Increasing revenue is the goal of most every business. Almost every website loses potential customers due to lackluster sales funnels and poorly designed websites. Now is the time to review your site to see why it might fail to convert interested prospects. And this article is the first step in helping improve your conversion rate.
Unfortunately, most online marketing professionals talk way too much about how much traffic, impressions and eyes they can get your website. Big deal! We can do that with our eyes closed and two arms tied behind our back. (We haven’t actually tried that, but I bet we could.) Bragging about traffic alone is missing the most important point of a website or online asset which is simply to convert prospects into buying customers.
Conversion is everything.
Savvy marketers, like the ones that work here at both Creative Options’ Dallas and Austin offices, talk about what happens AFTER the traffic gets to a website. Generating traffic is relatively easy compared to conversions. You can buy traffic but you can’t buy conversions (unless you consider a click a conversion but generally we consider a conversion a phone call, web form submission or actual sale)! The hard part is increasing the percentage or rate at which you convert traffic to qualified leads or sales.
Here are some basic tactics you can use to increase conversion rates on your website or promotional web pages:
1. Understand the intent of your traffic. Site visitors at different stages of the sales cycle will need different content and landing pages with different offers and information. For example, deep in the sales funnel, a qualified prospect may be looking for a quote or a demo. Creating engaging offers are appropriate at this point because the prospects are willing to invest the time to make their purchase decision.
2. Google analytics. Make sure you are tracking the on-site behavior of your audiences. Many people have opinions but unless if you don’t have data, you don’t have the answers. You can never assume you know how your web site traffic behaves. Use data to clearly understand the behavior of your web browsers and prospects.
3. You’ll need a different process and different offers for less qualified prospects that are still in the research stages. Business to business buyers for example may require months of nurturing. Sub-offers such as mini conversion tactics and opt-in forms are appropriate for these leads.
4. Align traffic sources with messaging. Visitors need a consistent and seamless user experience. By making sure that the source of your traffic is tied to the home and/or landing page, you stand a much better chance of keeping browsers engaged and moving through the purchase decision funnel.
5. Spend time developing and testing your landing pages. A/B split tests, multi-variable testing and so on can be the difference between break even and generating large profits. Begin with a well designed landing page and start testing. Gain knowledge and repeat as necessary.
These are just a few of the tactics you should think about when focusing on landing page and webs site conversions. Over time, your testing and analytics will give you a significant edge over the competition and take the guess work out of converting your prospects into paying customers. And you won’t find a better team of people that combine, messaging, online savvy and analytic edge than our team. But I’m biased. So if you live in Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, San Antonio or anywhere else in Texas, give me a shout and let’s sit down for visit so we can help you turn website traffic into more sales and more revenue. Or if you live elsewhere contact me at david@creativeoptionscommunications.com.