Just hit $2 million per year in revenue. Here’s how we set ourselves apart from the competition and the tools we use to accomplish this.

TLDR: So I've been building companies on transparently for over a decade and in that time I've built a bunch of projects:

And combined we're doing over $2 million per year.

And many of you know, I did it in a crazy transparent way right here on Reddit and completely bootstrapped with a couple hundred dollars in seed money and not a penny in investment.

Today I want to share the website strategies I use to improve conversions, but from the angle of a website visitor looking for a simple home cleaning.

This is the stuff that works, regardless of the industry we're in!

For some of you it's going to be so simple as to be a waste of time, but hopefully some folks get something out of this!

How to turn more website visitors into customers!

(Read time: ~15 minutes).

Grab your favorite puffy slippers and kick back! I’ll get right to it.

I love simple, predictable businesses, that require no magic or fancy technology. And those are the type of companies I continue to build.

Backstory: Setting the Stage
So I wanted to attack this from the angle of a visitor to your website. This visitor happens to be someone needing cleaning service, but I promise you the stories are the same regardless of what you’re selling: You have someone that is looking to solve a problem, you’re selling something that solves that problem, yet somehow your website gets in the way! Click to meet Rosa, and see the problems she's having booking service

Strategy 1 for More Customers: Use more images
Here’s the thing, people rarely read a full paragraph online. Even the most compelling news story is skimmed, and best believe people are skimming on your website as well. So we keep things as light on text as possible while setting the mood with images: Click to see a quick example of images we use

Strategy 2 for More Customers: Use more videos
So this one will automatically set your website apart from about 90% of your competition. Videos are super easy to make, and they completely raise the trust level on your website and engage the customer at a much deeper level than just having traditional text testimonials. These could be short 30 second snippets like the one Rosa might see, or longer form ones like we did for wet shave club

Strategy 3 for more customers: Borrowing Credibility So this one is pretty straightforward but you’ll be surprised how many websites either miss this completely or hide these logos on inner pages that no one ever sees. For us, if it does not happen on the homepage, it could as well not happen at all! We borrow credibility from other sites that have mentioned us that Rosa would immediately recognize, and this would increase our standing in her eyes right away. Simple stuff but it works. Click to see how we borrow credibility from bigger sites

Strategy 4 for more customers: Answer Objections
So far so good, and really we’re only a few seconds in real time as Rosa starts to take in our website. She’s probably feeling okay at this point but there are still certain high level questions she has in our mind, that we’ll call “Objections!” These are the same objections that sales people have to overcome in a sales call, except in this case we can overcome them in many cases with very simple markers like these: Click to see how we use symbols and short text to overcome objections

Strategy 5 for more customers: More human faces
As Rosa gets further and further down our website page, we’re looking for more ways to make deep connections. One way we accomplish this is with human faces. People connect with people. Not with pictures of mops and gloves or lawnmowers or whatever tools you use to deliver your service. Think about it, when was the last time you felt a personal connection with a wet mop? So we aim for at least 5 or 6 people that are super happy. And that’s why we hit Rosa with images like this

Strategy 6 for more customers: Start Checkout Above the fold

Above the fold is just the area of your website that your visitor sees when they first get there and before they start to scroll. It's usually your main image with text to show what your website is about. IMAGINE YOUR HOMEPAGE IS AN ICEBERG. The only part of your website you can guarantee people will see is the part that's sticking out of the water. Assume they're only going to see the top of that iceberg, and make sure you don't waste that opportunity to get them moving along your sales funnel. For us, we start the checkout process as soon as Rosa lands on the page.

Strategy 7 for more customers: Short One-Page Checkout Have a checkout form where you asked the customer 9 questions when it could have just been 5? You just cut your conversion rate from 13% to 10% and increased your cost to acquire a customer by $2 . The longer your form, the less money you make! Keep things simple. For us, we do a simple, one-page checkout for every website and keep things as simple as possible for Rosa.

Strategy 8 for more customers: Better design and customer experience
So the way I see it, building a business is like being in a boat race across the Atlantic. Fortunately, most of your competitors enter the race using a website that is akin to an ugly handmade dingy, with a few half-broken oars, and a ton of leaks that require them to stop every few minutes to scoop out water. Sad to say a lot of these folks won't make it. We make sure not to create a website and make it just as shoddy as the ugly handmade dingys the competition use. I don't launch until I have a freaking speedboat. A Professionally designed, cohesively branded website, with good copy, and a simple process to convert visitors into buyers. I want to make that race as unfair as possible.

They don't have a cohesive brand? I create a solid appealing brand. They don't have a video? I go get one. They don't have online chat? I set up online chat. And on and on...

Strategy 9 for more customers: External Reviews Brought on-Site So this is not unique to local services by any means. Any big ecommerce store that can see data at this level knows of this phenomenon: 1) Customer comes to the site and wants to buy 2) Leaves the site to look for reviews and 3rd party feedback and 3) Comes back to buy (Or Not)! Our goal here is to remove the need for them to leave for more research by providing the most pertinent 3rd party reviews right on site. Here's what Rosa sees as she is shopping around the site.

Strategy 10 for more customers: Upsells & Add-ons So this one is kind of a no-brainer, but we're looking to increase our average transaction size in any way we can. And one way is to upsell at checkout. Rosa, as she's checking out will have the opportunity to add extras and complementary services. Click to see extras we offer Rosa at checkout.

Strategy 11 for more customers: Cart Abandonment and instant discounts in exchange for the sale

Say someone starts to book service, enters their email or for some reason or not they don't complete the checkout. Using Carthook we grab their email and automatically send them follow up emails to remind/incentivize them to complete the booking. This not only improves conversion rates but allows us to track the overall performance of our booking form to see how well it is working. If you start filling out the form, you should finish...and carthook helps with that tracking and management. Click to see this in action

Strategy 12 for more customers: Exit Monitors

There is no single better converting medium that a well-nurtured email list. Nothing beats it. Not search, not social media, not display ads. Nada. And it's not even close. Click to see how we use exit monitors to grab customer emails just before they leave.

Strategy 13 for more customers: Refer a Friend
Another absolute no-brainer but this works like a charm. Nothing beats a recommendation from a client so we set up a way for customers to get a credit off future service for each client they refer our way (the new client gets a discount as well). Here is the email we send out to get this moving.

Strategy 14 for more customers: Show other customer transactions This is a fairly new strategy we've seen on travelocity and other major ecommerce sites and we figured we would try it out. And it works like a charm. It's basically a way for customers to see that OTHER customers are also buying stuff, and it gives folks more confidence to get moving. Here is what our friend Rosa would see.

Strategy 15 for more customers: Built in Recurring revenue We try to build a recurring component into every business. Even if you're selling one-off items like cars, try to upsell a monthly service package of some sort to keep that relationship alive. And one way to structure this is to give different commitment levels with higher discounts based on the length of the commitment.

So for example: A 1 year subscription is $19.99 per month, while a 3 months subscription is $24.99 per month. This works beautifully, helps to increase conversion rates for longer commitments which in turn makes our cash-flow smoother and more predictable. And of course if you can have your recurring transaction happen seamlessly or with one click, you’re way ahead of the game. Here’s what Rosa sees when it’s time for her to book another service!

Wrapup So if this is executed properly it ends with a happy Rosa having more time for her friends because we delivered a seamless website experience. 

Everybody wins!!

So hopefully you guys see (and sorry if this was simplistic for some of the internet marketing gurus out there), that building a successful online business is far more than just throwing up a website and pulling up the brink trucks to collect the cash.

A great website is just the beginning, a lot of what we do to get over that hump happens with the tools and ideas I laid out here.

Rohan Gilkes

Find me on X, Linkedin, Instagram,

or Book a 1:1 Call

Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. Start a non-sexy boring business: My flagship course: Learn to build a lean, profitable, local service business. This is the system I used to quit my job and grow from zero to $20 million in sales and has generated 100s of millions in sales for our Reddit community. This course sets the stage for building real world businesses and includes my actual cellphone number to text me for help.

2. Get your website and software for your home service business. Join 100s of entrepreneurs who use Convertlabs to manage their home service business including their booking form, website, calendar, and customer database.

3. Ai Chat Agent to increase sales for your small business. Convert more visitors into customers and reduce customer service cost

4.  ​Book a Call With Rohan: As an entrepreneur with over $20 million in online sales I've seen pretty much everything. I've built services companies, software companies (had 2 exits), subscription box companies, and more. Let’s chat.