You might be getting a lot of traffic to your website, however sometimes it becomes difficult to convert visitors in customers. The transition from visitors to customers will only happen when the visitors spend more time on your website.
Even if you have an impressive website, you might be missing out on certain important factors of retaining the customers. Even the statistics show that at times it is a difficult task to hold the attention of the visitor.
Irrespective of whether you are already running an established website or if you are a novice webmaster planning to setup a website, it is essential to take care of the issues mentioned below in order to avoid losses and save your company’s reputation.
The ways mentioned below ate simple, with some minor changes, you will move ahead in terms of establishing a perfect website that is capable of retaining the customers. Here is an insight on the ways to retain the customers to your website:
- Contact Information
Contact information is one of the most essential aspects of your website. For the visitors, it is extremely annoying when they are not able to locate the contact information. Information like e-mail address, physical address, driving directions or a toll-free telephone number must be readily available to the visitors, they should be something a lot of time looking for this. This will determine the difference between a strong sales lead and an actual purchase. Preferable the contact information must be mentioned above the fold in a conspicuous location and this information must contain at least three modes of contacting the company for various inquires. Moreover there must be a toll free number that can be used by the members right away. - Download Time
Time equals money in today’s fast paced world. No one is ready to wait for a long time for the website to load and the online transactions to get completed. When the website is being developed, it is essential to consider the fact that every website visitor may not have access to high-speed internet connections, therefore a smart move is to keep the graphics and data files small so that the web pages have the capacity to download at a much quicker rate. You can easily test the download speed of your website by connecting it on a 56k modem and then use a stop watch to determine the exact time of the website for getting downloaded. With a fast website, the visitors will be able to navigate faster and therefore they will spend more time on the website. It is also extremely crucial to host your website with an appropriate website hosting plan. Determine what kind of bandwidth, web space and other resources required before selecting a website hosting plan for ensuring the uptime of the website even in the times of high traffic. - Usability
Talking about efficient web page download speeds, it will be extremely beneficial if usability features are incorporates in your website. Essential features like skip navigation, title bars, site maps, Contact Us page, driving directions, hours of operation, and so on go a long way in terms of taking care of an array of needs for various website visitors seeking for respective information. Other useful information that you might consider highlighting is product or service guarantees, customer support features and privacy policy of the website. Although such usability features might seem to be mere in accordance to the overall website, however they are absolutely important for ensuring the fast and easy navigation of the visitors. The website visitors will surely appreciate the extra time and devotion spent for addressing their individual needs. The most important aspect is letting the customers decide in terms of how they would like to navigate in your website, therefore make sure that all the options are available right away. - Newsletters Subscriptions
Being a website owner, it is essential to monitor the subscription base as this is a convenient and beneficial way of keeping the website visitors in the loop for the special promotions, discounts and other exclusive offers. On the other hand, when the website visitors are prompted to subscribe to a site or newsletter before moving ahead for accessing the website is a sure bet of turning away the masses of visitors and potential sales leads. Even though some visitors may not mind subscribing to your website, it is always preferable to leave the choice open to them. It should be the discretion of the visitors whether they want to share their personal information or not. - Ratings and Reviews
Add ratings to the product information and add the reviews at appropriate places in the website. In most of the cases ratings and reviews are deciding factors for the visitors and they also determine the authoritativeness of the website. Ratings and reviews provide an encouraging point for the customers to navigate further and this has a direct impact on the conversion rates. You can also display the number of products that have received reviews. Moreover you may also add the customer testimonials in the main page of your website, this is also a highly motivating factor for the customers to be on your website. - Make Your Visitors Feel Safe
Quite rightly, most of the people are concerned about giving out credit card numbers and personal details online. When visitors come to your website, they must feel absolutely confident in terms of giving their information and making an online purchase from your website. It is essential to reassure your customers at every stage that your site is safe and that you will protect the information shared by the visitors/customers. The best way to do this is by getting SSL certificate. When the visitors see that there is an SSL certificate installed, they will never hesitate in terms of sharing their information and recommending your website to family and friends. - Avoid Hidden Charges
Hidden charges is something that angers customers more than anything else, it’s hidden costs. Make sure that you display all the charges including prices, taxes, shipping charges (and money saved if applicable), this information must be clearly mentioned during the purchase process. Some people shop on a budget and therefore they wan to know their genuine totals before adding any more items to the shopping cart, and it is ethical if this information is clearly given out. If in the end the visitors are surprised with loads of extra costs, when they finally reach the stage where they are supposed to pay, there are higher possibilities of them leaving your website and they the trust will be broken and repeat orders will be lost. - Hassle Free Checkout
Similar to the thinking of shoppers in a grocery store in terms of expecting a quick and speedy checkout when purchasing items, the online shoppers expect the same after the online purchase transaction. The online storefront should be well arranged and clutter free, with not more than three or four up-sell items in an attempt to sell the related items to the shopper. Shoppers shouldn’t be overburdened with non-relevant items or services just only in the hope of making a sale. Moreover, proper descriptions must be mentioned about all the products am services along with any money back guarantees, preferred payment methods, shipping and handling charges, sales tax, special promotional discounts, return policies, and and any other appropriate information that might be beneficial to the customer. If you give a little thought while creating your website or if you make some moor changes in it, it is not very difficult to retain website traffic and keep them coming back to visit often!
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