Who doesn’t want a flood of sales and conversions? If that’s what you’re after, add the following elements to your website and you’ll start seeing results quickly.
How convincing are your product descriptions? If you thought they were just informational, think again. Every single word on your website is an opportunity to bring a lead closer to becoming a customer. All of your copy should be written in a way that aims to actively generate sales and/or conversions.
You definitely need to describe the technical specifications of what you sell. However, lead with persuasive product and meta descriptions and allow customers to scroll down to, or click on a tab to get the technical details (like weight, dimensions, materials, where something is made, etc.).
The purpose of having an ecommerce website designed is to sell products and services, so it makes sense that you’d want to have persuasive descriptions. Your descriptions are the last thing people read before adding something to their cart. When those descriptions are compelling, more people will fill their cart.
Although adding items to a cart doesn’t guarantee a sale, persuasive descriptions have the power to increase a buyer’s interest in a product, which influences their commitment to buy. When you can influence a buyer’s commitment to buy right before they add a product to their cart, you’re more likely to get the completed sale.
The term ‘copywriter’ is used to describe anyone who writes copy, but there is a difference between a copywriter and a content writer. A professional copywriter is someone who has been specifically trained to write persuasive sales copy. A professional content writer is someone who writes compelling stories to entertain and/or educate an audience.
A copywriter should write your sales pages and ad copy while a content writer should craft your blog articles. When an experienced copywriter crafts your sales pages, you’ll generate more sales. They can also add persuasive content to your blogs.
While it’s possible to find people who learned to write sales copy on their own, that’s rare. Most DIY copywriters are actually content writers with little to no marketing experience. Without marketing experience (or knowledge), it’s not possible to write highly effective sales copy simply because sales copy is marketing copy.
If you aren’t sure what the difference in output is between content writing and copywriting, consider the following comparison regarding headlines. Headlines directly influence sales, so it’s important to get them right.
Say you’re selling a course aimed at entrepreneurs who want to generate more sales. A content writer might write the following headline for your sales page:
“Start Generating 6-Figures with My 3-Day Marketing Course.”
This copy gets to the point, but it’s not persuasive.
On the other hand, a professional copywriter would write something like this:
“Amazing Secret Discovered by Lazy Entrepreneur Increases Sales By 300%, Eliminates Unqualified Leads, And Can Decrease Your Bounce Rate By 60% Almost Overnight.”
These claims might be a tall order, but they’re not impossible, and if the product can deliver then this would be a winning headline.
Now you can see the difference between content writing and copywriting as it pertains to persuasion and marketing. If you want to generate exponential growth in revenue, you need a professional copywriter.
Have you ever received an email reminding you that you’ve left items in a shopping cart without checking out? Have you ever gone back to complete your purchase? Although these emails might seem a bit intrusive, they work. Many people do go back to complete a purchase after getting one of these emails.
According to email marketing statistics published by Business2Community, businesses generate 69% more sales when they send out three abandoned cart emails. However, not many businesses take advantage of this feature.
Don’t be one of those business owners who doesn’t send out abandoned cart emails to bring leads back to your website. Many people will buy from you when they’re reminded about the contents of their cart. Some people add things to their cart just to comparison shop, but if they don’t buy from another company right away, your reminder email could be the catalyst for them to make a purchase.
How easy is your checkout process? Can users make a purchase without creating an account or battling pop-ups? Does your shopping cart calculate shipping before a user is asked for their credit card information? Is it clear when a user is being asked to submit their final purchase versus being asked to review their order on the next page?
These finer details matter. During the checkout process there are so many opportunities for a user to bounce. Unless someone is strongly determined to buy specifically from you, they might be fickle. It doesn’t take much to make someone bounce. Here’s a list of the top reasons people bounce while checking out:
Everyone knows that shipping prices are always going up, especially with companies like UPS, FedEx, and DHL. It’s nice to offer faster and more reliable services, but your shipping options should include standard USPS mail. Priority Mail, for example, is often cheaper than UPS when you can fit your items in a flat-rate box. Always offer customers a cheaper way to get their items.
If a customer routinely has issues with UPS or FedEx and must convey a message to the driver, they’ll bounce if they can’t pass along their notes.
When your checkout process is smooth with no unexpected errors, barriers, or hidden costs, you’ll generate more sales, period.
You won’t get many sales from your emails if you’re sending people email content that doesn’t match their experience with your brand. For example, you can’t use the same welcome email for every signup page when those signup pages discuss vastly different products or offer different downloads.
Here’s an example of how this type of error might express in the real world. Say you have three web forms and each one offers users a different PDF download in exchange for their email address. The first download is a guide for increasing targeted traffic; the second is a guide for creating a beautiful website with Wix; the third is a guide for optimizing your onsite SEO.
Ideally, you’ll want three separate welcome emails that are triggered by the appropriate web form signups. Each email can refer to the specific download that put them on your list, and will be sent only to the people who downloaded that particular guide. For example, you can use the following messages in your first email:
After they receive the first email that discusses what they downloaded, you can automatically drop everyone into the same general email sequence.
If you can’t create a separate welcome email for each lead source, make sure your welcome email is general and doesn’t refer to a specific download, product, or service. If someone signs up to download a guide to onsite SEO, you don’t want them to receive an email thanking them for downloading a guide to getting targeted traffic.
If this seems like it wouldn’t be an issue, it’s actually quite common. Here’s how it happens. A business starts out offering only one download and builds their email sequence around the details of that download. Over time, more downloads are added, but the welcome email isn’t changed. In fact, many business owners forget that their welcome email was written for a specific download.
Don’t let this happen to you! Keep track of your offers and make sure your welcome email content always matches the source of your leads. If you can’t create specific emails because you’re limited by your email marketing tool, consider upgrading to a premium tool like Keap or Infusionsoft, or go general with your welcome message.
All of the above elements will help you increase your conversions, whether you’re after sales, downloads, video plays, email signups, or anything else. However, you also need a professionally designed website to make it all work.
If you don’t have a custom website, it’s time to look into getting one. If you’re using a template, no matter how good it looks, you can always do better when designing from scratch. Templates don’t always suit every business’ needs, but a custom website will. For instance, it’s hard to make a templated website represent your brand. Even when you hire a programmer to customize a template, there will always be limitations. Often, it’s more cost-effective to design a site from scratch.
Website.design can create a custom website that fully represents your brand so you can start generating higher revenue faster. If you’re ready to grow your business with a more effective website, reach out to our design team to discuss your needs. We look forward to hearing from you!
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