Many webmasters have their sites up and running and are getting plenty of traffic, but no one is buying. Assuming the site is decent overall, and it isn’t in obvious need of a complete redesign, what else can a site owner do to increase online sales? For this kind of situation, there are three actions to take.

Ensure that traffic is targeted

If your website is getting traffic, but it’s not targeted, that’s where you should focus your attention first. Untargeted traffic isn’t useful because the visitors who come to your site aren’t interested in what you’re selling. You must ensure that you are seeking to attract potential customers by identifying a narrow niche of people whose needs match the solutions you provide.

Identify where exactly you are losing visitors on your site

In order to identify what needs to be fixed on your site, you must first establish where the root of the problem is. Looking at the site as a whole generally won’t do, because you need to know specifically where the breakdown is occurring.

Examine your analytics and traffic logs, and figure out where your traffic is dropping off (if you don’t have a good tool to analyse your traffic, invest in one). Are visitors coming to the index page, but not clicking through to any other pages? Are you losing them on the product pages? Or are they making it all the way to the checkout counter and abandoning their carts once they reach that point?

Concentrate first on figuring out exactly what pages need to be fixed. Only then can you work toward fixing them.

Time to start tweaking your site one element at a time

Put yourself in the shoes of the visitor and ask yourself a few questions such as:

• What information might be lacking on this page that would help visitors find what they need?
• What information on this page might be difficult to understand?
• What about this page might cause visitors to feel uncertain?
• What about this page might be disagreeable?
• What might be the hindrances that prevent visitors from being able to perform the tasks they are supposed to perform on this page?

If you follow this systematic approach, you’ll be well on your way to turning those visitors into buyers.