To summarise this blog with an overused metaphor: You can lead a horse customer to water your website but you cannot make them drink buy.

Still here? Let's go.

Sometimes we are so focused on sending traffic to our site via PPC, Organic and Social that we forget to focus on our main converting mechanism: our website. It sits there, looking pretty but often not working as hard as it should.

You can do SO much with it to improve conversion rate, sales, customer experience and lifetime value!

Here is a short 4-point list that can help increase your conversion rate in the long run, I have kept them practical and punchy. But the opportunities don't stop there. Implement live chats, keep things consistent, introduce user-generated content or more social proof, and show product review ratings. Make the horse customer have no option but to drink buy.

Okay! On to the good stuff.

Tip Number 1

Avoid squeeze pages. If you are sending prospecting customers to your website who are not ready to convert, you are essentially telling them to buy or leave. You don't want a landing page that gives a potential customer this ultimatum. Offer them the chance to browse your blog, look at other products or see your review page. Have your primary conversion front and centre but also offer a transitional CTA - specifically for those who are not quite ready to convert. Maybe that's a free e-book that you remarket to later. Don't scare them off.

Tip Number 2

Think about the hierarchy of focus. Have your important buttons that lead to your conversion goal (Add to Cart) differ in colour from low-importance buttons (About Us). This is called creating an isolation effect.

Tip Number 3

Make your website run like a physical shop. If I went to a shop and picked up a product you wouldn't want to pick me up and run me to the checkout - removing all chances of me adding more items to my cart. No. Let people browse. They are a shopper UNTIL they buy. A few suggestions:

• Maybe offer pop-ups on your site that provide more information and do not make them activate the checkout process.
• Allow people to view their carts without having to activate the checkout process. Have a “View your cart” option.

Tip Number 4

Don’t leave your contact forms as an afterthought!

You got someone ALL the way to giving you information at either the checkout stage or the free download stage. Don’t trip up now.

Try adding a little bit more information to your forms. Like this:

Email: (Required for Order Confirmation)

Phone: (Required for Shipping Notifications)

These simple changes to the microcopy do a lot. It helps to build trust and really improves the data you collect - removing errors. Why? It's simple. They pay more attention. They want that confirmation and they want notifications when their order is due.

All typos are intentional except where unintentional.