person looking for a new set
of dress shoes on the homepage of your shoe website. Time would have been saved if they’d gone straight to the dress shoe section of the site. Hopefully, they will navigate from the home page to the right page – but as they do they will chew their through valuable session time which could be spent picking the colour and style they want, falling in love with the
shoes, and ensuring they complete the purchase.

 

Which leads me nicely onto the concept that the visitor time you have to work with is relatively fixed.

 

We only expect to spend so much time to buy or make contact with your sales team. And the more we all get used to searching and shopping online, the more I believe this time will dwindle. Super-fast and slick websites like Amazon make owning an electronic book something you can do in seconds, not minutes. And closer to home, websites like MightyApe make the whole e-commerce experience super quick and easy.

 

So what can you do this year to keep up with players like these and slash the time it takes for a visitor to convert?

 

Firstly, see how large your gap is between the average session times and those that convert. Track this gap each month as you roll out some of the strategies below.

 

  • Review the commitment you need for a goal to succeed. Are you asking for too much too early? Can you make converting super, super quick and easy. Get to the point and make the point stand out. Remember the copywriting acronym AIDA – Attention-Interest-Desire and Action – it defines the order in which the copy should flow down a page. It’s an age old, but can stand you in good stead. Remember, it starts with Attention – you need to capture that before you can head down into IDA.

 

  • Make your advertising work as hard as it should. Not only does it need to find the right audience, it also has to place them onto the exactly the right page of your website. Remember, finding those who are actively looking is so much better than interrupting those who are not.

 

  • Get the technology sorted for speed. Web pages that take an age to load or e-commerce shopping carts that don’t require guest checkouts should be easily fixed by competent web developers.

 

There you go. Your time may be fixed and possibly falling during the year – nevertheless apply some of the ideas I list here and you will make the most of the time you have.
Give us a call today or complete our speedy contact form if you would like to chat through how these strategies could be tailored to work with your business.

  • Review the commitment you need for a goal to succeed. Are you asking for too much too early? Can you make converting super, super quick and easy. Get to the point and make the point stand out. Remember the copywriting acronym AIDA – Attention-Interest-Desire and Action – it defines the order in which the copy should flow down a page. It’s an age old, but can stand you in good stead. Remember, it starts with Attention – you need to capture that before you can head down into IDA.

 

  • Make your advertising work as hard as it should. Not only does it need to find the right audience, it also has to place them onto the exactly the right page of your website. Remember, finding those who are actively looking is so much better than interrupting those who are not.

 

  • Get the technology sorted for speed. Web pages that take an age to load or e-commerce shopping carts that don’t require guest checkouts should be easily fixed by competent web developers.

 

There you go. Your time may be fixed and possibly falling during the year – nevertheless apply some of the ideas I list here and you will make the most of the time you have.
Give us a call today or complete our speedy contact form if you would like to chat through how these strategies could be tailored to work with your business.