Building websites and sales funnels are both art and science. In this article, we discuss customer flow and how to influence visitor behaviour.
Here’s a question… Once a visitor arrives on your page, what can you do to help them make the decisions you want them to, such as following your CTA? To answer this question, you have to identify three things about your visitors:
- Why are they on your website?
- How do they make decisions?
- How can the answers to these two questions get them to follow your CTA?
The Decision-Making Quadrant
One of the best tools for understanding how your visitors make decisions is the Decision-Making Quadrant. This tool was developed by website Guru Bryan Eisenberg which he first explained in his groundbreaking book Always be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
According to Eisenberg, people make decisions in two main ways:
- fast vs slow
- emotional vs. logical.
The list below demonstrates the four different decision-making character types of a typical online visitor:
- Fast + Logical — The Competitive Visitor who wants you to tell them what your offer has that is better than other options.
- Fast +Emotional –– The Spontaneous Visitor who wants you to tell them why they should use your product or service
- Slow + Logical — The Methodical Visitor who wants you to tell them how your product will improve their lives, along with the details behind your approach
- Slow + Emotional — The Humanistic Visitor who wants you to tell them who you are so that they can make a personal connection
Which character type does your web page influence?
Look at your existing website, your email and customer database and tracking stats. Here you can identify which of these four character types is influenced the most.
The Decision Making Quadrant can help you understand who your website appeals to. You should identify its weaknesses and make adjustments so all four types of visitors get what they want from your page so they can follow your CTA.
5 Design elements that reflect your visitors
The next step is to look at the design elements you can include that will help drive visitors toward your CTA.
Successful websites and pages share five common principles. Incorporate these onto your pages and you are practically guaranteed to see your conversions increase:
- Clarity Is King – The moment a visitor arrives on your web page, their brain begins to interpret what they are seeing. To help facilitate this process, you need to give them the answers to these questions as quickly as possible:
- What is this site about?
- What can I do here? Is this something I want?
- What’s in it for me?
Craft a compelling value proposition that tells your visitors in clear, precise terms exactly why they should buy from you instead of someone else.
2. Visual Appeal – First impressions are critical. Keep layouts simple, uncluttered and with attractive images that set a positive tone. Put your visitors at ease and put them in a buying mindset.
3. Strong Visual Hierarchy – Prioritise the parts of your website that are the most important:
The CTA, Forms, Value Proposition and so on. Visual hierarchy is determined by many factors, including size, colour, placement and the amount of white space surrounding a particular page element.
4. Keep Them Focused – It’s critical to conserve your visitors’ attention at all costs. Nothing captures attention more than larger-than-life images, so consider including a single oversized picture of the one thing that is central to your business.
Photos of people are also highly effective at keeping visitors engaged. A third focus tool is presenting contrast: Before and after, then and now, etc.
5. Limit Focus to One Action Per Screen – This goes back to not confusing or distracting your visitor. Don’t bombard them with too many images or overwhelm them with content.
How to influence visitor behaviour
Condense your website to the one action you want your visitors to take – an image, a block of copy, an opt-in box, or whatever it is that most clearly defines what you want them to do — then build the rest of your page around that.
If you’d like to have access to even more helpful information on increasing your website conversions, then get access to my Online Business Roadmap while it’s still free.
