Albert Einstein was once asked what he felt was the most powerful force in the universe. His response was “compound interest”.
Einstein was referring to how small incremental changes over time can produce amazing results.
Improving the conversion rate of your website is exactly the same.
Small changes – like improving your customer checkout process – can have a big effect on how many people end up buying from your site.
By experimenting with new ideas you’ll quickly get a feel for what works specifically for your business, but here are a few proven strategies to get you started:
1. Make it Easy to Navigate and Find Information
Good websites make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
This means:
- Organizing your products and services into logical categories
- Minimising the amount of clicks to get from point A to point B
- Allowing visitors to use a ‘Search’ function on your site
In a nutshell, the better the user experience – the more likely your visitors are to buy something. The golden rule of website design is keep it simple.
For example, Google is a multi-billion dollar company that receives millions of visitors to their website everyday.
Take a quick look at their ‘About Us’ page:
http://www.google.com/about.html
Notice how they’ve resisted the urge for flashy graphics and spinning logos? Clearly they have placed functionality above cosmetic appeal.
If you take a moment to look at popular websites like…
Amazon.com
eBay.com
Dell.com
Micosoft.com
Ford.com
… you’ll find they all have two things in common – a clean website design and a simple navigation system.
Once you’ve finished building your website, it’s worth conducting some basic usability testing.
This is as simple as getting a few customers and colleagues to review your website and asking them what you could do to improve your site design.
2. Make it Secure and Trustworthy
Before customers are ready to give you sensitive information such as their home address or credit card number, they need to be reassured that your website is safe and secure.
Any doubt or hesitation on their part, substantially decreases your chances of making the sale.
Steps you can take to build trust with your shoppers include:
- Displaying a security and privacy guarantee
- Assuring them that their email address won’t be spammed or sold to a third party
- Having your website security audited by a third party like TRUSTe (www.truste.com) or the Better Business Bureau (www.bbbonline.com)
3. Offer Free Shipping
Offering your customers free shipping can be a massive sales booster.
Imagine this scenario for a moment:
Two pizza stores are competing for business in their local neighbourhood:
- Pizza store A sells their pizzas for $10 but charges $5 for delivery
- Pizza store B sells their pizzas for $15 but offers free delivery
Who sells more pizzas?
The person who buys from Pizza store A is happy with their pizza – but feels a little ripped off by paying 50% of the pizza cost for delivery.
The person who buys from pizza store B is happy with the pizza and happy about getting ‘free’ delivery.
So even though the total price to the consumer remains identical ($15), why is it that pizza store B will always outsell pizza store A?
The answer is basic human nature; we all want ’something for nothing’.
Even though logically we understand that the delivery price for pizza store B is built into the purchase price, emotionally we’re still attracted to the thought of ‘free delivery’.
Offering free shipping to your customer’s works on the same principle, test it out and you might be surprised at the difference.
4. Generate Repeat Orders
No matter what industry you’re in, it’s much easier (and more profitable) to generate repeat orders from existing customers than to be constantly chasing new customers.
Repeat shoppers to your website have the highest conversion rate online, so keep in touch with them by sending:
- Thankyou emails
- Discount offers
- First pick at new or limited stock
- Limited time promotions
Everybody loves a bargain and a quick email blast can be especially handy if you need to move old or discontinued stock.
About the Author
Adrian Mullan is the author of ‘The Internet Demystified’ and founder of WebDummy.com – a popular Internet marketing resource for small business owners.
One morning, one of my favorite students asked me an interesting question. She asked me how do you create a perfect dog in a world where everyone is short on time, will, skill and money? When I asked her to describe the perfect dog, she told me that she wants a dog that will never sniff on a walk, will never jump on people, never steal food, never pull on a walk, never be bad.
Smiling, I remarked those are a lot of “nevers” for a dog to master. Honestly, most people aren’t that well-mannered. The quest for perfection can be hard on dogs and people, alike. I added that perhaps the dog in his natural state of imperfection is good enough, and that the dog is fine just as he is. So, instead of striving for perfection, why not strive for Doggie Wabi Sabi, a state of appreciation for the dog’s appropriate imperfection?
Doggie Wabi Sabi is a philosophy of living with your dogs that takes into account their natural doggy imperfection. Dogs are creatures of rustic simplicity, endowed with understated elegance, bursting with quirks and endearing oddities that add to their uniqueness and instinctive appeal.
Enmeshed with this natural elegance is a genetic drive that makes a dog unique, the desire for emotional, energetic congruence with a matching energy source. If this wish for intimacy (joining up with the Alpha) is not fulfilled, even on occasion, then the dog turns inward, onto and into himself and in the end becomes something dark and dangerous.
So, what are the benefits of embracing Doggie Wabi Sabi? The first benefit is balance. Physical balance, emotional balance and mental balance. A balanced dog is unconsciously perfect everywhere, all the time, with everyone, due to emotional surrender to the leader. To the untrained eye, it seems as if the dog’s perfection is a result of a happy accident.
The second is fluidity. Living with a dog in the way of Doggie Wabi Sabi is living with the dog that is perfect according to the circumstances and in the context of other people, places and things; the appropriate irreducible minimum of suitable behavior. You don’t have to practice with this dog, you don’t have to go to classes, you just have to live as you wish with the dog all the time.
The third is facility. There are two guiding principles at work when using Doggie Wabi Sabi; resonance and magnetism. The principles of resonance dictate that like attracts like; and with magnetism, like repels like. I prefer that all teaching of the dog should be done according to the principles of resonance; the attraction of like to like. Resonance, or as I like to call it, FarFenflugle, as it is easily used in the real world and in real time. This technique energizes the dog’s first compelling genetic need; harmonize energetically, emotionally, with the leader.
We are so lucky that dogs are ?all for one? creatures, and that for them belonging to the collective is more important than belonging to oneself. Personal liberty for man is a great gift, it is a slow death for a dog.
I have found that the American ideal of a perfect dog is an ideal of robotized mechanical perfection, a dog that does nothing at all, and most importantly, never does anything that a normal dog might do. Artificially induced non-action, is a burden, an affliction and an unfair punishment. This mindless, soulless, robot-like obedience has no relation to creating a dog that fits in with a modern urban lifestyle.
Traditional dog obedience training can be artificial; a time consuming affliction, in many cases a burden to dog and owner alike. Traditional dog obedience training, in most cases does not create dogs that are safer, friendlier and an asset to the community because generally the training environment seeks perfection; the perfect sit, the perfect stay, the perfect heel. The focus is on very specific, very artificial external skills, not emotional, mental,or energetic resonance with you and your life.
If the natural internal drives and instincts of the dog are not groomed appropriately, obedience training has a minimal impact on reducing the inappropriate behaviors of a dog. If the dog does not believe with every cell of his body that you are his Alpha, then in his mind, he always has the right to say, ?No?. This is the dog that is rebellious, aggressive, independent and out of control; he jumps, he barks, he bites. This is the dog that you see on any city street pulling the arm of his owner out of the socket, and if you are able, you cross the street to avoid. This is a dog that has gone over to what I call the Doggie Dark Side.
With Doggie Wabi Sabi, you gather the natural inclinations of the dog and mold them, coax them, guide them into a masterpiece of a dog that is appropriate in the imperfect now. If he is hyper, you make him less so; if he is sedate, you make him more so according to the moment; always seeking energetic resonance.
If you want a dog that is appropriately pleasant while accompanying you through your life, you have to do more than just contain the body or constrict the mind of the dog. Instead, I would encourage you to enhance you dog’s natural elegant essence, and turn that to your benefit. The daily walk with the dog is the best way to ignite the dog’s natural, genetic compulsion to hook-up with a leader, to pack up.
WALK THE DOG?IT’s GOOD DOGGIE WABI SABI
If you want a good dog, walk your dog.
If you want a friendly dog, walk your dog.
If you want a protective dog, walk your dog.
If you want a healthy dog, walk your dog.
If you want a calm, cooperative, submissive dog, walk your dog.
If you want to learn to love your city; walk your dog.
If you want to live longer; walk your dog.
If you want to be happier; walk your dog.
If you want to reduce litter in your neighborhood; walk your dog.
If you want to reduce crime; walk your dog.
If you want your dog to love you, walk your dog.
If you want to reconnect with nature; walk your dog.
If you want Doggie Wabi Sabi Now; walk your dog!
A dog cultivated with the principles of Doggie Wabi Sabi, may not know or even need to know sit or down or stay or heel. In fact while the training may be incomplete at best, but by using resonance, the attraction of one energy to another, the dog is always perfect, moment to moment.
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ALL ABOUT AMI
Her first and true love is canine behavior modification and problem solving. Ami Moore has pioneered the use of electric dog training equipment as positive reinforcement, and combined this groundbreaking innovation with the dog’s natural drive to follow a strong leader.
From my point of view, a proper and balanced dog-human relationship is something that every person who has dogs in their life should experience, just as everyone should experience falling in love.
Student’s ask me why I train my dogs, I tell them that “From my point of view, I train because I am very, very lazy and I want to to where I want, when I want; and I want to take my dogs with me when I go.” And then, I always add, ” Training dogs, my personal dogs, equals freedom for for them. I want my dogs to have a beautiful life from a dog’s point of view. For a dog that means he has someone to follow and somewhere to go. I want my dogs to be “lucky dogs” not liabilities. http://www.dogdoright.com/
