You finally did it—spending the time, resources, and energy to learn and master the ultra-popular WordPress publishing platform. At long last, you’ve built the website of your dreams.
But where’s the traffic? What about revenue?
Unlike in Field of Dreams, building a website does not mean customers will come. While top hosting providers, such as WP Engine, can ensure your website is fast, reliable, and secure, hosting providers can’t guarantee that you will be taking the right steps to optimize your online opportunities.
Even if your WordPress masterpiece excels at attracting visitors, they might not be converting to paying customers. Identify which part—or parts—of your pipeline is hindering your online business and website’s ability to grow by reading our list of the likely culprits of conversion and their worthwhile solutions.
1. You Didn’t Do Your Keyword Homework
Your conversion rate won’t matter if you can’t bring in any traffic. Being buried deep within search results means that not many visitors will find your website. Identifying and ranking for the right keywords can make or break your website.
Being in tune with what your potential customers are looking for online can help you position your business to predict and target evolving market conditions. Strong keyword research helps you dive down into specific keyword combinations that resonate more strongly with customers who are ready to buy. Instead of swinging for the fences with generic keywords, dig into the details of what your potential customers are seeking.
2. Your Conversion Page Lacks Content Depth and/or Quality
Simply put, content is king. When it comes to high-conversion websites, there is no substitute for powerful language that clearly expresses a passion for what you’re doing. Starting with the page’s headline or display text—an incredibly easy thing to change in WordPress—your website content should convey how your company provides services and solutions that give customers an advantage over those who use other products.
Don’t be afraid to include more information. Contrary to what you might think, conversions tend to happen more frequently when there’s more information available to the customer. The details help customers understand why it’s OK to part with their money in exchange for the cool product or service you’re selling.
3. Your Intent Isn’t Clear or Information is Hard to Find
Remember, much of your website’s traffic includes people who have never heard of your company before. A good product or service description will help potential customers feel comfortable and informed about your offerings. Here are some of the details and functionalities you’ll want to make abundantly easy for your potential customers to find:
- Search area
- Simple navigation menu
- Your contact information
- Product variations (size, color, etc.)
- Prices
- Photos
- Call-to-Action
Well-written online content is like a 24/7 salesperson—always willing to assist potential customers to decide whether your service is worth purchasing. Use your knowledge of your target audience (discovered during keyword research) to tailor your web content to answer consumers’ questions and promote trust.
4. Your Design isn’t helping
This point can be particularly painful, especially after you’ve slaved over the look and feel of your WordPress site. The ample time you spent crafting just the right messages and information on your website will all be for naught if your visitors are distracted by a less-than-ideal design.
To make your content shine, look for designs focused on maximizing conversions. Simple and clean WordPress themes engage readers, but don’t overwhelm them. Elegance and professionalism aren’t always easy to visually capture, but that’s why premium, professionally built WordPress themes are worth the investment.
Here are some themes that illustrate my point:
Look for something simple that keeps customers focused on your product, as opposed to distracting them with unnecessary links away from your primary conversion pages.
5. Your Call-To-Action Doesn’t Command Attention
What if you have all these things and still aren’t getting the conversions? You might have plenty of traffic and lots of clear information displayed just right, but that’s not enough. Just like you can’t expect your spouse, children, or pets to read your mind and know what you want, website owners and entrepreneurs need to clearly tell visitors what you would like them to do.
A strategically placed button directing customers to sign up for a service or buy your product will convince visitors to pull the trigger and commit to interacting with you. Calls-to-action should be easy to understand, with no room for interpretation: “buy now,” “download here,” and “sign up” are all commonly seen directives that should be placed in a colorful button with which visitors will want to interact.
Consider WP-Friendly Tools to Capture Potential Customers
Improving conversions is a lifelong quest that is hard to summarize in just a few steps. Before you get too deep into fine-tuning your funnel, make sure you get the fundamentals right. Your strongest asset is a premium WordPress website hosting plan that optimizes your site performance and provides the expertise and support necessary to grow your online business.
Once that is secured, you can use our five-pronged approach to improving the conversion rates on your stunning WordPress site. Start exploring tools specifically built for the content management system that will help you cover the rest of your bases.
Various WordPress plugins will help keep visitors on your site. Extending a visit even by a second or two, giving your potential customer one more chance to interact with you or purchase your product, can have a dramatic effect on conversions.
For example, look for plugins that trigger a last-ditch pop-up message when users move their mouse to leave your site or scroll past a certain part of information. Proactive live chat messages or chances to sign up for a mailing list provide other ways to keep a potential customer hanging around, even if they’re not quite ready to convert.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexandra Leslie manages HostingAdvice.com as the Tech Vertical Manager of Digital Brands, Inc. Boasting 50-plus years of combined experience in various tech fields, the HostingAdvice team is the web’s leading source for information on all things web hosting.
Thank you Leslie,
Nice article.