Website optimization is the action taken to increase your conversion rate on your current website.

Often I’ve found that customers are a bit obsessed with traffic. Traffic, traffic, traffic!

Think about it though. If your website sucks at helping your current visitors easily move to being clients, how effective is getting more traffic to your website going to be?

I propose that you improve your current website first. Then once you have proof that it is doing a decent job converting, turn on the traffic taps. Often it can make sense to tackle both of these jobs at the same time.

The first step in any journey into the unknown is to find out where you are. For your current website that means setting up analytics so that you can accurately measure how much traffic you are getting, from which keyword searches or website links, and to which area of your website.

What tool should you use? Google site analytics is a professional grade tool that you can add to your website in 5 minutes. It provides you with multitudes of data on your traffic and you can easily set it up to track your conversions as well.

It’s Free! There may be better deals out there, but I have not ran into them. OK?

If you want to know the ins and outs of how to use Google’s analytics program they even provide a complete training program – Conversion University.

So now that you have analytics installed on your site. you can begin to make sense of the traffic that you already are getting and what sort of job you are doing in converting that traffic into clients. You need a baseline in order to be able to accurately assess the next changes you’re going to make.

There are many areas of conversion to be addressed after this. However, the primary areas boil down to 4; interaction, security, social proof, and moving the free line (or ethical bribery…).

Multiple Ways To Reach You – Interaction

I think most humans like getting answers to their questions, quickly and efficiently.

Sidebar Rant: Please, everybody who enjoys talking to a robotic “smart” answering machine and who doesn’t end up yelling into the phone at it, put up your hands… OK – You guys can leave. A pox on the inventors, buyers and sellers of such abominations. Nothing says “we hate our customers” better than that crap.

Provide your customers with many ways to reach you. Telephone (answered by humans please), click to talk, click to chat, email signup, web contact forms, all make it easier for your customer to interact with your sales and service personnel, and that means more business and better conversion.

(Do a Google search for “click to talk” or “click to chat” if you do not know what these are yet. They are extremely effective tools for conversion if your customer value warrants using them.)

You can also use polls, online surveys, and newsletters – emailed, (and if you really want to stand out) old fashion mailed! Ask your customers how they want you to communicate with them and then build your newsletter strategy from that.

Can They Trust You? Security

Your customers must know they can trust you online and there are some important ways to communicate that. First and foremost is the ability to reach you easily.

After that, there are numerous industry certifications that would apply to your niche. There are also security assurances such as Trust Guard, Truste, BBB, McAfee, etc. and spam free certificates that are worthwhile. You want to prominently display your guarantees, and warranties and it’s best to show shipping guarantees and assurances during the shopping and checkout process.

(Search in Google for Trust Seals to find out more about these.)

Testimonials, etc. – Social Proof

One of the most powerful unconscious decision aids is social proof… which is where people are more likely to buy something if others have already purchased it.

Depending on your niche you can use client testimonials, awards and other recognition, reviews of your products and service, and case studies/success stories/white papers. These are also most effective when they are also available in other places online – review sites, Google local business center, referenced in articles, etc.

Every company has a different target customer base, so it’s important to know what type of content is most effective with them.

Retailers and companies with large catalogs of product or services can benefit from having “Best Seller lists” and “Recommended items”.

Promotions – Ethical Bribery

Giving way free stuff will always be an effective way to reward the customer behavior you want to create. Again, it is based on another unconscious decision aid called reciprocity. Basically it’s I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine. It works.

Offer your customers a free report, a valuable video, demonstrations, free trials, webinars and podcasts in return for their email address. Many retailers will have a sweepstakes in order to drive email subscriptions.

You can also offer contests, rebates, discounts and free shipping; these are all effective ways to spur action.

These are the cornerstone steps to improve conversion on your website… if they seem familiar it’s because they are used in many areas of marketing. They are based on researched and proven psychological principles and have worked for centuries. Use them and profit!