7 Ways To Improve Website Conversions for Moving and Cleaning Companies
- February 6, 2019
- By: Vonigo
This article about improving your website conversions is by Dan Fries, an entrepreneur and technical copywriter based in Chicago.
Service business websites, like that of moving and cleaning companies, need to have a goal. Surprisingly, however, most of them do not.
Beyond providing contact information and company history, they should inspire visitors to perform a specific action, which is commonly referred to as a conversion.
For a moving or cleaning company, a good conversion goal would be to have users book services through the website.
As a small business owner, if you find that your site conversion performance is low or decreasing, there are a number of tactics you can take to reverse the trend.
1. Focus on Brand and Services
A website for a moving or cleaning company needs to be as simple as possible and easy to navigate. Otherwise you risk confusing potential customers and driving them away. Fancy browser technology and Javascript tools can be appealing, but don’t add them to your website unless they provide value to users.
When navigating to the URL of your website, visitors should arrive at a splash page that clearly communicates the company brand. Emphasis should be placed on the geographic regions where your services are available as well the costs associated with them.
2. Be Ready for Mobile
With smartphones in the pockets of billions of people worldwide, there’s a good chance that a large portion of your website visitors are using a mobile browser of some sort. Moving and cleaning companies rarely have a need to develop a standalone application, but having a dynamic and user-friendly mobile website is critical.
If possible, the mobile version of your website should offer the same features as the full desktop version and present them in a similar manner. Potential customers will be pleased if they can schedule services, like a moving truck or an in-home cleaning, right from the mobile website.
3. Find the Right Hosting Environment
Website speed and performance can play a big factor in how visitors respond to your business. If your site is consistently slow to load, users are more likely to look for alternatives. Keep in mind that even if your small business in local in nature, your website should be able to handle worldwide traffic.
The best practice is to leverage a cloud hosting platform whether your site is static or dynamic. This eliminates the manual maintenance you’ll need to perform on web servers and can also help speed up your website, which is super important. Studies show that sites that take more than 2 seconds to load lose traffic.
When it comes to evaluating a potential web host, it’s a good idea to check actual performance metrics among providers related to upload and download times. HostingCanada.org tested average speed in both directions found a variance from 17500ms to 475ms from servers located in the U.S. and Canada. If price is generally the same, which it often is, speed could be a major determining factor in your customer’s purchase decision.
4. Invest in SSL
In order to compete in the modern services industry, moving and cleaning companies need to be able to receive and process credit card payments online. The problem is that sensitive customer information needs to be sent over data networks which could be vulnerable to outside attacks.
How do you keep your customers safe? The answer lies in
As a business owner, you are responsible for obtaining an SSL certificate and keeping it up to date. Some cloud hosting providers will include a certificate with certain packages or you can obtain one on your own.
5. Use Email Effectively
For small businesses, email remains an important method of communication when dealing with new or returning customers. You want to maintain a balance of providing valuable email updates without inundating users with too many emails. The latter can actually drive customers away and cost you revenue.
Effective email use includes keeping communications about purchases and services on point and extremely clear. Your website should send out receipts in a timely fashion and provide alerts when a scheduled service is upcoming. Offering discounts through a mailing list can also help to attract customers.
And by law, there needs to be a link included with every email sent that allows users to unsubscribe.
6. Consider A/B Testing
Once you have substantial traffic, undertake some basic marketing tactics to improve conversion success. One of the first strategies to deploy is known as A/B testing. You create two versions of a webpage and track how users interact with each.
For example, set up A/B testing on a schedule page. One version offers a text-based date picker and the other has an interactive calendar tool. Once you determine which version inspires more customers to actually book services, you go with it. Then move on to test another element from the page.
See what’s happening? It’s a constant improvement process where you let the customers decide what features and layouts your website will evolve towards. We can’t offer an intensive tutorial on A/B testing here, but here is an excellent introduction to the topic.
7. Track Smart Metrics
Before you look to make any dramatic changes to your website, make sure you have a good source of data from which to make decisions. Without complete analytics data, you won’t be able to understand how your users are actually interacting with the site.
Final Thought
Get familiar with the concept of site analytics. Google Analytics is a good place to start. Site analytics software allows you to run reports on various metrics, such as session times and landing pages. This can help you isolate where the pain points are within your site. The data will guide you in improving your conversion rate.
If you’re starting to get the idea it’s all about conversion, you’ve been paying attention.
Want to learn about how service business software can help increase your conversions and grow your moving or cleaning business? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.
