The majority of business I talk to are very keen to increase traffic to their website.
I’ve even seen businesses with a lot of web traffic still not making enough sales, which leads them to conclude they must need even more traffic.
The good news is that all these activities can be very effective at delivering visitors to your site.
But that means very little if you aren’t ready for them when they arrive.
Many marketing strategies focus on attracting traffic, yet nothing is more of a turn off to visitors if your site is not optimised to help them.
That’s why an organisation’s first order of marketing business should be to ensure their site is conversion optimised, then the second part of the puzzle, attracting visitors, will be much more effective.
Here are tips to improve conversion on your website
1. Give something to get something
If you want real conversions and not just visitors who move on, you need to offer them something of real value.
The first thing on your conversion checklist is to offer visitors a relevant lead magnet.
A free download, webinar, case studies or an eBook are all magnets to show potential customers that you are professional, knowledgeable and willing to help.
A lead magnet can naturally lead into an email opt-in form, along with an automated email sequence.
If you offer them something of real value, they’ll want to sign up to receive more of the same.
2. Demonstrate credibility
The more you can pull in good information from your social media sources, the better.
Visitors love reviews, scoring, testimonials and case studies from those who have actually bought your services and/or products, so show them on your site.
Australians are sometimes a bit reluctant to promote their successes, but it really helps build social proof and credibility.
And if others are too shy to do it then you are going to stand out from the crowd even more.
3. Time for action
Of course, the purpose of all this activity is to prepare the visitor leading up to the moment when they are ready to take action.
Your calls to action don’t always have to be a boring old ‘add to cart’.
You should get creative and test a handful of different prompts in order to compel your visitor to ‘get started’, ‘read more’, ‘learn more’, ‘join today’ or ‘sign up’.
Once you have your visitor journey and conversion strategies in place throughout your website, then you are ready to attract customers.
This article was first published in the Newcastle Herald on August 8, 2017.
