If you are selling anything online, whether it be a service or a product, you need to make sure that your landing pages are converting at their best to get you customers. Below we highlight the top 27 ways to increase conversions.

1. Articulate your unique selling point from the very beginning.

When users land on a landing page, the first thing they should be able to see is your unique selling proposition (USP). It should say why someone would work with you over your competitors. Conversion Chronicles saw a boost in subscriptions by 11% per month for 6 months simply by using their USP to differentiate themselves from their competition.

2. Add social proof to your landing page.

You can make use of social proof by showing users how to act through testimonials and other cues that signal your trustworthiness and credibility. WikiJob was able to improve their conversion rates by 34% simply by moving their testimonials to a higher position on the page. Similarly, Petco was able to increase their conversion rates by 8.83% by simply putting the HackerSafe logo on their page. Collect testimonials by using tools like FeedbackFair.

3. Implement a live chat service.

If users ever run into trouble with their transactions, they want help instantly. Live chats can be great solutions to solving user problems and answering questions immediately. Hautelook increased their conversion rates by 3% when they implemented and appropriately trained their live chat team to engage with customers.

4. Use great content to push them down the sales funnel.

Consistently engage your audience and convert them from passive bystanders to active users by drawing them in with engaging content. Think blog posts and eBooks. Once they’re on your mailing list, you have the ability to persuade them to use your product. Make good use of it. Diteba Research Laboratories doubled their leads and tripled their conversion rates.

5. Use short bulleted lists as much as possible.

Users don’t really read pages. They scan them. In fact, the majority of you probably won’t be reading this sentence! That’s why bulleted lists come in so handy. Trevor Mauch discovered that people preferred bullet lists and it increased his conversion rates by 31%. Similarly, Unionen saw their conversion rates increase from 4.6% to 5.3% simply by implementing a bulleted list.

6. Make the registration process easy.

I hate long lines. Make sure users know that registering is easy, and give them a look at the end of the tunnel by making sure that they know there’s only one page to fill out. The Olympic store increased their conversion rates from 35.2% to 42.9% by putting their registration steps all on one page.

7. Make sure the pages in the checkout process load quickly.

People don’t like to wait and a lot of purchases are made on impulse. This means users may fall out of love with it as quickly as they fell in love with it. Make sure you’re not losing users because of a lengthy load time. Strangeloop tested what a 2-second delay on load time would result in and conversions dropped by 60%.

8. Have an overall quick load time.

Why make users wait at all? This plays into the previous point about speeding up load times. Use tools like  Google Page Speed, Website Optimization, Five Second Test and Notable.

9. Collect emails and follow up right away.

Tom Critchlow commends Pingdom for doing a good job with their auto-responders, which ask users if everything’s OK and if they have any inquiries. These emails are capable of converting passive users into more active ones.

10. Reduce cart abandonment by removing or reducing the cost of shipping.

According to eMarketer, shipping costs are the main reason for cart abandonment. If you outline from the beginning that you have free shipping (or cheap shipping), you can reduce cart abandonment. This contributed to ReplaceDirect reducing cart abandonment by 25%.

11. Predict questions before they’re asked.

How can I pay? Can I trust you? Answer your users’ questions and objections right on the page. By answering these questions, Slideshop was able to increase their conversion rates by 15%.

12. Split test all items on your page.

Small details can make a huge difference. Use this principle to your advantage by testing different methods and experimenting with different graphics. SAP BusinessObjects turned their ordinary call to action into a big blue button and increased conversions by 32.5%. Also, Performable found that 21% more people clicked on the red button than their old green one.

13. Increase or decrease white space.

White space can either make a user feel overwhelmed or very relaxed. Take it into consideration, and try either adding or removing white space. Aquasoft increased conversions by 20% by increasing the amount of white space on their website.

14. Add a prominent contact number and email address.

Perhaps users want to know they have a means of reaching you if they need to. Perhaps they’re more comfortable with phones. Either way, it works. LessAccounting saw sales increase by 1.8% when they chose to implement basic phone support. If you really can’t offer the phone as an option, tell your customers why. Sunshine.co.uk saw sales increase by 14 million when they explained it helped keep prices low.

15. Describe your products/services more clearly.

Product descriptions should describe not only what your product does, but how it can help your visitors and how it has helped in the past. Great American Days saw their conversion rates increase by 28.7% when they made their product descriptions more clear.

16. Create a contextual call to action.

Show users the basic information: what benefit they’re receiving and at what price. Place your call to action where it will make the biggest impact (split test). Nature Air saw conversion rates increase from 3% to 19% (a whopping 591% increase) by making the wording of their call to action more relevant and by sharing pricing information.

17. Use compelling and relevant images.

The web is a visual medium. Show users what they’re going to be receiving with high-quality, beautiful images. Schwan’s is the retailer with the highest conversion rates in their niche. Their use of images plays a huge role in obtaining this position. If you don’t have a photographer in your organization, you can find royalty-free images at Fotolia or iStock. You can also find free stock photos on SXC.hu. Show, don’t tell.

18. Get users to sign up after checking out.

Give users a reason to sign up. For example, so you know where to ship the items they’re planning to order. Jared Spool moved the registration process from before checking out to after for one of his clients, which increased sales by $300 million.

19. Find the best call to action words and graphics.

Words are a difficult thing to guess and perfect on the first try. Harness their power by split testing different calls to action. TextMagic.com saw their conversions grow by 37.6% by changing their call to action text from “Buy SMS Credits” to “View SMS Prices”.

20. Use copy to appeal to their aspirations or their needs/worries.

On a similar note, everyone aspires to be more. Happier, smarter, stronger or more interesting. Figure out your audience’s aspirations are and appeal to them. If you can, get a second copywriter’s opinion as well. This helped increase Sytropin’s conversion rates by 50%.

21. Show videos; the web is a visual and interactive medium.

Some customers may get bored with text. Videos are a great way to engage customers, and a very simple way to show them how more complicated processes or concepts work. Stacks and Stacks noticed that customers were 144% more likely to purchase after watching a video.

22. Don’t pull the 19-year-old dude move.

Don’t try to close too fast. Marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk pleads with fellow marketers to not close too fast. Instead, play it cool and let your copy and your images/videos do the persuading. One of ZURB’s clients increased conversion rates by 350% simply by burying their call to action.

23. Cater to all browsers.

80-85% of people use Internet Explorer. If you aren’t friendly with the other browsers, you could be missing out on 15-20% of sales.

24. Track everything!

In case you didn’t notice, split testing comes in really handy. That said, you need to be tracking whatever you’re testing in order to know which mechanism performs better. Make sure you have tracking for your landing pages and websites. If you don’t know where to start, apparently the folks at KISSmetrics know a thing or two about tracking.

25. Make sure you have no “typos”.

As one of Stephen Cobb’s clients said, “If an online store is too stupid to get their spelling right, why should I think they will get my order right?”

26. Turn services into packages.

Users may be curious about what features they’re getting for their money. Illustrate your answer in a chart, which makes it easy for users to compare between options and packages. SEOmoz increased sales by $1 million. One of the factors playing into this was thoroughly explaining what the benefits were for certain packages and bundles.

27. Offer a risk-free trial.

Make it crystal clear that your trial is completely risk-free and has no hidden costs. This was another factor in SEOmoz increasing their sales by $1 million.

There are about 100+ more tips we could mention here, but start by implementing these ones first. Do you have anymore suggestions for increasing conversions?