I was recently interviewed by Christopher Elliot for an article published on Microsoft’s Office site: 10 strategies for enticing visitors to buy or act. The purpose of the article is to help business owners convert web visitors into customers.

With Christopher’s permission, I’ve posted the entire interview below.

Christopher Elliot: My audience is small businesses and sole proprietors. In your opinion, how important is turning a reader into a customer for these groups?

BW: Turning a website reader into a customer is critical for small business. Most companies agree the purpose of a web-site is to educate existing customers and attract new customers. Done right, a website can be a cost-effective tool for attracting new customers and expanding your reach to an audience you may not have had access to in the past.

CE: Do you know of any surveys that discuss the importance of making these conversions?

BW – I haven’t read any recent survey’s discussing the importance of converting customers. But on the flip-side, I would be hard pressed to remember the last time a day passed where I didn’t receive at least one email discussing online conversions and options to optimize and test your website. It seems as if we have moved past asking if it is important, to how do we optimize our site for new customers?

CE: I’d like to mention your top two or three tips for converting Web site users into customers. What are your top two or three tips? I’m trying to get beyond the obvious ones, like “always include a call to action or a subscriber form on your site”—I think most people reading this already do that.

BW: I think an easy one that people is miss is adding a bookmark option/widget to their site. Bookmark widgets have exploded in popularity with Web 2.0, and for a small business they serve two important purposes. The first is to attract return visitors. Many times people will bookmark a site of relative importance or a site they plan on re-visiting when they have more time. If you have a complex product or service, it’s important to make it easy for your customers and prospects to find you a second and third time. The ancillary benefit of a bookmaking tool like del.icio.us – it allows people of like interests to share information and possibly drive additional prospects to your site.

The second is fairly obvious, but often missed. It’s important to repeat your call to action multiple times on the same page. If you have a very informative site with lot’s of data, don’t just put a call to action (ie buy button) on the top or bottom of a page. If people know what they want, put a prominent call to action “above the fold” so your users see it immediately and can act. For the customer who takes more time and reads all of a page, place another call to action at the end of the page, so they can easily act. This simple change will definitely increase conversions.

CE” Also, I’m wondering if there are any common mistakes that small businesses/sole proprietors make when they are trying to improve their conversions?

BW: I believe a fairly common mistake made by both small and big business is losing focus of the 90 – 10 rule online. Many companies have a core product or service that accounts for the majority of their business, but when visiting their website you would never know that. You often see sites where low volume / low margin offerings get the same amount of space as the core offering. Businesses should give users what they want by highlighting their core products, making it as simple as possible to convert their largest base of customers.

All the best,
Bill