Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an email from someone saying:
"Michael, I just don't know what to do. We are not getting sales, nobody is signing up, we are not making any money. What is going wrong?"
They start thinking about search engines, more marketing and expensive advertising. When what they SHOULD be doing is taking a step back and saying;
"Why aren't the people who are already finding my website doing what it is I want them to do?"
If you can get to the bottom of that problem you might not even need to get more people to your website. If you can convert a high percentage of the visitors that are already finding you into sales you won't need to devote as much time and money to marketing your site in the first place. So let's talk about some quickfire ways you can improve your conversion rate.
**This Visitor Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds..
You have probably heard a lot of figures and the average seems to be about 4 - 5 seconds: the time you have from when somebody lands on your home page to actually convince them to remain on your site.
You don't have long - after the 5 seconds if people don't see what they want to see they will disappear - forever. What happens is when I come to your site - I am looking to get a series of questions I have in my mind answered as quickly as possible.
For example, I want to know;
- Why you are different to your competitors, maybe where you ship to, how many products do you have on your site? - What sets you apart from everyone else in your region or in your industry? - What do your customers say about you? - Do you have any testimonials? - Do you have any press coverage? - Do you have any accreditations? - What makes your product so special? - What do you actually provide on this website?
I want to know all of these things in about five or six seconds.
Now it is not easy, nobody is saying that it is easy, but you do need to get over these benefits as soon as you can on your homepage. One of the ways you can start to do this is to actually bullet points of information.
**Be Ruthless With The Pages on Your Website
Take a look at your web site and pare down everything that you think is not essential. Try to take a step back, put yourself in the shoes of the customer, look at your website and look at every element and say;
"If I removed that - would my web site be any worse?"
As a customer would that make the experience any worse, would that give the customer less information?
It is quite a scary thing to do. I have been down this road myself. When you start to do this it turns around your whole perspective on what your website is actually trying to do. I have landed on some websites, as I'm sure you have, that have the opening line;
"Welcome to our home page. Welcome to ABC Ltd. We were formed in 1973 and we have 50 staff. Our core services are.."
And it just goes on and on and on - boring long paragraphs. People just don't read like this on the web. They just want something now, they want it yesterday. So you need to think about how your website content is put together.
Don't put things on your site that the managing director wants on there or things that you want on there or the graphic designer or developer wants on there. Put things on there that your CUSTOMER WANTS.
**Don't Try To Be All Things To All Men
Another way you can improve your conversion rate is to try to focus on one single goal for your website or for each page.
The problem I see a lot of people struggle with is that they are trying to do too much with their web site;
- They are trying to sell a product
- They are trying to get people on their subscriber list
- They are trying to give information to their employees
- They are trying to get new business
- They are trying to get information to customers
- They are trying to give information about the community
Just hold fire a minute and zero in on the ultimate goal of the site. What is your site's primary objective?
You need to have one goal for the site or at least one goal for each page.
**Your Website Only Needs To Do One of The Following 2 Things
To help your thinking in this there are really only two things that a web site should do. If you are in the position that you can sell directly over the web that is what you need to do - you need to be selling through your website.
If you can't do that, and there are a lot of companies that can't due to the type of business they are in, then you need to be getting people's contact information. That is it. Just two things.
Either sell to visitors or get their contact information.
Once you realise this, and it might not be a nice thing to hear, because you might look at your site and think that lots of your pages are now redundant, or that certain pages don't sell anything or get contact information. You might realise that specific paragraphs aren't getting contact information for you or selling anything. The entire creation and copywriting process of your website becomes a totally different exercise.
But if you don't focus on one of those two things then nothing is going to happen. I know from experience that not many visitors will read through your homepage, through the about page, through the services page and then dawdle along and click on contact and say;
"I will go to the enquiry form and see how much do you charge."
You might get the odd one. But you are not going to get tens, thousands or tens of thousands. You need to sell something or get contact information. Your website needs to be a machine that does one or both of those things and that is it.
This article is an excerpt of "From Zero To Hero" - a free 30-minute Audio Masterclass you can download here: http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/marketing/
scheduled cleaning services Winnetka ..Promoting your website might seem like an enormous task that... Read More
You may already have thought about the following 3 ways... Read More
When the economy is down, your website sales may go... Read More
1. Directory Linking Create a directory of web sites on... Read More
Promote your website using articles - Internet is all about... Read More
When you are deciding on the major search engine directories... Read More
The internet is a wonderful source of information and full... Read More
Quickly making money with a website is the dream of... Read More
Let's face it, getting (and keeping) a good Google... Read More
For the first time internet entrepreneur [newbie] the best ways... Read More
It's a fact. While most link partners are scrupulously honest... Read More
Many business owners and online marketing experts focus their efforts... Read More
Keyword can be classified into three categories :-Single word Keyword-Multiple... Read More
Delivering Quality Traffic to your website is essential in helping... Read More
This article explains in detail the various issues related to... Read More
When it comes to website marketing and promotions, you need... Read More
How many competitions are there running on the net at... Read More
Links are the main pillar of your website. To navigate... Read More
The best way to avoid being blacklisted by the search... Read More
1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost... Read More
As an authorative hub a link from a DMOZ directory... Read More
One of the best ways to promote a Website inexpensively... Read More
Professionals in tend to under-estimate the power of the web... Read More
If you desire to succeed in internet promotion, you must... Read More
How would like to have an email list of thousands... Read More
reliable maid service Lincolnshire ..Web site owners are realizing Jack Humphrey's Power Linking isn't... Read More
Assuming that it is legal to do so in your... Read More
Imagine that you have a $25,000 marketing budget for your... Read More
Before one can fully understand the importance and necessity of... Read More
When we ran the contest back in 1998 we had... Read More
Writing articles for your site and for the use of... Read More
Successful websites extend their reach far and wide! They build... Read More
Once you have finshed designing your website, you want to... Read More
When webmasters have created their final master piece, their next... Read More
The answer to the first question is simple, the difference... Read More
We get so caught up with internet marketing and "web... Read More
I admit it, I have a problem. I'm a control... Read More
If you have a website and desires to attract traffic... Read More
Do you want to make your website more profitable?If you... Read More
Personalized search is a hot topic especially since Yahoo! and... Read More
Description: one way of jumpstarting you link campaign is to... Read More
Well I started out with seven, Free and low cost... Read More
People are always wanting to attract more visitors to their... Read More
When the economy is down, your website sales may go... Read More
Here's a fairly obvious Multi Linking Strategy that is probably... Read More
Measuring and understanding your Website's success is a critical process... Read More
We have dealt with the tags so the search engines... Read More
Here are the website promotion tactics to reinforce and increase... Read More
Almost anyone who has tried submitting to free-for-all sites will... Read More
Here are 10 power secrets to help your website promotion... Read More
Web Site Promotion |