High website “conversion” rates (transforming your website’s visitors into sales leads), can be one of the most challenging results to achieve as a marketer.
There are five steps you can take to increase the conversion rate on your website. The first step in your inbound marketing strategy is always to get your website found by your targeted customers (covered in my previous posts) and then providing those visitors with compelling reasons for them to take specific actions on your site.
But once you have a visitor reach your site, how do you get them to take the specific action you want them to take in order to convert them into a lead?
Before we go any further, it is important to define what we mean when we use the term “lead.”
In most cases, companies here in Denver define a lead as when we have the ability to connect with a prospect directly. For instance, a lead could be any of the following:
- A visitor fills out a contact form on your website.
- A visitor signs up for the newsletter.
- A visitor calls the phone number listed on your website and talks to someone in your company or leaves a message.
- A visitor becomes a fan on your Facebook page, or follows you on Twitter or LinkedIn, etc.
- A visitor emails the address you provided on your site requesting more information.
- A visitor downloads a whitepaper from your site and you collect their contact information.
- A visitor attends a webcast that you offer and you capture their contact information.
- A visitor starts a free trial of your service.
- A visitor purchases a product from your site or calls to place an order.
All these interactions have one thing in common: the ability for you to connect with your web visitor after they have visited your site. All these methods are effective ways to capture a lead, but getting your visitors to take action isn’t always as simple as it sounds.
Research has shown that you have roughly 20 seconds to get a visitor to interact with your website before they move on. As a result, you must provide a compelling reason for your visitors to take an action (pick up the phone, fill out your form, or connect with you on social media) on your site or you will lose the ability to connect with them.
Your first step is to create “engaging” or “remarkable” content and make it compelling enough for your visitor to be willing to give you their contact information so that you can follow up with them. One of the best ways to do this is by providing compelling offers. Your offers can be anything from providing a copy of recent, helpful research (“white-papers”), putting your visitor on your distribution list for helpful and informative newsletters or blogs, or entering them in to a current contest you are running.
If you don’t yet have any compelling offers on your site, now is the time to start thinking of doing it. According to the research firm Marketing Sherpa, adding case studies or other valuable content offers can actually increase your website conversions by as much as 30%.
Here are some simple actions you can take to increase your website conversions as part of a seamless inbound marketing strategy:
1. Prominently Place Your Company’s Phone Number on all your Website Pages
One of the best ways to convert a website visitor to a lead is to make it easy for them to call you. Place your phone number in the upper right corner of your website in big and bold numbers, making it easy to find. Also make sure it is on every page of your website, so that no matter what page they are currently on, they can easily find your number and call you. You don’t want them searching for the “contact us” page just to find your phone number.
2. Provide an Engaging Take-away
Give your website visitors a taste of your product or service before they buy. You can do this by providing a free trial of your product or service, a white-paper on your industry, or a free demonstration of your product or service in action. Make sure you put a short contact information form in front of any offers you make to ensure you are able to follow up with your visitors later. For best results, keep the contact form short; in most cases you’ll just need their Name, Company Name, Phone and Email address.
3. Newsletter Sign-up
Create a short section on your website where visitors can sign-up to receive your monthly newsletter. After a visitor submits the form, have a page automatically provide them with a link to your archive of past newsletters. Also, be sure you have set up an email auto-responder to send them a quick “thank you” for signing up with you.
4. Product Reviews and Testimonials
Creating a section on your website of previous customer’s testimonials can really boost your visitor’s confidence in your company and encourage them to take the next step of learning more about your company. Studies show that testimonials on your website can increase conversion rates by up to 35%, by building confidence in your visitor’s mind about your product or service.
5. Engaging Content on Social Media
A great way to drive more leads to your site is to have your content become “viral.” The more people that see your website’s content, the more leads you are going to receive.
You should write every article or blog post on your site as if it is going to be read by thousands of people. At the end of every article make sure you have a Facebook link icon, linking to your Facebook business page, and if you are a business-to-business company, be sure you have a LinkedIn account page and add the LinkedIn icon as well.
You should also consider opening a Twitter account if you do not already have one. A Twitter account can enable you to spread your content faster and farther into the internet and to reach more of the people that are interested in your service or product.
Bottom Line:
Growing your conversion rate through effective Inbound Marketing takes fewer resources and can be done more effectively than traditional marketing (direct mail, radio and TV advertising).
Need help? Give us a call at (303) 357-5757
