Low website conversions have several possible causes. Confusion is one of the most common causes as visitors simply don’t know how to achieve their goals.
How does confusion affect conversion rates? When someone visits your website and encounters obstacles to attaining their desires, this creates friction. Friction decreases your conversion rate. To put it as an equation, conversion rate = desire – friction. The more friction, the smaller your visitors’ desires to complete your on-site goals.
Here are four ways to work out the sources of confusion so you can fix them:
1. Analyse Your ‘Top Landing Pages’ Report In Google Analytics
Do you know the main landing pages via which visitors enter your website? Your homepage is your obvious landing page, but other high-traffic pages visitors find via search also matter. If any of these pages have high bounce rates (this usually shows that the searcher did not find what they were looking for), so you need to test copy and/or page structure improvements.
Once you’ve identified problem pages, dig deeper to see how these pages rank in search. Think about the intent of the searcher. How can you match their intent better and align it to a suitable element of your product or service?
2. Survey Visitors As They Leave
Use a tool that triggers a survey form when a visitor intends to exit your website. Ask what your visitors wanted to achieve and ask whether they could obtain their objectives. Ask further why they could not if they answer ‘no’. Not everyone will want to fill out the form, but those that do will give you hard data on what isn’t working.
3. Perform User Research
Hands-on user research will tell you why conversion rates are low, not just where the problems lie. Take a three-step approach:
- Survey your users. Ask what they love and don’t love about your service and how they found you in the first place.
- Perform user testing. Watch how people use your site through heat map recordings and compare data to find any common issues users encounter.
- Talk to your support team and understand what visitors most common challenges are when it comes to your website.
4. Understand Your Visitors’ Segments
Segment visitors by traffic source (where they’re coming from and what source yields the best-converting visitors). Also segment by behaviour (is there a difference between mobile vs desktop conversion rates, for example?). Ask people who convert the best questions to understand what drove them to choose your product or service. Segmenting user data helps you pinpoint exactly where things are going wrong.
If you need help researching, understanding and improving your website’s user experience, contact Interact RDT today.