9 Powerful ways to boost profitability on your site

In the spirit of the date, 9/9/09, I thought it would be a good time to remind you of some tried and true methods for boosting profitability on your Web site.  Remember, often times just fixing one or two things on your site will only result in a small boost but depending on your traffic a small boost could be an exponential explosion!

1. Make sure that your main “calls to action” are well written and differentiated from the rest of your site and visible on any page that makes sense. Sales 101 says that you have to ask for the sale and this is the way to do it (through very visible and easy-to-understand calls to action).
2. If you have a shopping cart make the registration as easy as possible and make it part of the check-out process in a seamless way. Ensure that every question you ask (this holds true for lead generation as well)  is absolutely needed to conduct the transaction.  Remember, every time you ask a prospect to give a piece of information, you’re putting up small barrier to getting the sale.
3. Ensure your content is minimal as possible where possible and that it is clear and understandable to someone outside your business. Take care when using inside jargon or lingo and don’t assume that people will understand it.
4. Is your customer service (or sales) phone number visible on every page? People feel more at ease if they know they can call at any time. It gives a prospect the idea that you’re human as well as digital. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your phone traffic will increase although that is a consideration depending on your kind of business.
5. Have you tested your pages for persuasion? Are you listing features instead of benefits? Remember, benefits trigger emotions, and emotions trigger sales. What’s the difference? A feature of a smoke detector is “when light is scattered by smoke particles it triggers the sensor and sounds the alarm.” A benefit of a smoke detector is “24/7 peace-of-mind that our alarm will sound loudly at the first detection of smoke giving  your loved ones ample time to exit your home safely.”
6. Is your unique value proposition (UVP) prominently displayed and does it properly convey the true nature of your business from a customer’s point of view? An example of a less-than-clear UVP is on Michelin’s Web site, “A better way forward.” What does that even mean? Where is the benefit? An example of a clear-and-powerful UVP might be, “Providing safe and reliable tires since 1888.”
7. Does your search engine work properly? Periodically fine-tune your search engine so that popular search terms (keywords) result in displaying pages that have high conversion rates.
8. Use words to describe products/services such as “our best value,” “our most popular,” “FREE” (as in shipping, etc.), “Save today!” You get the idea.
9. Use slash pricing showing what the price used to be (or the price of a competitor) compared to what it is now.”

There are many more tried and true methods but I made myself stop at 9

Ron Scott
Manager of eBusiness Strategy
ronscottjr@gmail.com

Tags: conversion rate, profitability, revenue leak, search engine optimization, usability testing