Key Highlights
- A website converts when a visitor calls, enquires, books or buys, and that depends on six factors: offer, trust, user experience and layout, calls to action and branding.
- An offer such as seasonal pricing, a free trial or a free quote gives visitors a reason to contact a business now, and it works best when it is specific and has an end date.
- Reviews, case studies, certifications, guarantees and visible contact details are the trust signals that show visitors a business is genuine.
- A fast mobile site with a short menu and a contact button on every page keeps visitors moving towards an enquiry.
- A free heatmap tool such as Microsoft Clarity shows where visitors click and where they stop scrolling, so you know where to place your call to action.
Your website is the digital storefront of your business. A shopper who walks into a store and buys something is a converted visitor, and a website visitor converts the same way, by calling you, sending an enquiry, booking an appointment or buying a product. Each of those actions is a conversion, so conversions are directly tied to your revenue.
Good design on its own rarely turns a visitor into a customer. A visitor decides at several points on the way through your site: when they read your offer, look for reviews, open a page on their phone and reach the contact button.
This guide sets out the six most important conversion factors you can use on your website and practical tips for each strategy.
What makes a website convert well?
A website rarely converts well because of one thing. Like any successful marketing campaign, it depends on several parts working at the same time. Broadly, six things make the difference:
- Offer: visitors can see what you sell and what they get from it.
- Trust: reviews, examples of your work and real contact details show that you’re a genuine business.
- User experience and layout: the site loads fast, works on a phone and leads visitors to your contact page.
- Calls to action: every page has a clear button for the next step, such as “Get a free quote”.
- Branding: your logo, colours and photos look the same everywhere, so the business looks established.
1. Offer
An offer is a deal you give visitors to encourage them to enquire or buy now instead of later. On a website, an offer gives a visitor a reason to contact your business today, and it helps your business stand out from competitors selling the same service. Common offers include:
- Free trial: “Your first week of classes free”
- Free quote or consultation: “Free 15-minute call to review your tax return”
- Bundle: “Website design plus three months of hosting”
- First-order discount: “$50 off your first booking”
These tips make an offer work on your website:
- Put the offer where visitors see it first, such as in the main heading of the homepage or the service page.
- Make the offer specific. “20% off servicing until 30 November” gets more response than “great deals available”.
- Set an end date for time-limited offers, so visitors know they need to act soon.
- Tie the offer to one service, so the visitor knows exactly what they get.
- Add the offer to your CTA button, such as “Claim your free quote” instead of “Contact us”.
- Remove expired offers on time. An old promotion still showing on the site makes the business look neglected.
2. Trust
Trust is one of the most important parts of conversion. Visitors look for trust signals before they enquire, such as proof that you’ve delivered results and the names of clients you’ve worked with. Strong trust signals help you convert more visitors, and you can add several types to your website:
- Reviews and testimonials: Show reviews from real customers on your service pages and homepage, with the customer’s name and, if they agree, a photo. Replying to reviews on your Google Business Profile also shows that you care about service.
- Case studies and previous work: Show project photos, before-and-after images or a short case study that names the problem, the work you did and the result.
- Client logos: Display the logos of well-known clients you’ve worked with, with their permission.
- Certifications, awards and memberships: Show industry licences, accreditations and association memberships, such as a trade licence or a professional body badge.
- The people behind the business: Add staff photos, names and qualifications to your About page, so visitors know who they’ll deal with.
- Contact details: Show a phone number, street address and ABN, so visitors can see you’re an established Australian business.
- Fast replies: Answer calls, emails and form enquiries quickly, because good customer service turns a first enquiry into a sale.
3. User experience and layout
User experience is the ease of using your website, from the page a visitor lands on through to the enquiry form. Visitors leave a website that is slow, confusing or hard to use on a phone, even when the offer is good. Good user experience removes those problems, and a good layout leads visitors to your contact page. These are the areas to get right:
- Site speed: If the first page a visitor opens loads slowly, they often leave before they see any other page on your site. These page speed tips help your pages load faster:
- Compress images and save them in a modern format such as WebP.
- Remove plugins, scripts and pop-ups you no longer use.
- Embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo instead of uploading them to your site.
- Choose a fast, reliable hosting provider.
- Mobile layout: Make buttons, forms and phone numbers easy to use with one thumb, and add a tap-to-call number so mobile visitors don’t have to copy it.
- Navigation: Keep the menu short, with plain labels such as Services, About and Contact, so visitors find pages quickly.
- Technical errors: Test your contact form and check for broken links regularly, because a 404 page or a broken form stops an enquiry at the last step.
- Design: Use clean design with clear spacing to draw attention to your offer, and balance design and page speed so large images and animations don’t slow the page.
- Content: Write short paragraphs with headings and bullet points, so visitors can scan the page for the information they need.
- A clear path to contact: Add internal links from blog posts and service pages to your contact or booking page, so every visitor has a next step.
- Visible contact details: Put your phone number and contact button in the header of every page. Hidden contact details and cluttered pages are common website design issues that lower conversions.
4. Calls to action
A call to action (CTA) is a button or link that asks the visitor to take the next step, such as “Book a free quote” or “Call now”. These tips make CTAs work harder:
- Use one main CTA per page, so visitors don’t have to choose between several actions.
- Name the action and the result, such as “Get a free quote” instead of “Submit” or “Click here”.
- Place a CTA near the top of the page, and repeat it after each main section.
- Keep enquiry forms short, and ask only for the details you need to reply.
- Offer more than one way to get in touch, such as a phone number, a form and a booking link.
A CTA works best on a page that visitors already trust. The same button gets more clicks after the page has shown the offer, the reviews and examples of your work.
5. Branding
Branding is the logo, colours, fonts, photos and tone of voice that make your business recognisable. Consistent branding makes a business look established, and that builds trust. These tips keep branding consistent:
- Use the same logo, colours and fonts on every page, and on your social media and Google Business Profile.
- Use real photos of your team, premises and work instead of stock images.
- Write in one tone that suits your customers, whether that is friendly or formal.
6. Use a heatmap to see where visitors click
A heatmap is a picture of a web page that shows where visitors click, tap and scroll. Busy areas show in red and quiet areas in blue. A heatmap shows problems you won’t notice when you visit your own site:
- Visitors click on images or text that aren’t links, because they expect them to open something.
- Visitors stop scrolling before they reach your CTA or contact form.
- Visitors skip a section you thought was important.
Microsoft Clarity is a free heatmap tool that also includes session recordings. Your web developer can add it to your site with a short piece of code, and your privacy policy should mention it. Once the heatmaps fill in, move your CTA above the point where most visitors stop scrolling, and turn the images visitors click on into links.
Turn more visitors into enquiries
The quickest way to find conversion problems is to use your website the way a customer does. Open it on your phone, find a service, and send an enquiry through your own contact form. Any step that slows you down, such as a missing price, a hard-to-find phone number or a form that asks too much, also slows down your customers.
Some websites need more than small fixes, and a custom website design lets you build every page around your offer and the path to enquiry. Digital Treasury designs and builds websites for Australian businesses. Book a meeting to talk through your site.
