If you want people to use (or share) your service then learn what makes people tick by reading good books on psychology.
A great primer (also for advanced marketers) is Robert Cialdini's "Influence". Buy it here and never look back.
Maybe people don't sign up because they are overwhelmed with the amount of content you have on your site.
Less is usually better. De-clutter your site, focus only on the key messages and direct the users to do what you want them to do, i.e. sign up.
This is especially true on the sign up page itself: any button except the sign-up button is distraction. Therefore remove all other buttons, even the navigation, so that the only option the users have is to sign up.
This might be obvious, but you need to tell your users what they have to do, i.e. place a clear "Call to Action" (CTA) on your site. If it's not clear within seconds what you want visitors to do then it's not clear enough.
If you have visitors but they don't click on "Sign up", ask them why they don't. Put a chatbox on your site so that they can immediately get in touch with you and you can chat - this may provide you valuable insight what your site is lacking.
There are many tools which allow to do this, a quick google search will point you to a few.
If your conversion is low, it is most likely due to a low engagement of visitors on your site. A tool which could change that are quizzes.
By providing a quiz which is fun or interesting (and it doesn't always have to be directly related to what you do) people stay longer on your site, have a longer "conversation" with you, make them more comfortable and familiar with your site etc. - all of this will be rewarded with a higher conversion.
Try to make the sign-up process seem very natural, without requiring any "big decisions" from your visitors.
One example is the naming of the social media sign-up buttons. Don't call them "Sign up with Google" or "Sign up with Facebook" but just "Login with Facebook". It's only a subtle, but important difference - some startups managed to increase their conversion rates by 20% and more with this little adjustment.
The more information you ask from users, the worse your conversion rate will be.
Therefore, only ask them for their email. Other information is not really required initially: You can assign them a password and send it to them by email (which they should be able to easily change of course), same with username (for which you can take the text before the "@" in their email).
One-click sign-ups are the smoothest and quickest for users, so in addition to offering a classic email sign-up option you definitely also have to offer a Facebook login.
Whether you also want to offer Twitter and G+ sign-ups depends on your users; generally it is recommended to offer as many as possible as this allows users to sign-up in their preferred choice, which increases conversion rates.
In addition, social sign-ups allow you to get more data from your users than just an email, and getting more information about your users may turn out to be very valuable.
The simpler your sign-up process is the better. Therefore, usually one sign-up screen is better than several.
However, there are exceptions. If you absolutely need to ask your users for more information than the basics, or if you discovered that you first need to tell users a lot about your product before they are comfortable with signing up, then it might be better to take users through several steps (and screens) with easy-to-digest content instead of showing all that content on a single page which might be overwhelming.
If you're not sure which approach is better then split test it. The data will tell you the truth.
More information means more distraction. Therefore, stick to the key messages only and make it a no-brainer for your visitors to understand what you have to offer, and what they have to do next (clear "Call to action"), i.e. sign up.
The more personal you can make the user experience, the higher your conversion rate will be. Locality can be a key factor to achieve a personal experience.
Therefore, use the users' IPs to determine from where they are coming from, and show matching local content. For example, a dating website which tells users from Dallas that there are "5,234 more singles in Dallas" could massively increase conversion rates with this technique.
Interestingly, this also works if your product or service isn't linked to a certain city or region at all. For example, if you're a Saas business offering bookkeeping solutions, instead of running an ad saying "The best bookkeeping in the world" try "Simplest bookkeeping for businesses in San Francisco".
Obviously, if you can then tailor it even further (e.g. only market to startups, and then use the line "Simplest bookkeeping for start-ups in San Francisco"), that's even better.
Maybe a reason for your low conversion rate is that you're telling all your visitors the same story (i.e. have only one landing page). However, maybe your users are distinctly different from each other.
Therefore, try to segment your target group(s) and create different landing pages for each of them. The more tailor-made your story, the better your conversion, guaranteed.
Some little tweaks can increase conversion rates significantly, e.g.:
Those changes don't sound significant, but they can be. Try it out.
A low conversion rate might be the result of your website visitors not seeing enough value in the products/services you provide.
This can be broken down into:
While you should also take care of the first point (i.e. present your offering in the most convincing way) it also makes sense to think how you could make people realize how big their problem actually is.
My favorite example for this is a popular mouth wash called Listerine. It was invented in the 1880s. At first it wasn't a mouthwash but used as an antispetic. Sales were good but not great, so the owner of the company decided to focus the marketing on Listerine's positive effect on bad breath. However, instead of just advertising it as a product against bad breath, he created a fake medical condition, taking the latin word "halitis" and adding "osis" to it, i.e. creating the word "halitosis", which sounds like a medical condition. He spread the word about this "medical condition" (which even made it into the dictionary, and is widely accepted now, see Wikipedia) and people were much more compelling to buy the product as they thought they were suffering not just from bad breath but from a medical condition!
Little tweaks in wordings can sometimes make a big difference to conversion rates.
Some examples:
If people don't convert (e.g. for signing up to your newsletter) and you are offering a free product or service (e.g. "Enter your email to get this free eBook") then consider adding a virtual price tag to it, e.g. "valued at 100 USD".
This almost always increases conversion rates. Apparently people see higher value in something they get for free if it "usually" costs money.
Maybe your conversion rate is low because people check out your competitors after they've visited to your site.
One counter-intuitive way to reduce this risk is by mentioning your competitors on your site. Readers feel like they already did their homework, so it's more likely that they will pick you.
Explain your shortcomings, however give them a positive spin. For example, mention that your product doesn't offer a specific feature because you decided to focus on the area which is relevant to your target market.
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