HOW TO CONVERT WEB TRAFFIC INTO LEADS
By The Marketing Team at Keap
As a successful entrepreneur, you’ve strived to do everything right. You’ve built a thriving business from scratch and created a beautiful website complete with merchandise and you’re seeing hundreds of visitors every day. There’s just one little problem, hardly anyone’s buying anything. What’s the deal?
This is a very common issue and you may not be aware of just how simple it could be to remedy the situation by revamping just a few aspects of your site. You already have people’s attention; now it’s time to explore how to convert that traffic into leads.
Enrich Your Content
While your content may be well written or compelling, there may be something about it that may not be aligned with where your visitors are on their buyer’s journey. The buyer's journey follows three stages; awareness, consideration, and decision. Someone who has seen your ad or visited your website is in the awareness stage. When they ask for more info they enter the consideration stage and become a lead. Once someone moves to the decision stage and makes a purchase, you would call that a conversion. If your content is attracting people who aren’t quite ready to buy something, or are still in the first two stages, create a conversion opportunity in the form of a product demo or offer them the option of contacting the company directly. When your content has elements for the entire buyer's journey, you are more likely to lead them to a purchase.
When they do contact you, ask them about their pain points (the problems they’re having that your product could solve), and what is preventing them from wanting to buy. A helpful way to better understand your consumers is to gather as much research as you can and create a buyer’s persona. Some research you may consider is:
How your customers align with your brand;
What can your brand offer to solve their problem
How you’re showcasing your business’ values; and
Whether those values are reflected in your marketing
Provide More Incentives
Another problem could be that there are not enough conversion opportunities on your site. If you include items such as blog subscriptions or newsletter sign-ups, they can be used as lead conversion tools. The more opportunities consumers have to get to know your business, the further along the buyer's journey they will move. Use blogs and newsletters to the maximum benefit by placing forms on landing pages behind these particular calls-to-action (CTA).
Including CTAs on your website are powerful conversion tools if done correctly. You want to ensure CTAs visually stand out from the rest of the text. Offset them in the form of a button with a contrasting color or use eye-catching imagery with compelling copy that will provide a robust incentive to attract more clicks.
Use action verbs to specify how to get that offer; formatting them in the first person puts a personal touch on the command. Some examples include:
“Take me to my coupon.”
“Show me my credit score.”
“Click here to save on my carwash.”
“Schedule my free webinar.”
Depending on the industry you’re involved in, it’s also smart to optimize your pages with some effective keywords. Applying search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to your website copy is a surefire way to ensure your website attracts steady traffic and increases the probabilities that more conversions will be made.
Another problem your website may be running into is the length of your submission forms. After your leads convert from a CTA, you want to avoid asking for too much information upfront by redirecting them to a long and invasive form.
The number of fields you include should be directly proportional to the value of your offer behind it. It’s another one of those situations where you have to consider where your visitors are in their buyer’s journey. For example, avoid going “straight for the sell” by asking for their phone numbers when offering a free trial or consultation. The optimal amount of fields for an initial submission form shouldn’t exceed three–it’s imperative not to overwhelm or scare off your leads when they’re so close to becoming a paying customer.
If they’re signing up for a newsletter, simply ask them for their email address. If they’re signing up for a webinar, the form should be more substantial by asking them information about their job, where they work and how this educational tool applies to them.
Your Reputation Hasn’t Preceded You
One thing established companies have going for them is trust. Customers trust in the products and they trust in the brand. Sure, your business and website exists, but that’s not enough. Anyone could open a business, what sets you apart? Think about why your customers should instill their trust in you, how your company can help them, and build a marketing strategy from there.
Timing is everything–if you’re new to the market, you don’t want to put the cart before the horse by asking for your leads’ info right off the bat. Give them a chance to get to know you, establish a rapport and trust that they’ll become more loyal once they see you have their best interest at heart.
Once customer reviews start rolling in, display them on your homepage and on your social media accounts. Providing customer testimonials, case studies and statistics all contribute to building confidence in your site and brand. This will also help get the word out about your business.
Directing Traffic
Once some of these initiatives are in place, keep an eye on your metrics and watch for improvements in conversions. It’s not enough to lead the horse to water, you have to make sure it drinks. It’s the same thing with your web traffic, you can lead your customers to your merchandise, but you have to make sure they’re not there to just window shop and give them the motivation to click that “Buy Now” button. Then your job is to wow them to the point where they’ll come back and do it again.search engine optimization (SEO) buyer’s journey