How do You Keep the Attention of Your Website Visitor?

IT

Karen Peters The Right SiteThis week, we’re really excited to have the lovely Karen Peters guest blog for us. Karen is an Independent Conversion Rate Optimisation consultant specialising in Websites and online/offline Marketing.  She can help you to identify why your business marketing and website is failing to convert those online and offline visitors into sales or sales leads.  Today, she talks to us about how you keep the attention of your website visitors.

I’ve said many times that in order for your business to succeed online, your website (the centre of your online marketing and your online branding) must not only attract qualified visitors, but must keep their attention in order to help with your conversion rate.

It goes without saying that the more qualified traffic you can get to stay on your website the greater the number of those visitors you will get to convert.

However, that said you need to bear in mind the follow: –

  • Not everyone who visits the web is ready to buy, in fact only about 3% of web visitors are ready to buy which means your site needs to also target the other 97% who are still thinking about it
  • Your conversion rates will depend on the type of business website you run

Not Everyone Thinks Like You

In order to begin to understand your customers you need to start with understanding the types of people that come online.

There are 2 main types of people, to which you yourself will relate to one or both. Those are: –

  • The Cautious Information Seeker/buyer
  • The Busy Information Seeker/buyer

Let’s address them separately

The Cautious Information Seeker/buyer – This is my favourite type of website visitor, mainly because they create the biggest challenge for business owners. So the best way to help define this persons thought process is to give you a real life example of my friend Neil.

A few years back, Neil announce at work that he was going to buy a family car. He had his budget and set about looking for the ideal car for his family. Nearly 3 years later he finally purchased that car. Now some of you will be asking why it took him so long, so I’ll explain.

Neil when it comes to buying for his family is a cautious person, not at spending money but getting value for money. So he researched the internet, looking at the various car specs, online reviews and talked to a number of people. At one point he did announce that he had found the right car, however a week later after speaking to someone in a “coffee shop”, decided not to go with that model. So Neil procrastinated, he needed to know that not only was he making the right decision based on technical requirements and budget, but making that decision on behalf of his family’s needs as well. This was why it took him so long. But let’s face it, 3 years is a long time.

So ‘cautious seekers’ will make up a good percent of the 97% of online visitors and will do a lot of research and comparisons with your competitors before even considering your products or services. But even when they have filtered their options down and are ready to buy, they become the ‘cautious buyer’. Meaning they will then look at the ease of the buying process and important factors like guarantees, price, delivery and refunds. All of this needs to be clear and easy to find on your website.

Whereas the Busy Information Seeker/Buyers either don’t have time or don’t like using the internet that much so make a decision quickly visiting 2-3 websites and some reviews before making the decision. Then they will expect the buying process to be quick and easy to use. If it’s not, they may abandon your website with frustration.

Personally I’m a Busy Buyer for myself, but if I’m shopping online for products or services for someone else, I do become that Cautious information seeker…but still it won’t take me 3 years to make a decision!

The 5 Main Types of Website Designs

Then we need to consider the type of website design for your business, as this will also have an impact on the type of visitor and their buying decision and therefore conversion rates.

So there are 5 main types of design:

  1. The Online Store (eCommerce)
  2. The Brochure site
  3. The Publication site
  4. The Consultative site
  5. The Online Services site

Each site will have different conversion goals. For example, if you have an Online Store you are more likely to have a higher conversion rate on sales as a higher percentage of visitors to your website will be ready to buy. Whereas if you have a Consultative site, you are unlikely to be selling direct, so will be looking to convert visitors into prospects rather than paying customers.

Conclusion

Each design will come with a different set of challenges, attracting both types of website visitor.

The key to any high converting website in order to keep their attention is twofold: –

Really understand your target audience so that you only get qualified visitors to your website and remember that your audience may differ per product or service so each page needs consideration.

Create great but relevant content that will keep your visitor on your site longer, keeping their attention span long enough in order to persuade them that you can help solve their problem and encourage them to complete those all-important calls to action.

Don’t forget, video is a great source of content that not only attracts the attention of your visitor, but engages with them and has seen business conversions increase by up to 70%. So if you’re not on board with video or can’t think how it can be used for your business then please get in touch

Karen Peters

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