Over the past few years online business has evolved by leaps and bounds, to the point where today one doesn’t need to have extensive knowledge of programming in order to create a site. Pretty much everyone can start an online business, but as it’s always the case, the allure of easy money isn’t what it seemed in the first place. There are numerous factors to take into account when managing an online business, and one of the most frustrating hurdles people come face-to-face with is a low or non-existent conversion rate. In other words, even though many people have no problem attracting visitors to their website, they cannot get any sales out of them. What follows is a look into the three basic factors that prevent most businesses from achieving the conversion rate their owners are aiming for.

Your Customers Don’t Know what to Do

There are many people out there who make the mistake of stuffing their pages with all kinds of links, pictures and pieces of text in hopes that there will be conversions due to the sheer volume of offers. This strategy only works to a certain extent; in most cases, people simply feel overwhelmed by the number of choices in front of them and all the information they have to go through in order to find what they need. In addition, all the extraneous and superfluous links you are posting may even be sending your potential clients away from your website, at which point they aren’t very likely to come back. Remember, people are looking to purchase certain products because they believe those products are going to solve their problems, and that needs to be reflected on your website.

It is important to direct people on a narrow path to conversion, limiting the number of possible distractions on the page. You need to let your most important content shine, and should your visitors take kindly to the few words they are presented at first, they will feel compelled to check out the rest of the site on their own. Long story short, the burden of choice is a heavy one to impose on your customers, and it can tremendously hurt your conversion rate.

You Need a Better Call to Action

Naturally, if you didn’t have calls to action before, then now would be a good idea to put some in there. Regardless of what you may think, clients need to be given clear instructions on how to get what they want, should they choose to get it of course. At the end of your content, the call to action is what prompts people to actually do something about their problem and make a purchase. Even though it may sound easy, calls to action need to be written in the right manner in order to draw the kind of reaction you are hoping for from the clients; they need to very short, concise, written in a much larger font than the rest of the text, but without being too aggressive. Something along the lines of “Click here to learn more about [insert product name]” is generally accepted as a good call to action. It is recommended that you take the time to read what others have written on the matter, especially seeing as how there are many free guides out there instructing on how to write a solid call-to-action.

You Have the Wrong Product

Finally, while it is certainly the least desirable problem you could have, it has to be considered: maybe you have simply chosen the wrong product to promote. The product you choose to promote needs to meet the following requirements:

• Being expected to pick up in popularity in the near future.
• It needs to cater to the problems your visitors are encountering.
• Other online business owners are having success with it.

If you can ensure that your product meets all the three criteria listed above, then it will definitely improve your chances of making conversions. Not adhering to them, on the other hand, most likely guarantees you very few sales.

And so, as you can see, the three basic factors that may be holding you back from converting can be overcome with relative ease. However, it needs to be added that in some rare cases, the problem lies elsewhere, and if that ends up being your case, then perhaps you would need to hire an online marketing specialist to look into your case and provide you with advice that is pertinent to your specific situation.

Author Bio

Jason Smith is an online manager for AnySizeBasket.com – which offers stainless steel wire baskets. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.

Above Image Source: Flickr/mrbill