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The 3 Things that Make Your Website Convert

I'm using the term "convert" loosely because I'm not sure what your website's purpose is. But, whether you want to attract subscribers, inform your readers, make sales, or drive traffic to offers, none of it will happen unless you master these three skills.

The majority of websites don't work. They're like out-of-date billboards in the middle of nowhere. The tired traveler is looking for assistance, but all the billboard does is repeat the same words over and over.

Moreover, generating more traffic to a broken website is futile. If your site isn't converting many visitors, sending ten or a hundred times the traffic won't help.

So the issue is, what can you do right now to improve the effectiveness of your website?


1: Change your mindset and relax.

Let's see if I can read your mind...

You want your website to be flawless. It must be flawless. Every word, every page, every font, and every color must be perfect before your website is complete.

Except…

Except that your website will never, ever be completed. And the sooner you grasp this, the sooner you can relax and focus solely on improving your site.

There's no need to overthink or complicate your website. You don't need to agonize over little things, and you certainly don't need to put yourself under unreasonable pressure to complete the task perfectly.

There is no such thing as perfection, and there will always be defects and sometimes even a typo. It's all right. Take a deep breath, relax, and consider your website to be a work in progress.

Replace your need for perfection with a newfound eagerness to test and improve.

If you like, you can hire a web designer. A skilled web designer will get you further faster than you could on your own. Consider it a huge head start, but keep in mind that it is only the beginning.

You'll have to add and adjust things as you go.

Test. More testing is required.

Include content that answers your customers' questions. Increase the amount of information that both teaches and sells. Make changes to your bio, contact page, landing page, and... everything.

Test. Update. Test some more. It's an adventure. You'll never get everything right, but you'll become better and better with time, and that's all that matters.


2: Keep it simple, silly.

How many times have you visited a website only to be immediately annoyed by some flashy design that irritates rather than helps? I've had that happen far too many times, and my usual instinct is to flee rather than figure out where I'm supposed to go.

Websites are all about communication. Furthermore, overly elaborate designs cost more money and take longer to complete, making it more difficult to interact with your visitors.

The core set of webpages you normally require at the start are a home page, a about page, a contact page, and your products and services.

Keep your design as minimal as possible. Resist the impulse to cram a lot of information onto a single page.

Consider riding in your car: do you want a cluttered dashboard to distract you from what's going on the other side of the windshield? No. You want a clear, unobstructed vision of what's most essential to you — what's ahead of you on the road.

Avoid using jargon in your writing. There's no need to employ jargon or huge phrases when simple ones will suffice. Nobody wants to read a bunch of corporate-sounding jargon that means nothing to the common person. Depending on your audience, you can just write as if you were speaking to your best friend, or as if you were speaking to your mother or daughter.

Allow your writing to 'speak' to your customer. Don't be monotonous. In fact, try not to be dull. People will click away from generic information. If at all possible, infuse some levity. While you should always take your customer seriously, you should never take yourself seriously. Make fun of yourself if it makes sense, and your reader will smile, relax, and read some more.

More than the details of your products, talk about the problems you address for your clients and how you solve them.

Demonstrate your understanding of your customers' difficulties by describing them in their own words. You're halfway to a sale if you can persuade readers to say, "Yeah, she knows precisely what my problem is and how it's hurting me."


3: Make Use of Your Stats to Improve

In the beginning, you should concentrate on only two fundamental stats. As you gain experience, you can begin to pay attention to additional stats. But first, here's what you should do:

Use a free analytics program like Google Analytics.

Consider two factors: the average time users spend on a page, often known as average engagement time, and the number of users.

Keep in mind that your website is a journey, not a destination. It's a work in progress, and knowing how long visitors remain on a page will help you improve it. Log in to your analytics account and look for the graph on the first page that indicates the average time spent on the page.

This is a measure of how well your website communicates. Are people leaving your website in less than 30 seconds? Then you'll have to get to work. Are they devoting at least 2 minutes? You're doing quite well.

However, if you are unaware of these statistics, you will have no notion what has to be improved. If you spend money on advertising yet users only stay on your site for less than 30 seconds, you're squandering your money. Increase the average engagement time before purchasing more advertising.

What if people spend 5, 10, or more minutes on your site but you don't receive many visitors? Then it's time to start buying ads or looking for a technique to generate traffic to your website.


Your website's goal should be to create regular and steady improvements over time.

It doesn't have to be flawless, it doesn't have to be complicated, and it will never be fully finished.

Hopefully, knowing that makes it easier for you to relax and get busy testing new modifications to improve your site so that it can work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week to earn you new business.