When looking to improve their bottom line, many businesses find themselves reaching for the new, the trendy, and the “guaranteed to give amazing results” strategies and marketing tactics.

What they fail to grasp is that sometimes, the less flashy tactic works best. And that’s especially the case in the world of digital.

You’re surely looking to make it in the long run and achieve more than just fleeting success. So why not stick to the tried and tested tactics that will help you boost your conversion rates and achieve that level of business growth you have been hoping for?

To that end, let’s take a look at nine tried and true tactics that will help you improve conversions and grow your business.

1. Improve the Visual Hierarchy

First things first: your website needs to look good in order to convert. There are about a million trends in website design, but there’s one that rises above others, and it’s usually the first thing you want to consider: visual hierarchy.

It refers to the way the visual elements on your pages are organized. You want to place each of them strategically, so that each one naturally follows the previous and that they just as naturally guide your visitors towards your desired goal. The goal is, of course, that all-important conversion.

The bad news is that there is no single formula that will help you achieve it. There are, however, patterns you can try and test to help you discover which ones work best for your target audience.

There are the Z pattern or the F layout, two of the most popular options, and there is the more old-fashioned horizontal layout that also works like a charm in most cases. Give each a whirl. It shouldn’t take up too much of your time, and it can help you unveil valuable information about your audience.

2. Change the Colors

Sticking to the theme of website design, another way to improve your conversion rates is to choose a color scheme that conveys your message and values seamlessly, and that also naturally appeals to your target audience.

Humans are incredibly visual beings, and something as deceptively simple as your choice of color can significantly impact how someone perceives your brand.

Even if you don’t really “believe” in color psychology, you might want to play with different colors and hues, and see what kinds of results you get.

Always consider what it is you want to achieve. Do you promote serenity and relaxation? Maybe a vibrant red is not the best choice in that case. Are you looking to convey a sense of adventure? Don’t go for the grey then.

An excellent example of the kind of color scheme you are looking for is Mailchimp’s website – they have that one pop of a very bright color in their hero, and then they stick to more muted and neutral tones for the rest of the page. Great for drawing in attention, but not too overpowering.

3. Leave Plenty of White Space

White space, also known as negative space, is a crucial element of website design that can also help you improve conversions, even though it might not be the first element that comes to mind when talking about the subject.

Think of it this way: the better a UX you provide, the more likely someone is to convert. If your UX is poor, visitors are more than likely to click off before they ever get a chance to convert.

When it comes to white space and UX, the key is in finding just the right balance of non-colorful (i.e., negative) and visually appealing. Don’t be afraid of the white – it’s not going to make your page look empty; quite the contrary, it will make it look cleaner and draw the eye right where you want it to land (your CTA, for example).

Squarespace has done a great job of using negative space (in their case, white, grey, and black) to their advantage, making their visuals and copy pop, without for a second coming off as too busy.

4. Improve Website Speed

One more UX element that might not initially come off as a conversion booster is website speed. But as our attention spans keep getting shorter, the faster your pages can load and respond, the greater the chances you have of converting a visitor.

Especially if your competition’s pages are slower.

There are about a million things you can do in this department, from caching to minifying images and using a CDN, so use a reliable website speed checklist that can help you identify your prospective areas of improvement. Also, make sure you ask someone knowledgeable to do the tinkering, as sometimes disabling one plugin can crash your entire website for no apparent reason.

5. Optimize For Different Screens

One more piece of technical advice: make sure every single element, be it visual or textual, loads fast and completely across all screen sizes and orientations. Yes, we all know mobile-first is a thing, but there is a difference between optimizing for mobile and optimizing for every device your audience is likely to visit you from.

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of brands make when moving their design from desktop to mobile is believing they need to hold on to all of the visual elements they already have in place. However, as mobile scrolling is inherently very different from desktop surfing, designing your mobile pages with movement and ease of access in mind can significantly improve your conversions.

Also, don’t forget that there is a bit of technology getting in your way as well, and sometimes what you believe has been set up correctly turns out to be causing a whole lot of mess, so test your mobile version from different phones, with different orientations and different browsers, before you declare victory and consider your pages mobile-ready.

6. Provide Value Above Everything Else

Stepping away from the visual and technical aspects of conversions, let’s discuss what some will tell you is the most important conversion-boosting tactic of all: value.

The internet has been a part of our lives for a long time now, and there are now entire generations who have never known a world without it. As we use it more and more obsessively, we also become better at separating the wheat from the chaff. We’ve become better at determining when a page, a product, a service, or a brand can offer actual value, as opposed to being full of fluff and nothing much else.

True, you can jump on a trend and chase after popular topics and hashtags, you can churn out blog posts that don’t offer anything but words and pretty pictures, but the brands that choose to focus on quantity over quality, or that willingly sacrifice quality for the sake of a quick win often have very short-lived successes.

The value above all else maxim is most important when it comes to website copy and content. You want your words to mean something and your readers to be able to take away something with them. It might be a smile, a piece of information, a solution to a problem – something that will make them remember you.

This Newsweek post on mattresses for side sleepers illustrates our point – it’s thorough, it’s in-depth, and it offers plenty of valuable information a reader will be happy to walk away with and make an educated purchasing decision.

7. Cut to the Chase When it Comes to Pricing

Another question that often plagues business owners is knowing how and how boldly to display their prices.

There is a school of thought that advocates for listing out all the benefits and key features of a product or service first, and only when what a customer gets is made absolutely clear to display the price.

And while this approach makes perfect sense, there’s also a drawback to it. The more someone has to scroll to get to the most important piece of information, the more frustrated they will likely feel.

True, displaying your prices up front may cause some of your leads to leave your page without even considering the value of your offer. However, those whose price point you are within will most likely stay. Those who absolutely can’t afford you will leave, but then they were never your target audience anyway.

It’s better to be straight about what is the crucial element of the decision-making process for most. After all, someone either has the budget or doesn’t, and no amount of copy or visuals will be able to change that.

8. Make the Checkout Easier

Undoubtedly, checking out is the most important step in your conversion process. It’s the finish line you’ve been working towards. If you make it unnecessarily complicated, you may end up losing a lot of customers a step before capture.

The checkout should be as simple as possible. Two pages are enough – one for the cart itself and updating it, and one for entering all the required information. You can add more, but try to gather any information you may want from your customers at a later point in time. Don’t ask them where they heard about your offer or about their shopping preferences. Send a follow-up email to find that out.

Most importantly, your checkout process should offer maximum security to consumers. This goes without saying. You’ll also want to try to offer as many payment options as possible: credit cards, PayPal or Stripe, wire transfers, even bitcoin.

Security badges are another great signal you can send here. They will lend an extra layer of trust to your brand and make it easier for users to convert. After all, consumers are very aware of the scams and frauds going around, and they won’t trust their personal information with just about anyone.

9. Send Relevant Emails

Finally, another way to secure more conversions, even after someone has reached the checkout stage, is to give them a friendly nudge over email.

Start by sending out cart abandonment emails. When someone adds items to their cart and fails to click on the checkout button, or when someone fills out parts of a form to arrange your services but does not get to its end, ask them what happened.

Some companies like to send simple “you have items in your cart” emails, which can also work really well. However, if you ask your customers why they have chosen not to check out, you may uncover underlying issues you were not aware of.

For example, the shipping costs to a certain area or country may be too high for most of your customers. Your service may not be available at a certain time, and this may be what’s causing the issue.

The other type of email you want to be sending out is the newsletter, the discount and new arrival reminder, the alert that something new is going on on the website. Try not to be too frequent with these emails, though.

If you are a website that sells thousands of items, and if you truly have daily deals and discounts, an everyday email might be okay. But if there is nothing really new, yet you keep pinging your leads several times a week, they may just end up unsubscribing to shut you up.

Final Thoughts

Boosting conversions is a team sport. It’s not about changing one thing and miraculously earning more money overnight. It’s about making sure all of the different elements on your website work together well and that they complement each other in their efforts to gain you new customers.

When considering changes to your pages with conversions in mind, make sure you start with just one item. Changing several at a time won’t help you identify the factors that are making the most difference. Go slowly and one by one, until you discover the absolute best formula for converting a fair share of your visitors.