Want To Optimize Your Website For More Leads? More Conversions?
If you’re like millions of business owners with a website you want to implement some form of conversion optimization. That is, you want to do something to make more of your website visitors do what it is that you want them to do.
Whether that is pick up the phone and call you, fill out a form or buy something from your store.
Well recently I began reading a book called You Should Test That: Conversion Optimization for More Leads, Sales and Profit or The Art and Science of Optimized Marketing
They present a model known as the LIFT. model which is essentially a great way of thinking about how a website visitor turns into a customer.
Essentially, your value proposition is the vehicle (plane if you will) behind the sale and the feeling of urgency that your customer feels is the fuel to propel the vehicle.
The relevance to your visitor that your website provides as well as the clarity of your message/ value proposition will lift the plane off the ground.
While the amount of anxiety your page induces as well as any distractions that your website causes will hinder the progress of your value proposition falling upon eager ears.
But let’s break this down a bit.
Value Proposition
So your value proposition is one of the most important factors to this entire equation. It’s the plane, you aren’t going anywhere without a solid plane when it comes to traveling by flight.
You have to make sure that your value proposition hits home with your target market. You also have to make sure that the perceived value that your potential client sees in your product/service outweighs the perceived costs Things to think about:
- Benefits
- Features
- Incentives
- Offers</li
Urgency
Think about the average customer that you encounter. What is the typical situation they happen to be experiencing when they purchase something from you?
Someone who sells pizza would say that their target market is very hungry and has a bit of urgency to purchase because eating is one of the body’s main needs.
Someone who sells windows knows that most of their customers will contact them before or at the beginning of winter because they feel a great sense of urgency to buy.
The idea is to put yourself into your customers shoes and determine if your website facilitates a bit of urgency towards purchasing your product. Sales and promotions that are ending soon are great for situations where a customer is typically not in a hurry to buy and could wait around a month or two before making a decision.
Relevance
Relevance is an important factor when it comes to your website and optimizing it for conversions. You want to make sure that your website lives up to your potential client’s expectations.
Your website should feel like it is written specifically for your target audience because there shouldn’t be a disconnect. All of the visitors coming to your website will have a preconceived notion of what the link they clicked on should look like. Does your website match up to what they were expecting?
Clarity
The text in your webpage should be clearly written and your offer/ value proposition should be displayed prominently. The text on your website, the images, the buttons, everything should go together and look clear and concise or else your website visitors will receive your message properly.
Anxiety
When someone comes to a website they need to trust you. If you are having them fill out a form, they may be a bit hesitant to give you their phone number and e-mail address.
Your job is to make sure your website visitors feel safe and that your brand appears trustworthy. Nothing can drop a conversion rate faster than people thinking that your website is shady.
Distraction
Distractions will cause your website visitors to fade away into Lala land while neglecting to fill out your form or give your business a call. You need to make conscious efforts to minimize distractions on your website.
Implementing The LIFT Model
To implement the LIFT model you must make a hypothesis about how you can improve one of the 6 factors listed above and test it on your website using A/B/n testing. It’s essentially what is known as a split test where you serve 50% of your website visitors with 1 version of a website and the other half with another version.
The version that converts the best is the winner and then you can test the winning version against another version until you are satisfied. Essentially you can test a hypothesis about something that will increase conversions on your website an infinite amount of times and constantly keep improving it!
It’s easier said than done, however if you wish to read more about the process either check out the e-book You Should Test That
As always, thank you for reading and please be sure to leave your questions, comments and concerns below in the comments section!