11 Ways to Build a Website that Converts Visitors into Customers

When it comes to your website, the most important metric you can track is your website conversion rate. Having a website that converts visitors into customers is key to a successful business.

According to Straight North’s analysis of more than 300,000 true sales leads, 84% of website conversions occur on the first visit, while 11% of conversions happen on the second visit.

When you take that into consideration, it’s easy to see why first impressions are key. A website that makes a great first impression can help you increase your online influence, create a voice for your brand, and be your salesman 24/7/365. You can read more about it in our article that explains why your website is the new front door to your business.

In addition to that, approximately 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy which is why your website needs to build trust and start them on their journey from random website visitors to loyal clients and customers.

So how do you go about creating a website that converts visitors into customers? That’s what we will cover in this article.

Great Website Foundation

The first thing you need to build a website that converts visitors into customers is a great website foundation. While there are many platforms out there, we believe WordPress is the best choice for your website.

WordPress CMS

For starters, it’s open-source and free to download and use. Secondly, it’s a robust platform that allows you to build any type of website that can grow and scale as your business grows, while still being easy to use. Lastly, WordPress gives you full control over your website and content, not to mention you can easily monetize your site in multiple ways.

Clear Call to Action That Grabs Their Attention

Your website should have a clear call to action and grab your visitor’s attention as soon as they land on it. They should feel like you understand them and be able to learn how you can help them.

The easiest way to achieve this is to address their pain and use the same words and phrases they would use to talk about it. Paint a vivid picture of what their life is currently like and then show them what happens after they are done working with you.

Then, provide them with a clear call to action that takes them to the next logical step. A few examples include:

  • Buy now
  • Start trial
  • Download X
  • Sign up for mailing list

Make It Blazing Fast And Secure

A 1 second delay in your site speed can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. That’s why you need to test your website speed regularly and make improvements that will speed up your site.

A few ways to speed up your website include:

  • Optimizing images for the web by using the correct dimensions for your theme and saving them in the appropriate format
  • Using a CDN service to serve your images and script files like JavaScript and stylesheets that are used by WordPress, your theme, and plugins
  • Using thumbnails instead of videos on the homepage
  • Choosing a quality hosting plan

Use Video

Another way to build a website that converts visitors into buyers is to use video. Statistics show that product videos can increase purchases of the product by 144%.

On top of that, people are consuming more and more video and stats back it up: 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support.

Video makes it easier to build trust as visitors can see you and feel like you’re in the same room, having a conversation with them. Use this to your advantage and increase your bottom line.

Split-Test Headlines and Calls to Actions

A/B testing is becoming the preferred method that has brought a lot of the companies the most success. When you perform and A/B test, you compare two versions of a headline or a call to action to see which one is performing better.

There are numerous WordPress plugins that will help you set up both simple and more elaborate A/B split tests so you can see which version of a headline or a call to action gets more clicks from your visitors.

A Website That Converts Visitors into Customers uses the Storybrand Framework

Keep It Customer Focused With The StoryBrand Framework

As harsh as this may sound, in the great scheme of things, your potential clients and customers don’t really care about you. They care about how you can help them. As such, your website needs to be customer-focused. A great way to make your website and entire brand message more customer-focused is to apply the StoryBrand framework.

The StoryBrand framework was created by Donald Miller. This approach puts your customer first and makes them the hero of the story. Through the principles of storytelling that Miller claims are present in every great movie: a character has a problem they need to solve before they get something they want. Along the way, they meet a guide that gives them a plan and encourages them to take action which helps them avoid failure and leads to their success.

By applying this approach to your website, you can easily answer the three most important questions that will make your story clear and compelling for your clients and customers:

  • What do they want?
  • What is the opposite of what they want?
  • What will their life look like after getting what they want?

View StoryBrand Website Examples.

Add Trust Factors

One of the tasks your website has is creating and building trust in your visitors. After all, people do business and buy from brands and businesses they know, like, and trust.

A few ways to build trust on your website include:

  • Testimonials (text or video)
  • Awards, certificates
  • Reviews/ratings
  • Security seals and badges. Cars.com recently boosted their conversion rate 2.7% by having a security seal on their site.

Make Sure You’re Getting The Right Traffic

Once you start optimizing your website for conversions, you need to make sure that you’re getting the right traffic to your website. Consider the following questions:

  • Who do you want coming to your blog?
  • Why do you want them to come?
  • What are they going to get out of it?

When you’re clear on who you’re trying to attract, you can go ahead and implement SEO techniques or invest in paid ads such as Google AdWords, Facebook Ads or Pinterest Promoted Pins to attract those visitors to your site.

A Website That Converts Visitors into Customers is Mobile-Friendly

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

More and more users are using mobile. According to statistics, mobile devices accounted for 48 percent of web page views worldwide. This means your website must be mobile-friendly.

With a mobile-friendly website, your visitors will be able to see your content even when they’re using their phones instead of being forced to pinch and zoom to read product descriptions or trying to fill out your booking form.

Use Short Forms

Using forms on your site is a great way for people to get in touch with you as well as to get more information from them before they begin working with you. However, you must be careful when it comes to forms. People are more likely to fill out shorter forms so keep that in mind when creating your forms.

Only ask for the absolute necessary information. For example, if you’re selling digital products, there is no need to ask for a shipping address.

Make it easy for visitors to save their information when possible and come back to the form to fill it out later.

Use one-page checkout to increase the conversion rate in your store and eliminate one of the main reasons of cart abandonment. For example, take a look at Amazon’s 1-Click checkout.

Amazon One-Click Checkout screenshot - A Website That Converts Visitors into Customers

Build an Email List

Building an email list is something that a lot of ecommerce sites don’t do well, yet an engaged email subscriber is more likely to buy from you than someone visiting your site for the first time.

SwingsCoffee.com is a good example of building their email list so they can nurture and engage their website visitors.

Swings Coffee Newsletter Form Checkbox Example

A few ways to build your email list include:

  • An email opt-in form where visitors can sign up on your website
  • A checkbox that asks if they want to be added to the newsletter
  • Giving in-store customers options to opt-in in person

Address Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment is inevitable when you have an online store. However, with a bit of planning and follow up, you can reduce cart abandonment and convert those visitors into buyers.

Message someone if they put something in the cart and don’t buy. Consider using a plugin that allows you to set up an automated follow up for visitors who abandon their cart.

What’s Next?

There’s a lot that goes into building a website that converts visitors to buyers.

We can build a website that converts more of your visitors into customers so get in touch with us today and request your free quote.

We focus on beautiful web design that delivers results for your organization. Our specialty is creating customized WordPress websites.

Are you looking for more traffic, leads and customers? We provide on-going digital marketing to help you reach more customers and grow revenue.

About Us

Johnny Flash Productions

Johnny Flash Productions is a creative agency based outside of Washington D.C. that focuses on digital strategy, web design and development, graphic design and event production that helps businesses get better results from their marketing.