Optimising Your Goal Mindset: Thinking Beyond Conversion

Posted 24.10.2018

By Lucy Bradley

Conversion is all about the all-important click, contact form completion or call back request on your website, and increasing conversion is at the forefront of your marketing efforts. You want to optimise your site’s conversion rate to get more sales coming in, but sometimes this sole focus on increasing conversion can affect how you think about the strategy to achieve this goal. Conversion forms part of a complex process and journey, and it’s important to start thinking more about the journey to conversion in order to improve your site’s conversion rate. Part of changing your mindset around conversion is changing what you regard as a goal. Hopefully, after reading this post, you’ll have a better idea of your website goals so that you can think beyond conversion.

What Do We Mean By This?

So what do we mean by optimising your goal mindset and thinking beyond conversion? Often when looking to increase conversion, you’ll look at the contact page itself. You’d start by looking at a user’s behaviour on this page, you might do some A/B testing to see what performs better or simplify your contact form. You might even take this investigation and optimisation process a step further, looking at what path users take to reach this page. So you might decide to add in an on-page contact form or add a get in touch widget on your pages. Whilst these are great conversion optimisations in their own right, they are quick wins. Solely taking these actions to increase conversion is a narrow-minded approach, and this is what we mean when we talk about changing and optimising your goal mindset.

Have you thought about what the problem is that is stopping website users from filling out your contact form? It’s not that they have an issue finding the contact form itself, it’s that the user hasn’t been provided with enough information or value on their journey to converting, and therefore aren’t ready to do so. Thinking beyond conversion is all about expanding your mindset and understanding how you can better provide value to your website users before you attempt to convert them to customers.

What Is A Goal & How Can You Provide Value?

Put yourself in the shoes of your target market and website users and think about the information they need on your website, what value they want to be provided and the solution they want to be presented with. Make a list of what the needs and motivators of your website users are and see whether your site provides content that meets these needs. Perhaps you’re a cosmetic clinic, your website user is looking for information about your clinic and the procedure they’re interested in. Are they ready to convert yet? No. They want more information on work you’ve done in the past, reviews and testimonials; these elements help to build trust and understanding between you and your users. They probably want an indication of pricing, perhaps the aftercare process. Make a list of everything your customers want to know and make sure you’re providing this to them during their journey on your site.

It’s also important to remember that internet users are savvy these days! People will shop around and do their research across different sites so that they can find the best solution for them. So if a user exits your site, that might not be the end of their journey. If you’ve provided them with answers to all the questions they need to know, and have provided them will value, there is every possibility they will come back and convert. A key goal you need to think about is providing value, as without doing that you’ll struggle to convert your website users.

Trust Signals

Above, we talked about some of the steps you can take to provide greater value to your website users and assist them on their journey to conversion. One of the key elements is providing trust signals through testimonials, reviews and case studies placed in and around your site. Building up trust and rapport with your website users is really important, as they help to show what you have achieved for others, and therefore help to show users what can be achieved for themselves. You know yourself, that when purchasing something online you’ll generally look at the reviews to get an idea of quality, performance and value for money, so why would that be any different for users on your site?

In-depth Service Page Content

Thinking back to the cosmetic clinic we mentioned earlier, would you inquire about a surgical procedure if you didn’t know what the process involved, what the results would be and how long you’d need to recover? This example enforces the idea of providing in-depth service page content on each page. These pages present your product/service to your user, and its unlikely users will convert without having a good look at this content.

A visit to a service page plays a key part in the conversion journey and is a small goal in the process of gaining a sale. Put time and effort into optimising the on-page content, imagery and overall experience of these pages. Give your potential customers all the information and value they need to know! If someone knows all about your product or service and have a genuine interest or need for it, they will be more likely to convert.

Re-evaluate Your Goals

Hopefully, after reading this post you’ll have a better idea of the conversion journey; its complexity and the various goals you need to meet in order to convert your website users. By focussing on your website users and their needs, rather than simply trying converting them, you’ll be able to take a more holistic approach, provide users with greater value to gain more qualified leads from your website. Optimise your goal mindset, and what you see as a goal so that you can think beyond conversion and achieve more from your website.

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