While getting traffic to your website is important, the most essential goal is turning that traffic into sales. If visitors are not buying your products or service, then it’s time to evaluate your website. There may be some roadblocks on your site that might be preventing visitors from becoming customers. Review these 6 essentials that a website sales page must have to ensure that it is positioned for profitability.
1. Less clicks.
How many times does a visitor need to click through your website to get to the product page? The less navigation tabs, the easier it is to land the sale because there are fewer distractions to take away from the viewer’s focus.
2. Convincing sales page.
Your sales page needs to be persuading in a concise fashion. Create a headline that will attract attention and encourage further reading. The copy that follows should show how your product or service will meet the customer’s needs. Illustrate why a visitor should buy from you rather than the thousands of others online offering similar products or services. Keep the tone causal and conversational. Use words that spark emotions and, where applicable, compare benefits to results. The sales page is where you need to establish trust and credibility with the visitor and show why you are far superior to all the rest.
3. Provide testimonials.
Testimonials from actual customers praising your product and service carry much more credibility than words in your sales copy. These testimonials can be either audio or visual, but it is essential that they are on the sales page and contain the customer’s name, hometown and photo in order for them to carry any persuasive weight.
4. Add a bio to the sales page.
Even if you have an About Us page, the goal is to prevent the visitor from having to navigate around the website by putting all the resources they need to make the buying decision on the sale page.
5. Bring value to your product or service.
People have no problem buying something if they know it’s a good value for their money. Your offer should be something that’s hard to refuse. Offer an incentive, such as a bonus or price break, for ordering during their visit. It’s also important, especially for entrepreneurs offering a service, to show how the purchase they are making is an important investment to them.
6. Have a strong call to action.
Your final step to landing the sale is to provide peace of mind. Offer a guarantee so the buyer is secured in knowing that there is no risk involved in buying your product or service.
Once you have the basic essentials on your sales page for converting website visitors into customers, you can begin enhancing your sales page to address any other strategies necessary to making the sale.
Do you have other sales tips to add? Leave a comment to share with others how you turn visitors to your website into customers.
Adam Toren
So true. But you should have a solid product to sell, and your visitors should be really in need of them. Or the recession will rule their minds.
This is a solid post for anyone with a website that is trying to sell something. Most people don’t take the time to make sure they are using a sales page correctly and driving traffic to an eventual purcahse. I wrote a similar post with some tips here, http://zachheller.com/2009/05/15/if-youre-selling-something-then-sell-it/. I think the call to action is vital, and missing too often.
Thanks guys.
Many thanks for providing this info – as a social entrepreneur with lots of ideas getting that first business off the ground to fund the rest is proving so difficult.
It is tips such as this that help define focus when looking for new ideas to let the wolrd know that you exist.
I’ve been developing a new business network that integrates project management and ‘business in a box’ tools which anyone can sign up for free but getting the message ‘out there’ has been really difficult.
Thanks again for the hints and tips – its give me some new ideas I’m going to try right away.
Damian Carr
SNO Social Evolution Ltd
http://www.0fficianet.com
This is a great article. Very well written. We have seen so many poorly developed and designed websites. Even with traffic these business websites did not convert any of it to new clients and business. Well discussed topic. It is important to have a strong conversation optimization especially on the sales page.