No matter the nature of your online business, there are a few fundamental things that will optimise your chances of making sales.

Whether you are running an ecommerce store, a mentoring business with a high ticket membership, or anything in between, your key metrics will be the same. Visits and conversions are key.

When the right customers visit your online business you can help them to know that they are in the right place and convert to paying customers. This is where knowing a few copywriting basics comes in. So let’s begin there with our first simple step – finding the right words.  

1. Know a few copywriting basics

When somebody lands on your website’s homepage, they make their first impression very quickly. A major study by Google confirmed that it takes about 50 milliseconds for visitors to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they’ll stay or leave.

And of those visitors who stay, it takes another 2.6 seconds for their eyes to settle on a key area and begin reading.

While the first stat (0.05 sec) has more to do with the overall look of your site (our second step), that 2.6 seconds is really affected by your copywriting.

The simple tip here is to work out what your top keywords are for your business, and use them in the first 150 words of your text.

If your business is an ecommerce store then you won’t have as much text on your homepage. In which case the product descriptions are the place to use those keywords well.

This tip is also important in SEO, as Google pays more attention to the first paragraph of text on any web page to find the keywords of importance. So you are getting a two for one effect with this tip.

This is about making sure that visitors to your site know that they are in the right place. It can be surprising how many online business owners don’t use their web copy this way.

Keep it simple

Good copy is simple and gets straight to the point. That helps the reader, and Google, to know straight away that they are in the right place. If they don’t spot the right words straight away, most people won’t waste time looking, they will click away to another website instead.

You also want to think about your ‘call to action’. Are you asking people to buy or to book? Do make sure it is clear what action you want people to take, and how they can take it. Don’t be afraid to give a clear instruction:

• Click here to schedule a call
• Buy now
• Book your place here

It is important to provide those booking or payment options right there on the site. Don’t simply invite people to email you to book. People need to take that action before they have time to overthink it and change their mind.

Ask a couple of impartial people to assess your website and tell you if the keywords and calls to action are obvious to them or not.

As a business owner you can often be too close to see that for yourself, as you know your business too well. So ask somebody who doesn’t know it to assess your site and tell you what’s missing.

2. Sharpen your brand image

If that 0.05 sec statistic got you excited, or worried, then let’s look at how to make it work for you.

When you first land on a website, what do you notice about it? It’s the overall look that gives you the first impression.

The same Google study showed that websites with ‘low visual complexity’ fare the best. So aim for simple, clean fonts, and a white background is often a good choice.

When it comes to graphics and accent colours, again it’s about simplicity. You can create your own professional looking logos with online tools like Logo Creator or Canva. Then select accent colours on elements like your website’s buttons to match the brand colour on the logo.

There is a great deal of research into the colours that make us click the ‘buy now’ button, or that inspire confidence in us when investing higher sums of money.

Red is statistically the best for impulse purchases. And blue is the best choice for those bigger purchases that require the consumer to put their trust in you. So think about using simple colours on your own site.

It is interesting that we share a lot of our personal lives with Facebook, which is branded a calming shade of blue. You will probably begin noticing colours more when you are browsing online now.

3. Automate some of your social media

Let me start by saying that not all your social media posts should be automated. That would take away from your natural interactions and harm your engagement. But you certainly can automate some of it, which can help you to get your content out there more frequently.

One platform where you are not punished for automating or for posting at a high frequency is Twitter. Using a scheduling tool such as Social Jukebox, you can preload your content and let it go out there on a schedule that you choose.

Social media is a great way to get your business in front of more potentially interested people. You don’t have to link to a product in every social post either.  

The customers who follow you on social are more likely to trust and buy from you.  Think of social media as a form of relationship building that can lead to more sales in the long run.

But most small businesses are underusing social. This is usually a matter of not having a dedicated staff member to manage the workload. So an automation tool can be a good compromise.

The right type of social content

If your web business is an ecommerce store, then visual social content is going to work best for you. Nicely presented product pictures do well on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

If your web business is service based, then you might want to consider automating some written content from your blog, or perhaps some testimonials and success stories from your previous clients. These can work well on Facebook and LinkedIn especially.

As Twitter is such a fast flowing stream of content, users rarely engage with videos there. Short text Tweets with images perform the best.

The two most popular types of content for re-sharing on Twitter are funny Tweets and ‘how to’ posts. So consider that when selecting your content to automate and keep sharing.

These tips are all quite simple, yet they have the power to increase both visits and conversions on your website. When the right people land on your website, having the right brand look and clear, effective copy will make all the difference.

Business websites shouldn’t be confusing. Remember to keep things simple and you won’t go far wrong.

You should Contact LeGusTry Team NOW to optimise your business.