Tell people the facts …. and keep it simple

February 14, 2025

Changing the look and feel of your website can make a massive difference to the response rate (i.e. the number of sales you make).

In the early days of the Internet, people discovered this by trial and error. Today, there’s a growing ‘science’ around web page conversion. But few website designers have any real idea of what makes a web page convert visitors into customers.

Here’s an interesting case study by Carlos and Lupe Garcia of how changing the look and feel of a web page made a huge difference to sales from the site.

how to sell on the InternetThis is the web page as it originally was – a sales letter with very few graphics. Even though this is a well written sales letter, it only converted 1.6% of visitors to page into buyers.

Actually, 1.6% conversion is a lot better than most websites do. But it’s still very weak compared to what is possible.

One reason is, this page looks like hard work to read through. This is enough to put many people off.

After Carlos and Lupe Garcia worked their magic on the page, they transformed it into the page below.

These changes saw the page’s conversion rate jump to an impressive 3.3%.

how to sell on the Internet

See how the amount of words on the page has been slashed to the bare minimum. Just a compelling headline: “Did you know you can legally watch over 3000 channels on your PC?” It tells visitors immediately what benefit they will gain from the product.

The headline is absolutely vital to your website. In fact, most visitors will read the headline, gain a quick impression of whether they like the ‘look and feel’ of your site and decide whether to stay or leave.

People want the facts. Short and sweet. If you don’t give them a powerful reason to stay, they’ll be gone. That’s the harsh reality of the Internet.

The ‘After’ version of the page also has a video, which you can’t see on the static image. Video can be very compelling on a website, as long as it’s presented correctly.

And then there’s a form where people can sign up immediately. It’s right there, in their face. They don’t need to scroll down and hunt for it.

The ‘After’ version looks professional and not as ‘salesy’ as the original page.

This is just one example of many I’ve been studying recently on how to improve the conversion of web pages. I hope to share more in future posts.

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