How do you know if your website is bringing customers to your business? Your website is your own piece of internet real estate and you will have invested time and money into building it.
That investment needs to make a return, but many businesses don’t know what their website is doing for them, or maximise its potential. In this article, we’re going to explain what a website conversion is, how to measure website conversions, and what you can do to get more of them.
What is a website conversion?
A website conversion is anything that’s determined as an outcome you want to achieve. You might want someone to phone you, or for them to download a free guide, subscribe to your webinar, or buy a product. It’s whatever you deem as a goal that is going to get someone onto your email marketing list or turn them into a customer.
You need to decide what you want people to do on your website at each step of the buying journey. If someone completes the step that you wanted, that’s a website conversion.
How do you measure website conversions?
There are a number of tools you can use to measure website conversions. Google Analytics enables you to set goals. For instance, you could set it up so that if someone hits a page and goes through to the thank you page, that is a conversion.
This is a very easy way to know whether your site is doing what you want it to do. If you have 100 people on your website and 10 people land on your thank you page, you know you’ve got 10 conversions.
You can also use a Facebook pixel on your site to track traffic from Facebook and see what people coming from there do on your site using Google Analytics.
If you are interested in how many calls you are getting, use phone number tracking scripts. There are various ways to do this including phone numbers which swap so you know the call came via your site and not another source.
How much do tools for measuring website conversions cost?
Google Analytics and Google Webmaster are two powerful tools you can get started with straight away. They are free to use. If you’re spending money on ads, you can make use of Google Adwords and Facebook pixel to measure the effectiveness of your marketing messages.
There are premium priced tools out there you can use as well if you want to.
Does design play a role in website conversions?
Design won’t win you business, but it will lose you business. If your website doesn’t look well designed, it has stock imagery and poor layout, a potential customer is less likely to stick around.
Simple website design works best. It’s easy to be tempted to fill your website with lots of information and downloads on one page and have lots of features.
Strip it all back and have a very clear message at the top. If you are a personal brand entrepreneur, you need to have a picture of yourself up there as well. Don’t hide the text at the bottom, put it at the top with a very clear message saying, ‘this is me and this is how I help you’.
Design won’t win you business, but it will lose you business. If your website doesn’t look well designed, a potential customer is less likely to stick around. #Youpreneur Click To TweetOne simple way to improve your website conversions
According to CMI, 70 percent of websites don’t have a call to action. Don’t be shy to put your call to action at the top right of your website.
Make sure you repeat it down the page and don’t dilute it with several different calls to action. Use a different color to make it stand out.
If you offer a consultation service and then you have an online course, don’t try to have both on the same page. Make your call to action on your online course page to sign up.
Other ways to boost website conversions
You can also boost your website conversions by using social proofing. Make use of your testimonials. If you’ve been lucky enough to get press coverage, put that on your site too. Say you have been featured in a publication with its logo.
Try using pop ups on your site. Everyone says they hate them but they do work. You don’t want to be ramming this down your visitors’ throats. If someone has already signed up then that pop up should not appear for them again.
Experiment with exit intent pop ups, that is the moment you are at risk of losing someone from your site and you have an opportunity to keep hold of them. You need to test out different ways of serving a pop up and see what gets results.
Give value with content upgrades
Getting website conversions is not just about your homepage and service pages, you can make use of content too. Your blog should be giving value related to the topics you are writing about.
For instance, if you are writing about sales training, you can create a content upgrade by giving your five top tips as a PDF download or a video series. Your reader has enjoyed your article, they want to sign up to hear more about this subject from you.
This is the start of them getting to know you and fall in love with you as you give them more value. You want to be creating reasons for them to come back and book a consultation with you or buy from you.
Know what you want to achieve with your website. Keep your message simple, give a clear call to action, provide value through your content and add to that with material people can sign up for. This will turn your website into a valuable tool for growing your business.
Wrap Up
If today’s video has helped you in some way… perhaps answered a few questions you’ve been having, or helped you develop a new idea or two.. let me know what your biggest takeaway was! I’d love to hear from you.
And don’t forget, you can watch my free training course ‘The Youpreneur Launchpad’ over on YouTube… it’s focused on helping you build, market and monetize your expertise better than ever before. I’ll see you in the next video!
Chris founded Youpreneur® in 2015. He is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author of the bestselling books “Virtual Freedom” and “Rise of the Youpreneur”. He hosts our podcast, live events and coaches our clients inside the Youpreneur Incubator. Chris is based in Cambridge, UK.
