So you've spent a significant amount of time and money advertising to your target audience online. You are getting considerable traffic to your website, but just not getting the leads and conversions that justifies your marketing expenses. So what's the problem? Many businesses fail to take the proper measures to turn their online visitors into customers. In order to maximize sales, it's important to put yourself in the shoes of your target consumer, and make sure your website is equipped to convert visitors, into customers.
Understanding the psychology of your consumer
In order to improve your online conversions, you first must understand your consumer. Depending on what service or product you are selling, your target consumer may be in different levels of the AIDA sales funnel. Here are some more important questions about your target consumer that need to be answered:
- How much is price a factor to my visitor?
- Do they already have a demand for what I'm offering?
- Do they prefer to do business with someone local?
- On what device(s) are they visiting my site on?
Answering these questions may be more difficult for some, than others. Online data tracking programs like Google Webmasters and Google Analytics can monitor some very intuitive data metrics based on user behavior online, giving you a good snapshot of how visitors are reacting to your website. Also, hiring a marketing professional to do consumer and competitor analysis is highly recommended as well.
When you are finally able to answer these questions, then you can take the proper measures to make sure your website and/or landing pages are properly structured and optimized to accomodate your target audience, and encourage more sales.
OPTIMIZING YOUR WEBSITE INTO A HIGH-POWERED SALES TOOL
Understanding the intent of your online visitors will help you refine your website's performance and content accordingly. Remember, in the world of internet marketing, first impressions often mean everything. You typically only have one chance to encourage any given visitor to do business with you and your company, so let's look at some techniques to maximize your chances in turning visitors into customers.
Website Speed
We've all experienced it at some point in time...trying to visit a website and it just loads, and loads, and loads, until finally you've had enough. Consumers don't have patience for websites that load too slowly, so there is no excuse for you to let this happen with your website. Make sure that you are taking the proper measures to keep your site loading consistently fast:
- Choose the right hosting provider, and plan. Make sure you choose a reputable company that can offer high-performance hosting with very minimal downtime. Also, make sure your plan has adequate storage space, and bandwidth to handle high volume traffic. We recommend finding a hosting plan that offers SSD web hosting technology with cPanel management capabilities.
- Make sure your content is optimized to increase page speed. Having too many large files, like images, placed in your site can weigh down your website. Make sure your images are sized properly and are compressed to minimize file size. As for your code, measures should be taken to make sure your website code is clean and optimized. Consult a website professional to ensure your code isn't hurting your loading speed.
Device-Friendly & Responsiveness
These days, more and more people are using devices like smartphones and tablets to do all their shopping and browsing. Is your website optimized to function on these devices? Having a mobile-responsive website is not only crucial for healthy Google rankings, but not having a website that functions properly on computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones will cripple your online sales. Work with your website professional to make sure your website and landing pages are properly optimized across all popular devices, and browsers.
Content Relevance
Don't make the mistake of turning potential customers away because your landing page isn't relevant. If your consumer is expecting to learn about a specific product/service you are offering, don't direct them to your home page, or a page that references a different product/service, make sure your landing page provides ample information on the service/product they are interested in, it will go along away in keeping them on your landing page, and inquiring about your service/product.
Also, consider where they are on the AIDA sales funnel. Are they new to your product and need more information before making a decision? Include more informational content to help them understand your product/service better. Are they already familiar with your business and looking to make a purchasing decision? Include more call-to-actions, pricing, and promotions to encourage a sales inquiry.
Customer Reception
Ok, you've successfully turned a website visitor into a lead. They have either called you, or filled out a contact form submission to inquire about your service/product. Are you in the proper position to respond and close the sale? Timing is crucial, so the longer it takes for you to receive the inquiry and respond, the lesser the chance you will get their business. You better believe that customer will shop around to one of your competitors who may provide more prompt service. To increase your odds of converting that inquiry into a sale, follow these simple guidelines:
- Make sure you have someone monitoring phone calls. If you are advertising during specific hours, make sure you are available to answer your phone or receive messages during those times. At the very least, make sure the customer is greeted with a professional voicemail message that allows them to leave their information.
- Is your contact form setup properly? Is it too long? Does it work? Are you getting the inquiries and responding in a timely manner? Make sure you're not asking for too much information from the customer, the longer it takes for them to fill out a form, the better chance they give up and leave your site. Ask for just enough information, at the very least, their contact information so you can contact them. Also, make sure you are testing your form frequently to make sure it is indeed, working.
Website Remarketing
Not every single visitor that comes to your site is going to inquire about your service/products, it's just the way it is. But, you do know at one point in time, they were interested in doing business with you. Maybe they just wanted to collect information for the time being, and are actively shopping around for the best price, features etc. Just because a visitor didn't buy from you on the first visit, doesn't mean it's a lost cause. Through a marketing technique called "Remarketing" you can continue to market your service/product to visitors that have visited your site before, essentially a sales follow-up, but online. The most effective way of doing this is through the Remarketing feature in Google Ads. Your SEO professional can help you set up an effective Remarketing plan for your business.
Optimizing your website into a powerful sales machine takes some thought and time, but you don't have to do it all alone. Professionals like marketing experts, website designers, and SEO specialists will help you put all the pieces together so you can maximize your online marketing ROI!