Is your website generating enough leads, sales, or subscribers? Do you want more? This post introduces 5 internet software tools to help you convert more of your site visitors so you can achieve your website’s objective.
It is true that generating site traffic comes before conversion, but sometimes I still say conversion is more important than generating traffic. My argument is: if your site visitors are not converting, most of the effort and money invested to generate traffic would be put to waste.
With that said, here are some tools to help you better understand your audience so you can improve your website, increase conversions, and generate a better ROI on your efforts to increase website traffic.
1. Heat Map
What is it?
Heat Map is an internet software technology that tracks people’s clicking behavior on your site. Here’s an example of heat map from Google’s search engine results page (SERP):
The areas in red indicate high click density, and the areas in blue indicate low click density.
What is it for?
Heat maps tell you where your visitors are clicking so you know how your visitors are interacting with your website. From the example above, you see that the top search results received much more attention than those at the bottom. Similarly, the top paid ads got more clicks than those at the bottom.
In essence, heat map shows you what types of contents are engaging your site visitors and which ones are not. It helps you decide which buttons to change, which contents to improve, and whether your overall site layout needs re-arranging or other improvements.
Some Suggested Tools:
One of the most well-known heat map tools is Crazy Egg. Other alternatives include Feng Gui and ClickHeat from Labs Media. If you are using WordPress, you can try this Heatmap Plugin.
2. A/B Testing
What is it?
Also called split testing, A/B Testing is a methodology that helps you create content variations from the same webpage. Here’s an example of A/B Testing a green and red button on a landing page:
Notice that the only variations tested here is the color of the buttons and NOTHING ELSE. Additional variations are called multi-variate testing and require deeper quantitative analysis.
What is it for?
Your goal for A/B testing is to look for a better conversion rate for your website. Depending on what you’re testing, A/B testing gives you the insights you need to better convert your site visitors.
From the example given above, their test results showed that the red button outperformed the green button by 21%!! You can read more about their test in this post: The Button Color A/B Test.
Of course, this is not to say that the red button always outperform the green button. Remember that every website and its visitor demographics are different. There is no single rule that applies to all!
Besides testing the color of the button, you can also test call-to-actions, webpage designs, and even the webpage contents, just so you learn how to better convert your website visitors.
Some suggested tools:
Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer are the most popular tools out there for A/B testing. Both tools are very user friendly with no coding or HTML knowledge required.
3. Short Online Surveys
What is it?
These surveys are not the typical surveys you see in your emails that link to a webpage full of questions. Rather, it is one question that can be listed on each of your webpage, usually at the bottom right. Here’s a sample survey taken from Qualaroo’s homepage:
What is it for?
Short online surveys give you data such as customer feedbacks. These feedbacks can help you: identify what your customers are looking for, understand their decision-making process, decide whether your website contents are informative, or identify other customer concerns. The purpose is to gather information so you can better tailor your website to your audience, and you can ask any sort of questions you like.
From the sample above, Qualaroo’s homepage uses short online surveys to find out the reason why customers are buying.
Information gathered from Qualaroo’s survey is likely being used to help with their company’s positioning statement or value proposition.
Some suggested tools:
Some popular tools for in-page short online surveys include Qualaroo and Web Engage. For starters and low traffic websites, I suggest that you use Web Engage’s free edition. iPerceptions is another survey tool that that you can use when visitors leave your website.
4. Page Exit Pop-Ups
What is it?
Yes, pop-ups, but not exactly. The page exit pop-ups do not open a new window upon entry to a new website. Instead, these pop-ups show up when you try to leave the webpage.
What is it for?
Just as the name implies, these pop-ups are designed to prevent your website visitors from bouncing from your website. The pop-up can be triggered when you hit the back button on your browser, when your mouse moves away from the webpage (for instance, when you try to click on another tab on your browser), or when you stayed on the same webpage for 10-15 seconds.
The value message from these pop-ups should entice your visitors to stay on your site. Here’s a sample pop-up that Bounce Exchange uses:
The goal of this pop-up is to convert visitors that are about to bounce into leads or sales. If used properly, it can greatly reduce your bounce rate and increase the bottom line of your business.
Some suggested tools:
Currently, I only know of Bounce Exchange that does this. There is also a WordPress Popup Plugin that has similar functionalities.
5. Live Chat Widget
What is it?
Live chat widget allows you to chat with people that are interacting with your website in real-time.
What is it for?
When you visit a site and do not have the patience to browse through everything, wouldn’t it be nice if you can talk to someone immediately? Even without picking up the phone?
These live chat widgets are designed for just that. It is an add-on to your website that allows your visitors to message you instantly and anonymously. Shown below is an example of a live chat widget at the bottom right of a webpage:
So when a visitor lands on Servora’s hompage, they can start chatting with someone at Servora instantly!
According to Oli Gardner’s post Use Live Chat for Customer Engagement & Higher Conversion, a new user whom you’ve chatted with on your site is 3x more likely to return to your website. Also, if you run an ecommerce site, the rate of shopping cart abandonment can be reduced by an additional 15%.
Further, live chat provides answers to your site visitors so they know whether they’ve found what they’re looking for. If they did, it is very likely that they will convert to your customer.
Some suggested tools:
I personally prefer Olark or Zopim because of their user-interface and their mobile app offering, which allows you to chat with your site visitors through your phone or tablet. There are other live chat services that can capture your site visitors’ information before they chat with you, thus giving you the information you need to do marketing campaigns. However, requiring a person to enter their contact information to chat is another commitment barrier that prevents a visitor from engaging with you.
Conclusion
The key to optimize your website’s conversion rate is to carefully study how your visitors behave through analytical tools such as heat map and A/B testing. You can also gather valuable feedbacks through short online surveys while increasing site visitor’s engagement through page exit pop-ups and live chat widgets. When implementing these tools, do not forget to constantly measure your conversion rates through Google Analytics or other tools. Always aim for a high conversion so you do not lay waste to your efforts to generate website traffic! Keep trying and testing until you succeed!
Do you know of any other tools that can help increase a website’s conversion rate?
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