Improving a website’s conversion rate is part art and part science. Knowing what works well with your site and its landing pages can drastically improve user experience and, in turn, revenue. Improving your website conversion rate and turning visitors into real customers requires a methodical approach and a creative mind. A typical conversion rate for most e-commerce websites is around 2-5%, meaning that for every 100 visitors, 2 to 5 people will buy something. That conversion rate can mean two things, your traffic isn’t targeted and your website isn’t engaging. However there is good news, you can improve the quality of your website traffic and convert more users into customers with a few key conversion optimization techniques.

Don’t Focus on Traffic
To fully understand how to better your website’s conversion rate, it is important to realize where most businesses go wrong. They focus on the amount of traffic instead of targeted traffic. Whether that means, they are paying to get mass traffic from generic search terms like “clothing,” or have not focused their website to a niche. A website without a focus can typically see conversions under .5%. One of the biggest mistakes in online marketing campaigns is bringing in the wrong types of traffic. Well designed websites will do nothing without targeted traffic and vice versa, targeted traffic will not work as well without a well-designed landing page. Great ways to get targeted traffic are engaging in with industry leaders on Twitter, Blogs, and partnerships.

Focus on Niche Conversions
Niche marketing gives you the highest rate of conversions. Whether it is your “call to action” or your website layout, find out what works for a certain niche instead of trying to please everybody. Don’t direct people on a paid search ad to a homepage with 300 different links. Create a focused message targeted to a demographic and then design a landing page for them to land. Make sure your copy is consumer focused, using the word “you”. Keep your landing pages short, simple, and concise with a call to action.

To get a consumer to convert it takes a great deal of trust and rapport. Think about including social commerce plugins and social logins to build that trust. It’s fair to speculate more people are likely to purchase something from your site if they see that one of their friends “Like” an item.

Minimize Clicks
The more clicks a user needs to make, the less your conversion rate. It is quite simple people don’t want to click more than 3 times to be able to find or purchase a product online. “Make each click count” is a phrase that is always thrown around when talking about website optimization because of irrelevant clicks dead end the browsing experience. A tip for landing page conversion is to feature a product, and have a series of questions or calls to action, with a one-click order button.

The key to high conversion rates are understanding who is visiting your website, who is purchasing and most importantly why people aren’t purchasing. If you can use Google Analytics or any other user tracking tools to understand your CTR, bounce rate and exit rates you will be able to strategically develop your landing pages. Having strategic intent and customer focus will improve all facets of your online marketing planning.