You already know that you need to have a website for your shop, whether you are only selling online or using it as an extension to a physical location. You may even have one up and running already. But simply having a place where you offer your goods or services online isn't enough to ensure sales. It takes a little effort and know how to turn online shoppers into buyers. With more smartphones than people on Earth, according to Digby, and consumers spending six times as much time than last year shopping through a mobile device, having your internet marketing strategy at its best is essential to capture the sales. If your online shop isn't closing the deals, try these 5 Tactics To Increase Conversions Permanently.

Call to Action

There is no reason to beat around the bush. Shoppers know that you are there to sell them something. Show them how! Put a call to action that tells them how they can get what they are looking for. Use your header image as an entry to make purchases. Use a large button that tells them what they are clicking on, such as “Start Shopping” or “New Items”. A bold call-to-action button that stands out is an easy way to pull customers in to look further, and buy.

Coupon Codes

Offering your customers coupon deals is an excellent way to increase sales, with recent studies showing that online coupons generate new users and increase the overall spending on merchant sites. Active coupon users are 74 percent more likely to try a new brand or purchase an item if there is a coupon attached to it. By offering a coupon code directly on your site can prevent shoppers from looking elsewhere for deals, opening competitors sites for comparison, or even abandoning their carts while waiting for a better deal. Statistics say that 27 percent of shoppers abandoned their cart to look for a coupon, with the average lose of sales totaling $109 per merchant. Offering the coupon clearly on your page can prevent that loss of sales.

Retargeting

Of the shoppers on your site, generally only 2 percent turn from shoppers into buyers on their first visit, according to AdRoll. Retargeting is a way to bring the majority of shoppers back to your site to buy items. Using a service, such as AdRoll, tracks your site visitors by placing an anonymous retargeting “cookie” in their browser. This allows the service to show the shopper ads for your site while they browse other places on the web. These targeted ads can bring back shoppers who have been on your site previously and turn them from shoppers into buyers. While different retargeting services may focus on specific sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, it is important to only use one service at a time. AdRoll offers a general coverage on the web, as well as a service called Liquid Ads that tracks items a shopper had added to their cart but not purchases and targets those items t o the shopper. This focus adds more appeal to the ads a shopper sees.

Conditional Email

While many businesses have abandoned the practice of sending out unsolicited mass emails, which often end up in a spam pile, conditional emails are still an excellent way to increase sales. Conditional emails are not unsolicited mass mailings, but emails that are triggered by the shopper. Setting up conditions, such as an abandoned shopping cart, can trigger an email reminding the shopper of the items they were interested in. With 98 percent of shoppers not making a purchase on their first time visiting your site, getting them to come back a second time is essential to a high conversion rate. By having conditional emails set up to trigger after certain actions, you can increase your average return shopper from 8 percent to 37 percent, according to blog.shop.org.

Email Lists

When looking at conversion for your site, one of the key factors isn't simply to get a shopper to buy once. Completing a one-time sale is good, creating a long-term relationship with a consumer means return shoppers, increased sales, and increased profits. One of the best ways to create a relationship with a customer is by obtaining their email address. Getting the shopper to give you their email can open doors such as coupon offers, newsletters, sales emails, even holiday wishes, and thank you emails. Each email they receive builds upon their brand recognition, their brand loyalty, and the probability that they will return to your site and make future purchases. Each shopper who gives you their email address offers you an opportunity to turn their one-time purchase into an ongoing loyal customer.

Creating a website that draws shoppers in and turns them into buyers can be a challenge. However, the more than $1 trillion dollars of online sales that took place in 2013 is only going to increase in the next year. Having a well designed, easy to use, shopper savvy website will allow your business to increase your conversion rate and create a solid base of returning customers.

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