10 Reasons Your Website Conversion Rates are Too Low

Conversion rates are key to your success. However, getting visitors to your website is only half the battle; you want them to convert. There are many moving parts and angles to this process and even more factors that contribute to converting or not converting your website traffic into sales.

Why?

Well, when you’re working towards improving your online conversion rates and your website traffic, you will often find that it’s a moving target. This nature is in part due to the ever-shifting field of web marketing. But also because there are many often invisible factors influencing these things.

What’s A Good Conversion Rate For Your Website?

A good conversion rate for your website is the percentage of visitors who actually complete the desired action. In other words, it’s the number of people who click on a link or button and make a purchase, fill out a form, or sign up for an email list.

This metric is important for two reasons: it shows how effective your website is at driving traffic to your business and increasing sales, and it helps you understand what kind of content works best for your audience.

A good place to start is by looking at the average conversion rate for your niche for sites similar to yours (just don’t compare apples to oranges).

So, for example, if you’re selling sportswear online and want a healthy conversion rate of around 2% or higher—which is typical for this industry—then look at similar stores’ landing pages to see what they’re doing right and wrong.

Now that you’ve checked your figures to what is the standard for your industry and figured out you’re getting too few conversions, it’s time to read on.

I’ve reviewed ten reasons why your website conversion rates are too low, and I’m sure you’ll find the answer somewhere below:

1. You Aren’t Targeting Local Customers

Your website’s conversion rate might be low because you’re not focusing on local customers. If you can’t find the right audience for your business, you should consider hiring someone who can help.

For example, suppose you’re opening up a new branch of your restaurant chain in Brisbane, Australia. Your business will likely rank higher in search engines and get more traffic from people who live near one of your stores when you get to know their local SEO services in the area and leverage them to better break into the local market.

2. Your Website Doesn’t Look Professional

If your website looks like it was designed in 1998, you might want to consider hiring a professional web designer. Even if they’re expensive, they’re worth every penny because they know what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to creating an appealing website that will make people want to do business with you.

3. The Call to Action Is Unclear

You want your customers to convert, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds. If you don’t know what you want your visitors to do, then they won’t either. Your call-to-action buttons should be clear and direct so that people know just what they need to do next.

Maybe your site visitors sign up for your newsletter or download a white paper. Maybe you want them to buy something or click through to another page on your site. Whatever it is, you need to make it obvious what they should do next.

4. You’re Not Using Social Proof

Social proof is a powerful tool that can increase your conversion rates significantly. For example, if you have testimonials from real customers on your website or blog, visitors will be more likely to trust you and purchase from your site.

Studies have shown that social proof can increase conversion rates by significant amounts to positively impact your conversion rates. So if you want more conversions from your website, make sure you include testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers.

5. Your Visual Design Doesn’t Match the Product

A good look and feel is an important part of your website. Your site needs to look like it if you’re selling a luxury product. And if you’re selling a cheap product, your site should look like that too.

Don’t try to trick people into thinking they are buying something more expensive than they are — it will backfire on you when people leave without buying.

6. You Run Too Many Pop-Up Ads

Pop-ups are annoying – they make it hard for visitors to navigate your website page, and they often cover up content that people want to read or interact with (like pricing information).

They also commonly force people to click ‘Close’ before they can do anything else on your site – which is frustrating for them and makes them less likely to purchase from you or recommend your business to others.

7. You don’t have a trust seal or badge on your site

Consumers are looking to quickly verify the legitimacy of a business before they make a purchase, and a site seal or badge can instantly boost your credibility with visitors.

They want to know that you are credible and trustworthy, so they can relax and enjoy their experience with you. When they see a trust seal on your website, they will feel more confident purchasing from you.

8. Your Website Isn’t Optimized for Mobile Visitors

Mobile users are now responsible for more than half of all internet traffic, which means if you aren’t optimizing your site for mobile users, you could be losing out on huge amounts of revenue every month.

Even worse, Google is punishing websites that aren’t mobile-friendly by lowering their search rankings in mobile search results pages — meaning even desktop users may be abandoning your site due to poor mobile optimization.

9. You Don’t Have a Blog or Any Other Valuable Content

If you want to build a website that converts, you need to provide something for your visitors. The more content you have on your site, the more likely people will stay on it and engage with your brand.

Linking your blog posts to your main website is also one of the best ways to build engagement with prospective customers by showing them that you’re an authority in your field — and that they should do business with you.

10. Pay attention to bounce rates

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing just one page — meaning they didn’t view at least two pages on your website. If your bounce rate is high, it means there’s something wrong with what you’re doing (or not doing) regarding getting people engaged on each page of your site.

Final Thoughts

An ugly website will kill your business—no question about it. The good news is that instead of worrying about site redesigns, you can simply use the best practices we’ve outlined above to increase your conversion rates and start growing your profits today. And if you follow the ten tips outlined in this post, we can guarantee your conversion rates will be higher than before.