25 Ways to Increase Online Sales Without Spending a Penny

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Spending too much on driving traffic, but not getting enough sales from your website? Looking for ways to increase sales from your same amount of traffic?

The good news is that you can use conversion rate optimization (CRO) to do this very effectively, and you can get started without needing to spend much initially. To help you with this I have created a list of 25 tips and free trials you can use to increase your online sales and conversions without spending a penny.

  1. Improve your homepage headline with this free headline checker.
    The more engaging and magnetizing your headlines, the higher chance that your visitors will stay on your website and purchase, particularly on your homepage.
  2. Offer a free incentive like a guide or discount to capture emails.
    Don’t rely on your visitors converting first time – getting your visitors email using a good free incentive means you can follow up using email marketing and get them to purchase in the future.
    lead magnet
  3. Analyze your form drop off rate using a free trial of Formisimo.
    Having confusing or unnecessary fields in your forms will lower the chances of visitors completing them – analyze form drop off with this great new tool.
  4. Use short testimonials on your homepage to build more social proof.
    Improving your testimonials is one of the best ways of increasing social proof and sales. Make them short and focused on benefits, and use photos or logos to make them believable.
    optimizely testimonials
  5. A/B test a radically new homepage with Google Optimize.
    Testing a radically different improved homepage (style, layout and improved focus on call-to-actions) will have a high chance of increasing your sales. This free tool helps you do this easily.
  6. State your unique value proposition clearly on your homepage.
    Don’t presume visitors know the benefits of using your site, or why use it instead of a competitor. Make sure you state your unique value proposition clearly on your homepage above the page fold.
    value proposition module
  7. Create landing pages for your paid search traffic with a free trial of Instapage.
    Don’t just send your paid search visitors to your homepage, build more targeted landing pages for each of your keywords to increase visitor engagement and sales.
  8. Try buying or signing up on your own website to check for issues.
    When was the last time you did this? Put yourself in your visitors shoes and see how easy it is and what could be improved. Then get your mom to try too.
  9. Use a free trial of Olark to get live feedback from your visitors.
    Using a free web chat tool to ask visitors their issues and what they think is lacking will help you come up with great ideas for improving your website.
  10. Mention ‘100% Safe and Secure’ in your cart and checkout pages.
    Reducing visitor’s purchase worry on these pages (where it will be highest) is key for reducing cart abandonment and increasing sales. Add this simple wording with a trust seal will really help.
    zappos security
  11. Get website usability feedback from visitors using Loop11.com.
    This excellent tool is essential to help you gain great feedback and website improving ideas from people using your website, and they give you a 14 day free trial.
  12. Use scarcity and urgency techniques using a free trial of Fomo.com.
    To get your visitors to purchase or signup quicker you should use scarcity and urgency techniques that websites like Booking.com use. These really help increase conversion rates.
  13. Run an A/B test for the subject line of your next email campaign.
    Your emails are an extension of your website, and testing them can also have a huge impact on driving more high quality repeat traffic.
  14. Run a five second test for free at UsabilityHub to find what your visitors think.
    It’s important to understand your visitor’s initial reactions to your site – if they don’t understand it, they won’t stick around and convert.
  15. Reduce the risk of purchase for visitors with prominent guarantees and free shipping.
    You should prominently show money back guarantee seals and offers for free shipping (and ideally free returns) on your homepage and product pages.
  16. Get rid of your homepage slider and replace with good static image.
    Homepage sliders often have too many slides and slide too quickly – a powerful image and headline can often work much better, like you can see below.
    good static intro
  17. Improve your webpage load time using Google Page Speed.
    Reducing page load time helps decrease the chances of visitors leaving prematurely – and Google gives rankings boosts to websites that load quickest.
  18. Add benefit driven and action words to your call-to-action buttons.
    Don’t use words like ‘submit’, you need to captivate your visitors by adding benefit related words to your call-to-action buttons, and action related words. ‘Get a free trial now’ is a good example.
  19. Try a better ecommerce platform using the BigCommerce free trial.
    Rather than trying to improve your ecommerce site, consider switching to a better platform with built-in conversion optimization best practices.
  20. Use Browserling to check if your website looks broken on any browsers.
    Even slight differences in how browsers show CSS can make a website look broken, increasing website exits and reducing sales – this tool helps you quickly check.
  21. Add a good call-to-action button at the end of your web pages.
    Make sure your key pages don’t dead end. Show visitors a good call-to-action at the end to check out your other content/products, like you can see in the image below.
    footer CTA
  22. Use bullet points and bold to highlight key benefits or features.
    You need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to notice your most important words – they often scan and don’t read long blocks of text. Make important words stand out using bullet points and bolded text to ensure they get seen.
  23. Use animated images and explainer videos to explain even better.
    Don’t just rely on using static images to convey your product or service. An animated image or short explainer videos can help explain in much better detail and they are much more engaging.
  24. Discover what your visitors are really doing using Hotjar.
    Don’t presume you know what your visitors are doing on your website. This tool helps you understand by looking at heatmaps and visitor recordings – great for creating website improvement ideas. They have a free plan too. Capturly is another good tool option.
  25. Declutter your side bars to focus on your most important content.
    Side bars often become very cluttered and visitors may miss key content in them – declutter yours to only show the most important content relating to your key goals.

So there we have it. 25 free tips and trials to kickstart and increase your website sales, all without you needing to pay for more traffic.