Web Content Strategies for Higher Conversion

Visitors to your website have an immediate need; they come to your site for you to fulfill it. Your website needs to get your visitors directly to what they need in as few steps as possible. Effective site architecture allows your visitors to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. When developing and organizing your web content to achieve higher conversions there are a number of considerations you need to make.

Identify Your Target Audience Groups and Give Them What They Need

The first thing you have to do is identify who your target site visitors are. Whether you sell to consumers, purchasing directors, engineers or distributors, you need to address the needs of each group separately. You must first understand the different language each group uses to identify what they are looking for and utilize it effectively in your site architecture. Are they looking for a family of products, are they looking to compare products or do they already know what they want and need to get directly to it? Knowing this will affect the way you lay out the navigation structure and functionality of your site. Additionally, you can help your visitors find what they need by focusing the text about your products and services on the features and benefits that support what they are trying to accomplish. End users and integrators, for example, have different objectives to fulfill. Using the language of your target audience lets them know they have arrived at the right place on your site and intelligently guides them through the buying process. Strategically placed photographs and images that support the text you have written will help entice your prospective buyer.

Remember, the first goal is to show your potential customers what they need right away when they arrive at your site. The next step is to make sure your site makes it easy for them to make a purchase after finding it. From submission of an RFQ, making an actual purchase or filling out a contact form, getting the customer to interact with your company via your website is referred to as "conversion".

Help Site Visitors Click Through to Conversion

Once you have all of your sales and marketing copy written, and have selected the images to support what the copy has to say, you will decide where and on which pages the content will go and how that content will be linked from page to page or within the same page of your site. It may help you to think of your website as a large department store. Shoppers enter the department store either to browse or to make a specific purchases. Either way, there has to be something that motivates them and guides them comfortably to what they need. On your website, links tell visitors where they need to go next just as a helpful in-store sales person would. The principal navigation, which should remain consistent throughout the site, guides your visitor to relevant content within the site. The text links placed within and around the copy on your web page specify to visitors what they should do next. For example, "To learn more about our technology click here," or "Place item in shopping cart," or "Speak with a representative to learn how..."

In order to create links that result in conversion, you need a game plan. Map it out. Understand that each time you present new information a new question may arise. Think ahead and try to provide a response to that question that motivates your visitors to click through to conversion. For example, a visitor may have found the product he wants at your site. The picture and the brief description let him know it is the right thing. But he has a specific application in mind for it and wants to know a little bit more about its design. If you want him to order it from your website then it is best to provide a link nearby to the technical information he is after. A link that identifies "Technical Specifications" or "System Requirements" should lead him to the information he needs to help him progress through the buying cycle. And make sure to allow him put the item in his shopping cart at every level of the information gathering stage.

The idea is to hold your audience's attention with information that is important to them and then guide them through to conversion by providing them with what they need to feel confident about doing business with you. The text and strategic placement of your links should provide your site visitors with a path that makes it easy for them to become customers.

Conclusion

Effective website content is your most powerful tool for converting visitors into customers. And how you organize that content ensures your potential customers get what they need in as few clicks as possible, and hopefully have an enjoyable experience at the same time. The starting point for creating effective web content is to know who you are addressing and the specific language they use to identify what it is they need. Supporting images and copy that speaks directly to the applications and concerns of your target audience groups further ensures each group will find the content intended for them.

The way in which your content is linked, or the effectiveness of your site's architecture, will determine whether or not your site's conversion goals are possible to achieve. By paying close attention to the needs and expectations of your targeted audience groups, you can achieve an effective layout and design that incorporates strategic placement of well-written text links to guide your potential customers successfully through to conversion.

Speak with an Industrial Web Solutions representative today to learn more about our web development and marketing services.

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