30+ hacks and resources to increase your conversion rate

The conversion rate is a very important metric for business owners. Simply put, it’s the percentage of visitors who come into your website and complete your desired goal (i.e., a conversion):

A confirmed order. A successful checkout. A contact message, or a newsletter subscription.

In whatever form, a conversion can only mean good things for your company—sales, potential leads, a wider audience, and overall growth, among other things.

So in this guide, we’ve rounded up over 30 bite-sized insights from the best resources in the industry; some are quick, actionable steps that you can implement right away, while others may take more time to do but can produce worthy results down the road.

Either way, we hope these resources help you optimize your site for more conversions and increased sales.

Nudge your visitors into action

Convert your undecided site visitors into leads or customers by nudging them into completing your desired goals:

Use words and phrases that are proven to trigger people into taking action

(Resource #1) Check out this infographic of 88 compelling words and phrases that you can use in your copy to prompt your website visitors to convert.

Create a sense of urgency

Think about your own shopping experiences in the past. More often than not, you’re probably more encouraged to buy a product or avail of a service when there’s a ticking clock.

(Resource #2) Neil Patel, leading SEO and digital marketing expert, says that it’s only natural to be anxious when time is running out, so adding a countdown timer (tip #11 in his 13 effective ways to increase conversion rate) is a good way to capitalize on this feeling in your visitors.

You can add a banner with a countdown on your site for promotions such as free shipping, or limited offers like vouchers and discounts.

(Resource #3) Another way to create a sense of urgency for your visitors is by displaying remaining stocks (tip #13 in this article) in your product pages. Letting your potential customers know that remaining stocks may soon be running out can prompt them into buying sooner.

(Resource #4) Google’s Avinask Kaushik shares more details about why creating a sense of urgency is important, as well as six nudges you can try out: Six Nudges: Creating A Sense Of Urgency For Higher Conversion Rates!

Consider using one-click upsell

A one-click upsell is an upsell offer presented to the customer after completing a purchase.

This is in contrast to pre-purchase upsell which you offer before the customer goes through checkout and finalizes the order. In one-click upsell, since the customer has just finished the checkout process, he/she will only need one click to purchase the upsell item.

(Resource #5) Leadpages argues that one-click, post-purchase upsells are perfectly timed offers as opposed to pre-purchase upsell that can potentially distract the customer right at the moment of conversion.

Tweak your checkout process or conversion form

(Resource #6) According to Baymard Institute’s research (41 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics), 21% of customers abandon their carts because of a too long or complicated checkout process.

Consider having a multi-step form

People who add products to their cart already want to buy from you, so don’t let them leave your site right at the final step of the buying process.

(Resource #7) Since a checkout form is often long and consist of many required details (especially for guest checkouts), transforming it into a multi-step form can help make it seem less intimidating, according to Hubspot.

(Resource #8) Not only does multi-step forms reduce friction in the user experience, it also lengthens the time that your visitor spends on the page and in non-checkout forms, helps you get more qualified leads based on their willingness to complete the conversion form.

Bonus for Magento merchants:

(Resource #9) Learn about the factors that trigger cart abandonment and ways to recover your lost sales.

(Resource #10) Increase the efficiency and functionality of your e-commerce business.

(Resource #11) Loyalty program ideas to keep your repeat customers satisfied.

Get to know your customers

At the end of the day, whether you’re B2B or B2C, you’re ultimately selling to human beings—human beings who are both rational and emotional and are driven by their own needs and desires.

(Resource #12) CXL discusses 18 cognitive biases that you can use in conversion rate optimization.

Study the trends

You can gain a lot of insights by studying trends on user or customer behavior in your locale, industry, or target market.

(Resource #13) Google’s research on online shopping trends

(Resource #14) Check what’s trending in your industry or business category, and learn what your potential customers are engaging with in Google’s Culture & Trends

Understand your customers

While research and trends are helpful ways to learn about your audience, nothing beats data that you collect yourself about your actual users and customers.

(Resource #15) Check out our series of blogs on user behavior analytics, and how you can utilize different tools and methods like heatmaps, session recordings, website surveys, and A/B testing for an in-depth understanding of your site visitors.

(Resources #16-17) Use a plugin for checkout comments. Checkout comments are basically messages that your visitor can leave right at the checkout stage. You can ask for their feedback on how the checkout process has been like, or what made them purchase your products.

Since the survey is done at checkout, customers are more likely to engage and answer with their fresh opinion. Here are some plugins you can use:

For WordPress with WooCommerce: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-checkout-add-ons/

For Magento: https://marketplace.magento.com/ulmod-ordercomment.html

Optimize your website

It’s not just great, compelling copy or limited time offers that encourage people to buy from you. The way your website is designed and developed can play a huge factor in your user experience, too.

Speed up your website

It’s no secret that users don’t want a slow site. If your pages don’t load fast enough, you’re losing potential customers and sales.

(Resource #18) Read up on the tips and tricks we shared on how to speed up your website

Consider a 24/7 live chat service

(Resource #19) Did you know that more than half of customers prefer live chat than any other contact channel?

A live chat on your website helps engage visitors looking for more information and immediate assistance, and shows how dependable you are as a business.

(Resource #20) Weply is a live chat tool and service that equips you with both the software and resources you need to maintain your live chat. They have in-house agents who can be trained to answer inquiries about your product or service, or if you want to answer chats yourself, an intuitive dashboard to help you do just that.

Get personalized checkup and store optimization tips from Google

(Resource #21) Simply input your URL in Google’s Grow My Store tool, and see a comprehensive report about your site, including what you’re doing right and what has room for improvements.

You’ll also see helpful statistics and benchmarks that can help you understand your industry and market better.

Do internal link building

Internal link building not only helps you reduce your bounce rate, but also guides your visitors through the pages and content within your site that you want them to see.

(Resource #22) Link Whisper is a tool that helps you do link building in a faster and smarter way. This tool analyzes the content of your site and offers suggestions on which pages to link to, as well as which ones to link from, saving you time in going through each of your pages for potential linking opportunities.

(Resource #23) Check out our guide to link building.

Utilize social media

While it’s important to optimize your website or webshop for conversions, it’s not the only channel you can use to attract customers and grow your sales.

As people are spending more and more time on social media, it only makes sense to utilize these platforms in your sales and marketing efforts.

Shoppable posts

Shoppable posts are social media posts that allow customers to buy the products displayed directly within the social media platform.

Usually, this is done by connecting your account with your product catalog and tagging images with the corresponding products. Customers can then click on the tag and shop directly, resulting in a hassle-free transaction.

Learn how to utilize shoppable posts:

(Resource #24) Instagram Shopping

(Resource #25) Shop the Look by Pinterest

Use quick replies

People often use social media to reach out to brands and using quick replies will keep them engaged even when you’re not actually online to attend to their inquiries.

(Resource #26) Learn how to use quick replies to streamline engagement.

More social media guides

(Resource #27) The ultimate guide to Google Shopping in 2020, by Hubspot

(Resource #28) Facebook is testing email marketing tools for business pages.

Be found in search results

Most online buying journeys start with a Google search. Make sure that your website is SEO-friendly so that potential customers searching for your brand, products, or services, can discover your business.

Optimize “core web vitals”

While there’s really no ultimate “recipe” for ranking first in search results, we do know that there are certain best practices that help websites rank better in Google.

(Resource #29) Samuel Schmitt provides an in-depth guide on how you can optimize the page experience and core web vitals to help your ranking in search results.

(Resource #30) Is Google E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trust) actually a ranking factor? Learn all about it from Moz.

(Resource #31) Learn exactly how website speed, content, and schema affect rankings in this study by SEMRush.

Write content optimized for ranking

(Resource #32) In our Content SEO series, we walk you through the different aspects of content SEO to help you write content that gets your pages higher on search results and in front of interested users.

(Resources #33-34) Install keyword plugins/extensions to see keyword data right within your Google search interface. This will keep you aware of helpful keywords to use in your content, and might even provide inspiration for new content ideas that you can publish on your site.

Some extensions you can check out:

• Keywords Everywhere
• Ubersuggest by Neil Patel