Getting people to your website is a challenge in and of itself. Getting them to take action and convert to a prospect is a whole other story.
Potential clients might come to your site from many sources. If you are investing on SEO, your biggest source will be Google searches. But even if you haven’t done much to optimize your site, you still have visitors coming to it, and you want them to contact you. Some are checking you out because your business was recommended to them, or they met you at an event, or they discovered your business on social media.
What sort of conversion rates, from visitor to enquiry, should you expect?
For high traffic websites, an average conversion rate is about 2% (Wordstream) and we normally shoot for 3% or higher for our clients. But, in reality, it’s typically way lower, like 0.2 % for websites with fewer than 1,000 visitors per month that are not optimized at all.
There are ways to increase the number of enquiries coming from your website from the traffic you are currently getting, even if you have an industry cookie-cutter type of site. To help you get started, this post shares nine statistically proven tactics that will increase your website conversions and are easy to implement.
1.Clear Message That Speaks to Your Audience
When someone lands on your site, you have about five seconds to convince them that they are in the right place. How can you communicate that quickly?
Generic headlines or clever taglines won’t cut it. Your headlines, subheads and copy must make it clear that you understand your ideal client’s needs and wants, that you have the solution, and that they can trust you with their projects.
In order to achieve this, you must know your audience well and use persuasive sales copywriting best practices.
2. Clear Path For Your Prospects to Follow
Have you ever visited a website that pulls you in too many directions? You probably didn’t stay long.
Your home page should be clear, concise and easy to navigate. Offer the basic options for your visitor to be interested in exploring your site and lead them to take action.
Less is more. If it’s not essential, don’t include it. Don’t offer your visitor distractions.
3. Strengthen Your Calls to Action
Generic-type calls to action don’t produce any results. Things like “sign up for our newsletter” or a contact-us button with no context don’t give the visitor any reason to take action.
Create copy around your contact-us button that explains the benefits of contacting you—what’s in it for them.
4. Don’t Use Stock Images
Industry stock images, especially in your headers, scream generic like nothing else. Please don’t use them.
Invest in professionally designing your website headers.
Use photos of your office—even if you work solo—your storefront if you have one, your showroom, your team, your vehicle wrapped.
5. Show Your Projects
Showing photos of projects on your site is a perfect way to demonstrate what you do for your clients. It’s an outstanding opportunity to differentiate their business, yet very few distributors do.
6. Testimonials
Today’s buyers look for reviews as part of their vendor research process. Showing them on your site builds trust and transparency, and can be a determining factor in contacting you.
The easiest way to add testimonials to your site is by installing a feed from Google Reviews right on your site. These are the most trusted reviews because they are written by actual users.
7. Use Contact Forms Wisely
Your general contact form should have one or two qualifying questions and no more. If you have too many fields to fill out, you will deter perfectly good prospects from contacting you. It’s best to have a text box where they can write any details in their own terms. Anything else can be discussed on the call.
As far as newsletter signup forms, just ask for name and email. That’s all you need to ask. It is hard enough to get someone to signup for *another* newsletter—you can be sure your prospects won’t give you their phone number to get your newsletter.
8. Add Live Chat
Live chat allows visitors who are on the fence to ask questions. There are many providers available and are easy to install on any site.
You can manage the chat on your phone, or hire a service if you have too many requests.
You can also set some basic answers to common questions, and provide your visitor with links to contact forms or sections on your website—all automated.
9. Improve Page Load Time and Mobile Experience
From what we see with our distributor clients, a significant majority of promotional products buyers interact with your website on their desktop. This makes sense, as they will be researching while at work.
Pages that take long to load get abandoned quickly, so make sure you check your load speed regularly so you can address any speed issues promptly.
Many times site visitors find you on mobile, and if they like what they see, they’ll continue on their desktop. Make sure the site loads fast, looks good and functions well on mobile.
The Point
As necessary as generating traffic to your website undoubtedly is, it’s only half the battle. The other half is getting those visitors to take action and contact you.
At the end of the day, increasing your improves your marketing ROI. The more visitors you convert, the higher is the impact you drive on your top line from your existing traffic. The tactics mentioned above are a great place to start to strategically improve your conversion rates.
For more marketing articles, free webinars and guides specific to the promo business, visit the Resources section of ActionMarketingCo.com.
