In case you missed it, in part one of this two part series, we covered how to attract visitors to your website. We tackled the three most common problems small business owners have when attracting visitors to their websites. We then helped you diagnose those problems and then gave you extremely easy and actionable steps to fix them.

In this blog post we will be continuing the same journey your audience takes. After being attracted to your website, they now have to be persuaded that your solution is the best one for them and worthy of an investment. In the design and marketing world, we call this converting your audience. We have to convert their mindset from intrigued to sold.

#1: Someplace To Be, Nowhere To Go

Real talk friends. This is probably the biggest mistake I see. Where are your buttons? Those little fun shaped colored boxes that jump your website visitors from one part of your website to the next. The official term is CTA’s or call to actions. You can call them, your money-makers.

Upon landing on any website homepage I expect to see a few major things:

1. Headline with the words “you or your”
2. Beautiful imagery that relates to the promised transformation
3. A button taking me to the heart of your website

Let’s take a moment and focus on your homepage. Why? Your homepage is the foyer of your website meaning it’s where you welcome your guests and it’s where the vast majority of your visitors will enter through. Therefore, it has the most potential to convert.

Ready for a scary statistic? According to Sweor, 70% of small business websites lack a Call to Action (CTA) on their homepage. Full stop. Let me put this into some context for you. Imagine you have just decorated your dream home and extended an invitation to some people to come over for a tour. Your hope is that you can persuade a few to let you decorate their homes. They arrive, you give them a quick “hello” and then promptly turn around and walk away, leaving them in the foyer. I don’t know about you, but my first thought as your guest would be, “Um hello? Do I follow? Do I stay? I feel uncomfortable just standing here…”. This is will not convert your audience.

Don’t do this on your website! Give your website guests a clear direction on where to go next. Give them a clear button to click on. Your website isn’t a maze, it’s a hallway.

This principle goes for the rest of your website. Take advantage of the prime real estate above the fold on every page of your website with the triple threat listed above. If you only have the time or skill to address two of the three, zero in on the button and headline. As your audience continues down a page, keep a healthy balance between imagery, copy, and buttons!

Diagnose

Head to your website and take note of your buttons. A simple trick I like to do is take a page-long screen capture (here is my favorite free extension), print it out and circle all of the buttons. Notice their distribution, where they take your audience, and their wording. Make adjustments to ensure balance (aka no buttonless deserts), and that they are visually attractive and grab attention. This is a personal favorite little trick because it helps me visualize the whole page without so much scrolling.

Take Action

Answer the following questions and then go into your website editor and make the necessary edits.

• Do you have a button above the fold on every page?
• Are your buttons evenly distributed throughout your pages?
• Are you jumping your audience all over the place or directing them to the singular goal for that page?
• Are your buttons fun? Push beyond the boring “learn more” copy. Jazz them up with copy and/or design!

Extra Credit

Are you taking advantage of the space right before the footer at the bottom of a page to hopefully regain your audience’s attention?

Think about setting a smaller secondary goal (or backup plan as I sometimes call it with my clients) to each page. What you’re doing is making sure that you can reinstate your audience’s attention if they’ve made it to the bottom of a page and haven’t clicked on a button or resonated with the content on that page.

To ensure they don’t exit your website, we are going to insert a little something down there to keep them engaged. These can be quizzes, freebies, blog posts, recent videos or posts…etc. make sure it’s high value and easy attainable for them! Remember, the goal is to convert their mindset from interested to can’t get enough!

#2: Too Many Options

Ladies, how many of you get stalled next to the wall of nail polish options at your salon? Yeah, me too. Maybe the nail salon isn’t your scene but the same principe can be applied to the grocery store chip isle and your favorite shoe store.

When you are trying to convert your audience, we don’t want to overwhelm them with a million and one options. We call this decision fatigue. This happens when you ask them to make too many decisions or do too many things.

On your website, each page should have a single focal point–a major goal in the conversion process. We do this by keeping the messaging, imagery, and flow of your pages focused on that one goal. Try to not skip around or present them with too many options. I love using buttons to support the main objective by adding copy to them like “I need this” and then when clicked, it jumps them to where they can immediately take action. I could have added a button that took them to a different page, but why confuse them? Why give them the choice to click away when I want them to pull them deeper?

Your copy will also play a major role. For each page, double check that your words are thoughtfully directing your visitors to take action. Whether you are guiding them to a high value freebie or to purchase your high-ticket service or product, keep your words focused. The goal of converting is to bring your audience over from one view to another. Bring them from “yeah I guess this person could help” to “their services are perfect for me”.

Diagnose

Determine if each of your website pages have a single focused goal. Click to your website and start reading it from your audience’s perspective. Ask yourself, “If I were a [insert target audience demographic] and I was in need of [specific solution]. Would I feel like this website holds they answers and keys to my success? Would this website grab my attention within a few seconds and then hold it as I navigate it?”

Take Action

Grab a notebook or Google Doc and list out your major website pages (home, about, services…etc.) Next to each of them write out the primary goal as well as a potential backup. Brainstorm a few headlines or small paragraphs that talk about the transformation and speak to your audience that centers around the goal of that page. Remember, the goal is to convert!

For example: About

Goal: to connect on a personal level, demonstrate that I am trustworthy, like-able, and the preferred professional to provide x specific transformation

Headline: Step out of your prescribed life, and into a healthy and balanced nutrition plan

Overview

Guys! Who knew that the simple action of moving your buttons around and adding focused copy surrounding a single goal could make a major difference? You don’t need to completely overhaul your website to better convert your audience. A little button and page-flow strategy can go a long way!

I am so excited to hear all about your own website transformations! Don’t forget to DM me on Instagram and tell me how this helped you and a win of yours! We love featuring people in our stories so don’t be afraid to brag about your bad self!

If you missed it, this was a two part series! In part one we talked all about attracting people to your website. The same format as above was followed. We pinpointed a specific problem area, showed you how to diagnose it on your own site, and then told you exactly how to fix it. Don’t miss reading this post! You can find it right here.