When was the last time you took a long, hard look at exactly what your website does well to attract new clients … and what it doesn’t do well? You already know how awesome you are, but what does a new visitor (and potential customer) experience when they land on your website? It would be a shame to have done just well enough to land that site visit only to lose them once they get there.
After years of working with business professionals, physicians, attorneys, and small-business owners, we’ve perfected a few quick things that you can do to convert your website traffic into paying customers.
1) Have a Clear Call to Action
When a prospect lands on your home page, what action do you want them to take? The “Call to Action,” or CTA, is the one thing you’d like someone to do when they engage with your content. For example, do you want them to sign up for your newsletter, call you, or download a lead magnet (more on that later)? Said action should be very specific, simple to do, and prominently displayed — above the fold if possible.
You may have multiple goals on site, depending on what page a user is on. Just try to have only one focus per page. If you have traffic coming from specific sources or ads, you might even have a specially-designed landing page that will lead visitors by the nose to that CTA.
2) Give Away Something Valuable
If you have valuable products or services to sell, perhaps you have something valuable you can give away. This might be content, such as a lead magnet that can be downloaded with valuable tips or information. It could be an entry into a drawing, a consultation, or access to free tools on your website.
Whatever it is, you’ll want to connect it with a clear CTA (above) to entice visitors to participate. If your site gets lots of traffic, you’ll want to automate the process. This will prevent the process from becoming a time sink since the automation handles communication and tracking information for you.
3) Let Them See You
There’s a desirable trend in the information age: people want to see you. We want to see who is behind the business, and achieve a connection through your site, your content, your social media. While you don’t need to turn your site into a personal blog, it’s good to show a bit of your personality.
Show people photos of your team, your office, and yourself. Instead of using stock photos to illustrate your site, take relevant photos yourself. Make sure the pictures are high quality and fit with your personality and brand.
Have a quick tip, update, or product announcement? Make use of that smart phone and talk to the camera, because that’s what the people want. If they feel a connection to you, feel that they are getting to know you, you will have created a sense of loyalty. And that ties in nicely with our next point …
4) Video Marketing
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then 30 frames a second is worth 30,000 words. Video content is interacted with at far higher rates than other media. We like to introduce customers to our clients right away by embedding video right on the home page. You can include tutorials or short clips in the content of your site, or use video to replace text- and image-based ads on Facebook.
You can also post useful content across multiple channels, utilizing the popularity of platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. Link those useful videos to relevant content on your blog or website, or use in-video messages to help drive traffic to the right pages on your site.
You don’t have to spend a fortune, either. It’s never been easier to integrate video into your marketing. With a little preparation, your smartphone can capture remarkable video and sound.
5) Focus on Internal Links
Internal links can have a huge impact on your traffic. They create a better user experience, and search engines love them! It’s standard SEO (search engine optimization) practice to link relevant content between pages of your website. When Google crawls your website, those links help determine the hierarchy of your site and the relevant subjects your content covers, which gives those links a higher value and those pages a higher ranking on search engines.
If you have plenty of content, articles, videos, and service or product pages, you want visitors to be able to find the information they are interested in — no matter which page they started from. When you are posting new content, be sure to go back and build links between the new content and the old.
6) Utilize COLOR
Color can evoke complex emotions and create a more cohesive brand. Since colors have a strong effect on branding, utilize them as consistently as possible. Quick — what colors are associated with McDonald’s? Starbucks?
Try out a few color schemes and see which one suits your business the most. Perhaps you don’t have an artistic bone in your body. Recruit help, whether it’s a professional designer, friends or family, or an online focus group. You’ll be able to better focus your marketing efforts once you have a distinct look. Not only will this attract more customers, but you’ll also improve your branding for existing ones.
