Are you happy with the results you’re getting from your website?
It can be really frustrating if you invest money and time into your website and in getting traffic only to see the conversion be really low.
There are a few reasons for low conversion. One reason could be that you are trying to get only the right customers to contact you or to purchase. If that’s the case then it’s good to work on bringing in the right kind of traffic.
But another potential issue is that certain things on your website are causing visitors to stop moving through your website’s sales cycle.
It might be a confusing call-to-action. It might be that they have a question that isn’t being answered. It might be that they don’t trust you enough to reach out.
There are a number of reasons, but the really frustrating thing is that these visitors won’t often give you the information so you can fix it. You you have figure out how to get that information.
Here are a few ways you can do that…
1. Talk To Your Customers
About a year ago I knew something wasn’t quite right with the GBW website. I knew the site was pretty good and that we were getting customers contacting us ready to get started with blogging, but something was still off.
So I reached out to a few of our recent clients that came on board. At first I studied the information they filled out and that we received via our contact form. I wanted to see if they were filling out all the things we wanted.
Then I emailed those customers and asked what they remembered about our website and if anything stopped them or confused them.
That insight led to a few changes on the site that seem to have made the process for visitors on the site a little better.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to ask your customers about their experience with your sales process. They might not always give info that you can use, but many times you’ll see some common themes and it can lead to improve on the site and improvement in sales.
2. Do Exit Surveys
Another thing that’s possible now with software is exit surveying. You can ask visitors a question when they decide to leave certain pages on your site.
Let’s say they make it to your homepage, but then they go got leave the site. You’re thinking that they were so close to contacting you.
You should get some good insights into whether it’s something on your site that is causing them to stop and move on to something else.
A few years ago with GBW I realized, from talking to visitors, that they would leave our site because they wondered what our service cost and they didn’t want to reach out to us via the contact form to ask. So we started putting our pricing on the site…in multiple places.
Now most visitors to our site can get that information and they can determine if they should continue through the sales process.
3. Watch Visitors Using Your Website
You can use services like UserTesting.com to see how people interact with your site. You could also have someone you know go through your site as you watch over their shoulder.
I’ve actually done this inadvertently with my mom. She was asking questions about the business so I had her bring up the website and I watched her read the homepage and kind of make her way through the site.
I was really surprised when she got hung up in a few places. She had questions that weren’t being answered.
My first thought, a wrong thought, was that she wasn’t tech savvy enough to “get” what I meant with the content on the site. But then I realized that it was my fault.
You’re very involved with your business. You know it inside and out. But that doesn’t meant that your customers understand everything. And they shouldn’t.
It’s your job to communicate the information they need to make a decision about your business.
And watching someone use your website can work really well because asking them, like the first two examples, might not work because people don’t always realize what’s causing them to get hung up. But if you watch them you can pick up on things.
4. Perform Regular Website Audits
One tip I like to give website owners is to do regular website audits.
I like to do them every 3-6 months. I’ll take a whole day and go through a lit of notes from the previous period and figure out what needs to be changed on the site.
I’ll do competitive research to see what the competition has changed in the last few months.
I’ll go through the entire website and look for things to change, add, remove, etc.
It’s just a good practice to get into so you’re continuously improving your website. It’s dangerous to get into the mindset that your business website is “done”.
It’s never done. It should always be evolving.
5. Hire A Designer With UX Focus
Finally, hire a designer that doesn’t just create pretty websites. A pretty website is important, but function is just as or more important. Your designer needs to have user experience expertise. They need to understand how people use websites and how your customers uses websites. They need to understand your sales process so they can create that process on your website.
Conclusion
I could go through the GBW website right now and probably find some things that are causing visitors to get hung up. It’s just the nature of having a website, but the important thing is to do regular audits and to have ways to figure out what is causing your conversion to be less than ideal. If you do that then you’ll be in position to get the most out of your website so you’re bringing in new business and growing your company.