But even the savviest entrepreneurs forget how important their conversion funnel is and make some very silly mistakes that can cost them double-digit percentage increases in sales.
1. Not having Trust Seals
One of the simplest things you can do for your website conversion funnel is displaying trust seals on your homepage, whenever you’re asking a visitor for personal information, and whenever your visitor is about to make a sale. When you add trust seals, you’re increasing your trust and legitimacy with your audience, making them feel more comfortable in handing over their credit card in a purchase or personal information for a newsletter sign-up.
2. Asking for Too Much Information
If you’re trying to convert a visitor for an email, or a sale, you only really need a few basic bits of information. Anything in addition to what’s necessary causes more friction, and how much more use is that information to you anyways? Limit friction and ask only what’s needed to convert the customer.
3. Not being very clear with your Return Policy
Even if you don’t accept returns, visitors appreciate your transparency and have an easier time deciding on whether or not to make a purchase. This also filters out the low quality customers who will give you a lot of trouble in wanting to return the product even if you don’t allow that because they’ll claim you didn’t state it clearly enough.
4. Not including a Phone Number and Email Address for Support
Even though most don’t use it, most visitors really value the fact that you proudly display your contact information, earning more of their trust. They especially like a phone number because it gives them comfort knowing that if they have an issue, instead of waiting 24 – 48 hours for an email response, they can speak to someone right then and there to resolve their issue.
5. Not investing in Better Server Space
A lot of visitors click out of sites because of their frustration in dealing with slow site speeds. Of course, removing images can also help in increasing site speed, but better server space ensures your site is always running at optimal speed, while making sure your site never crashes. You’re only cheating yourself by saving a few dollars each month on mediocre server space.
6. Not having enough White Space with a clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
Having overloaded pages can be overwhelming for a visitor because they don’t know what the clear next step is, so you should only keep what’s important in a customer’s decision-making-process which includes the strongest value propositions for your product and trust factors so they’re secured in making a transaction with you. You also want to make sure there’s a very clear CTA to push them along your conversion funnel since you don’t want them looking at a page for 10 minutes thinking, “What next?” There’s nothing worse for a visitor than to come onto a site, not know what the product is about or how to purchase it.
7. Adding New Offers before you made the First Sale
Up selling and cross selling is important in increasing the order value for a customer, but a lot of times, the up sell and cross sell can cause friction because if they are already set on purchasing the product at the beginning, who says they won’t form some reservations and never convert after the price is hiked up a few percent because they wanted premium upgrades and extra things? Instead, sell them the product first, and then ask if they want to upgrade their product or buy other products that compliment their first purchase and you could recharge their card with the added costs.
About the Author:
Danny Wong is the Conversion Optimization Manager for Blank Label Group, optimizing the funnels for the startups Blank Label, Thread Tradition and RE:custom.