Psy Web Design Online Business Console- CMS, CRM, E-commerce and website analytics

Every business owner wants to increase conversions, whether you’re trying to get browsers in your high street shop to buy, or your website visitors to add a product to their cart, we're all playing a game of converting browsers into buyers.

Obviously some browsers are in your shop or on your website with the serious intention of buying, but there are also many people, like myself who ‘window shop'.

I like having a walk around the shops looking at the products on offer but to be honest, a high percentage of the time I do this; I have no intention in buying anything! I do the same online and I don’t think I’m alone.

Window shoppers, the lovable little creatures that we are, share some similarities in the way they think.

I think there are two things that are true of online window shoppers -

• They are actually looking for a product that they want and you have, but they're not ready to buy yet. This is sometimes called pre-shopping - finding out information and prices etc before the purchase.
• They're interested in some information that you have, or just like to look at the latest gadget’s and gizmo’s.  They are a fan. In any case, they're not buying anything in particular, but you probably sell products or have information that they're generally interested in.

Thankfully when your shop is online your visitors are usually fairly targeted already. You're not so likely to get people wandering onto your website who are just waiting for their friend to show up as you do in many high street shops!

So we have established the potential reasons for window shoppers to be on your website, next we need to think how we can encourage them to return? How can we keep them happy? How can we convert these browsers into buyers - even though they're not really thinking of buying?

Chances are they are not going to buy a product from you the first time they look at your site; they may be looking around for a product but waiting for pay day before they put their hands in their pockets.

So how do you get them to come back to you when they are ready to buy?

Have you got an email newsletter?

Throughout your site, think about how you can prominently display your newsletter sign up. Make sure you are using the right words to get the customer to sign up - remember, you have to answer their inevitable question "why should I sign up? Phrases like "Sign up to receive updates on our products" are ok, but not as good as "sign up and receive discounts inside our monthly newsletter". Make sure you follow up on these promises though!

Search engines love content; so do fans.

Write honest reviews of your products. Take photos and post them. Allow people to sign up to add reviews themselves, or sign up to a newsletter so they can be alerted when another user reviews a product that is of interest to them. These things make your site a hub of information for people, and make you their top-of-mind store to buy their favourite gadget from.

Build a community around your website...

People like to hang out. They like to discuss and post their thoughts. Give your visitors a reason to stay! You can use Forums - why not link your forums to your products, so that people can discuss particular products? Or you could simply enable comments on your online store so that people can tell others what they think.

Psy-Web’s Online Business Websites give you all the tools you require to do everything above. You can have an Online Marketing Suite, a bespoke HTML Email Template and 10000 emails inclusive every month to keep in touch with those window shoppers. You can add and update content, blog posts, forums and more in a simple, user friendly manner. Please contact us to discuss how we can add value to your business.

Remember  - keep what your customers are looking for at the top of your list of priorities, and you'll be heading in the right direction.