Quite often, when I talk with businesses about their digital marketing efforts, the first thing on their mind is increasing website traffic. In fact, a lot of times organizations put a = sign between digital marketing and driving website traffic. Undoubtedly, digital marketing can drive traffic to your site, but what about converting traffic into leads?
What is the conversion rate on your site right now? In other words, out of 100 website visitors how many have filled out a contact-us form, subscribed to your newsletter, registered for a webinar, scheduled a consultation or downloaded a product spec sheet? What have you done in the past six months to increase that number? A lot of organizations, often, ignore this crucial aspect of digital marketing thus leaving opportunities on the table.
To help organizations with this process, I have decided to put together a list of 10 tips for converting website traffic into sales leads.
1. Create a Strong Value Proposition
How often do you visit a website homepage, and find yourself reading something like this: ”We are a growing company who is an industry leader in offering exceptional services to organizations who want to succeed.” I can guarantee that you see these value propositions every day. When writing your own value proposition, remember to focus on the following:
- Why would this be appealing to your sales lead?
- Is what you are offering exclusive or does every other organization offer the same service/product?
- Is your message credible – can you support and prove your claims?
2. Have Relevant Calls to Action
We have all heard the phrase: ”Ask and you shall receive.” Most of the time, for a website visitor to become a lead, they need to fill out a form. The form’s call to action is very important and should tell people exactly what they are getting themselves into. Nobody likes to Submit to anything and we all are hesitant to just click Subscribe or Sign-up. Instead, make your call to action a bit softer and more specific – Contact InfoTrust for a Free Consultation or Request Product Information.
3. Have a Call to Action on Every Page
Yesterday, I was reviewing Google Analytics of one of our Clients, and I noticed that their landing pages have a very high bounce rate – over 80%. As I started to review the pages, it became clear that there is not a single call to action. When a website visitor reviews the page, their immediate thought is – what’s next. It is imperative to be able to answer this question. Have a clear call to action to either contact you for more information, to request product literature, to read other blog posts on this topic, or to read client testimonial. Do not make people think.
4. Add a Secondary Call to Action
Your call to action assumes that the visitor is ready to make the next step. But what if the person is not yet ready to register for a webinar, do you lose them as a lead by not giving them any other options? Consider having a secondary call to action. For example, if my call to action prompts people to register for an event, my secondary call to action will prompt people to review testimonials of the past event attendees. Your secondary call to action should not compete with your primary call to action but rather give them an option to start smaller.
5. Place Testimonials Next to Calls to Action
It is always a good idea to have testimonials on your site. However, testimonials are the most effective not when they are on a separate page, but when they are positioned prominently next to the call to action. Let’s say I visit your site, and ultimately reach your contact us page. I am still not sure whether to fill out the form or not. A few testimonials, however, might give me the push I need. A good client testimonial will remove the anxiety that a visitor has before filling out yet another form. Give visitors a Plan B.
6. Be Educational
All of us are tired of people telling us to buy! And yet, most of the websites are focused on selling rather than educating. Quite often visitor is not even ready to make a sales decision. They need to be educated on the value that you offer, on how you compare to your competition, on why your services matter, on how this will impact their ROI. Educational content will help you answer those questions, and position yourself as an authority rather than just being yet another “sales person.”
7. Plan on Being Mobile
By 2014, mobile internet should take over desktop internet usage. Plan for success in the mobile world right now. Chances are, your website already has a lot of mobile traffic, but is your website optimized for the mobile experience. Having a website that doesn’t work well on a smartphone or on a tablet will ruin user experience and very likely you will lose a lead. Recently, we have worked with a local organization optimizing their website for a mobile experience. This process increased conversion rate for mobile website visitors by over 200%.
8. Be Personable
People buy from people. Work on the tone of your website. It should not sound stiff and corporate, but rather sound human and personable. Recently, we ran a serious of tests for our customer to increase the number of conversions on the careers page. The goal was to get more people to apply. Instead of a traditional recruitment language, we posted a personal letter from the CEO inviting people to apply and explaining what makes this company great. In one month, this process has improved the conversion rate by 30%.
9. Offer an Incentive
Incentives are what often helps us make a buying decision. Just yesterday, I got an offer for a free car wash with an oil change. Free car wash was an incentive that I needed to make a decision. Consider adding an incentive to your site. For example, Join Our Newsletter and Receive a Free E-book on 10 Industry Trends in 2102. A good incentive will always help you demonstrate value.
10. Test. Test. Test.
Do not take my word for it. There are a lot of best practices and common themes for how to improve the conversion rate on your site. However, the best way is just to test. By implementing a few changes at a time, and analyzing how well they work, you will be able to make your website more effective as a marketing tool.
If you are interested in learning more about the optimization services, consider reviewing our page on conversion optimization.
