What if you could double your website leads without spending an extra cent on marketing? The key is in exploding your website conversion rate.
If you run a service business in Australia, you are probably reliant on your website for at least some of your leads. For many, your website generates most of your leads.
Whether you are a trade, automotive or professional service business, getting visitors to your website can be an expensive process. Google ads, Facebook ads, SEO. … it all adds up to serious dollars.
What can be overlooked is what happens once someone reaches your website. Do they become a lead and then a customer? Or do they click off to a competitor?
If your website converts 10% of visitors into leads, that means 90% of visitors clicked off your website without contacting you. This represents opportunity. Huge opportunity.
If you can double your conversion rate then all your marketing efforts immediately double in effectiveness. Your cost per lead halves. Your return on investment doubles.
Here are 6 tips for exploding your conversion rate.
1. Measure your conversions
If your business depends on incoming phone calls, you need to measure and track those phone calls. That means, using a call tracking service that links with your Google Analytics account. Call tracking allows you to track your leads back to their source – the exact keyword, ad and landing page. You should also track all form enquiries, web chats and calls from your Google My Business listing.
2. Understand different conversion rates
Some pages on your website are super important. They are the pages where visitors convert into leads. Typically these pages include your Home page and Service pages. Other pages are less important. Maybe you have a blog post that ranks well on Google for a “how to” enquiry. People will read that post but are not necessarily ready to call you. For example, Fluid Plumbing has a blog post on how to clear a blocked drain. It ranks at the top of the page on Google and generates visits from all over Australia. Most of these visits do not convert because they live outside Fluid Plumbing’s service area. This has the effect of decreasing the website conversion rate. Your overall website conversion rate can be misleading. You need to filter pages like blog posts out of your analysis. Focus on the conversion rate from the pages that matter.
3. Benchmark your conversion rate
What is a good conversion rate in your industry? Some businesses would be popping corks if they hit a 5% conversion rate. In other industries they would be shutting their doors with the same rate. It is important to benchmark conversion rates for your industry. Be specific. If you are an electrical services business then the conversion rates for “tradies” is not good enough. You need to know what rates other electricians are achieving. A good source of conversion data are marketing agencies. You are probably being cold called by agencies every week. Try getting some information from them. Ask if they service businesses like yours and what conversion rates they achieve. (By the way, Electricians should be achieving a 20% to 30% conversion rate)
4. Faces connect
As a business that delivers a “service”, you are meeting your customers in person. Before someone will use your service, you need to create a connection with them. The process of creating a connection begins with your website. Your website needs images of faces. Preferably the faces of your staff, management and the business owners. The photos should be of smiling people looking straight down the camera. Head and shoulders shots work best with people in uniform, if they have one. This technique helped Curran Plumbing in Wollongong double their conversion rate. Since changing their hero image from a local beach scene to a photo of the Managing Director, Sid Curran, the conversion rate exploded.
5. Confusion kills sales
It is true that the confused mind does not buy. They don’t call either. Too many websites create confusion in the minds of their visitors. Rather than converting into a lead, the visitor clicks off to a competitor website. Confusion can come from many sources. But the greatest source of confusion is competing messaging. A visitor lands on a website and is bombarded with different messages:
“Call now”
“Book online”
“Chat with us”
“Get 20% off”
“Sign up to our newsletter”
“Follow us on Facebook”
“Follow us on Instagram”
You get the idea.
It is important to have as few messages as possible. Preferably only one, clear call-to-action. The call-to-action is the one thing you want the visitor to do next. If you want the visitor to call you, that’s what you ask for. Cut any message that is at odds with the call to action and watch your conversion rate climb.
6. Confident visitors buy
No matter what service you offer, people need confidence that you can deliver before they will buy from you. Your website plays a critical role in the process of building confidence in your business. A major source of confidence is customer reviews. Reading what your customers say about you generates more confidence and trust than any other source. Reviews should feature prominently on every page that your customer might visit. Reviews should be authentic, from real customers. They should include the customer’s first name (at least) and the date of the reviews. A survey by BrightLocal found that 48% of people pay attention only to reviews written in the past two weeks. The same survey found that 84% of people consider reviews older than three months to be irrelevant. Make sure all your reviews have a date on them. Also ensure you get new reviews consistently. There should be new customer reviews on your website every week. Businesses with a great reputation need to make sure their website visitors hear about it. The result will be a great boost to your conversion rate.
7. Ready to explode your conversion rate?
Are you ready to double your sales without spending an extra cent on marketing? Then implement these tips and watch your conversion rate explode.
This post was written by Darren Urquhart.
