Ryan Ruud — February 23, 2017 Follow @ryanruudThe website is your business’s virtual store front. If you’ve taken steps to build the site, now what? Does this scenario seem familiar? You get some traffic, but no one takes any meaningful action. That’s frustrating. The following three steps will help you turn your small business website into a lead machine. Whether you’re selling online, looking to grow an email list or just want to get people to download coupons for in-store use, these tactics help you drive people to take the actions that matter to your business.
Ensure you have a good set of analytics
Make sure you have some website optimization tools setup. Simply plugging in Google analytics often isn’t enough. This will give you an overview of site performance like traffic sources, page visits and if you have goals and events set up, what your conversion metrics are. But what happens when you have a bunch of traffic ending up on a page with a contact form or a download button for a coupon and nothing is happening? That’s frustrating. You’re unable to make an assumption around why without a few more analytics tools. Visualization tools will help you see what people are clicking on, where their attention drops off on a page, and what fields on a form they don’t want to fill out. Armed with this information you can get changes made to your website to increase conversion rate.
Validate a conversion funnel
Too often people will spend advertising dollars and email marketing effort to curate attention only to drive traffic back to a home page or another page without a clear call to action. Make sure you have conversion funnels set up so that as your website visitors take action, or your marketing activity drives people towards a goal, you limit distractions. Once someone clicks on a call to action, whether it’s on your website, in an ad or another marketing tactic, they’ve started to tell you their intent. Get rid of opportunities for them to get distracted by setting up landing pages and clearly articulate what you’re asking them to do. Make forms easy to complete online and on mobile devices. Turn off any page prompts that you’re using to drive people deeper into your site (things like Sumo Me or other “sign up for my email list!”. Once remove your blog feed. You can save all of this content for the thank you page after someone has completed the activity they’ve started on the path to.
Create a compelling offer
small business website conversion offer
No matter your business, and how cool your brand is, people likely won’t flock to you and give it up online. You need to give them a reason to do something. Whatever your online goals are, sales, email sign ups, coupons or events to drive in-store traffic, give them a reason by creating offers.
If you’re an online store, prompt them with a discount for their first purchase. If you’re looking to build your email list, give them a free piece of content. I even saw a local baker offer to send free cookies for subscribing to an email list. Something simple that gives people a reason to take the first action you want them to take.
Keep your machine oiled
With these three steps, you’re well on your way to turning your website into a lead machine. Once you start getting insights from analytics, refine your conversion funnel and provide an offer to drive conversion, you haven’t finished yet. Stay engaged with those who have already converted. Social media and email are great ways to nurture relationships over the long haul.
How are you turning your websites into lead machines? Leave me a comment below.
For a full guide and checklist, download one here.
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