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Does your business have a website that doesn’t generate enough sales? This can be frustrating, especially when you’ve invested time and money trying to get it right.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to flip your website’s results, from something that flings your best customers to your competition to an asset that supports your sales team and the growth of your business.
I recently interviewed my Co-Founder and Inbound Marketing Specialist John Hill, about the reasons why your website sales might be taking a backseat and how to do it over.
Just How Important Is a Website To Your Business?
Being in the website and Marketing business for 25++ years, John states that a website is a critical component to a business's success. It’s like having a 24/7 salesperson equipped with all the information you need to know about a product or service. Think of this; your perfect customer comes across your business name through a referral or just sees your logo and catchphrase somewhere, for sure, they’ll immediately hop on to Google and look for your website, This is your make or breaks so it’s vital to ensure that your website provides value for the customer.
Your website has to have the right content at the right time. Don’t jump the gun with special offers and discount pop-ups, because once a customer is convinced that you’re what they need, they will buy from you despite not having any discount or coupon.
Any potential buyer or visitor unconsciously looks for a “guided journey”. This means that they want to immediately see how your services could help their need. They want to see if your business is a good fit for theirs-or simply put; whether or not it’s a match.
Website vs Social Media
Some business owners think that having a website is secondary to being on social media. Socials is a great way to keep up with the trend and exhibit your online presence but don’t give out as much detailed information as your website can something that your buyers look for. Based
According to John, although Ucidity’s stream of clients mostly comes from referrals and face to face networking, Ucidity has scored some of their biggest clients through the Ucidity website which offers a complete buyer journey. For Ucidity, social media is there to exhibit online presence and market engagement.
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Is There a “Formula” For a Website To Be a Sales Magnet?
Being a webmaster himself, John Hill has shared some of the factors that affect website sales conversion.
- Professional and modern-looking website design
- Your website has to exude your brand’s voice but also maintain a sense of professionalism. Make it reflect your personality (brand) by using your official brand style, fonts, colours, etc. Also, make sure that your website looks fresh and modern. In this day and age where less is more, website designers have moved to make simple and minimalist designs, as they are easier on the eyes and are also a great plus for user experience
- Content is vital
- Your website has to have great content and be backed by a compelling call to action. Great content means having the right type of content at exactly the right time where the buyer is currently in their journey. If you do a hard sell in every nook and cranny of your website, that’s going to be a put off for most people.
- Talk about how your services could be beneficial to the people instead of talking about how great you are at what you do. 67% of the people that engage with your brand make their decisions based on your website.
- Offer a lot of value-adds or some need-to-know information such as: “ Did you know that you can track your buyer's journey even if they’ve left your website? Download and get to track your leads and convert them into sales!” Use compelling calls to action like “Download and get to know the other platforms you can use to track your leads’ journey!”
Keep in mind that modern sales are all about helping people get to where they want to be compared to how sales were in the olden times when all you had to do was make your sales pitch product-centric. Today, sales are all about helping people get from Point A to Point B, while making everything client-centric.
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The Marketing Side of Your Website
Is Your Website Attracting The “Right” People?
You may have a very good website in terms of design etc, but if you’re not appearing in front of your desired target market, then it’s pointless. According to John, several factors contribute to who your website attracts. Some of these are:
- SEO
- Do you have an SEO tracking layer? Are you able to interpret the data from the layer and make business decisions from it?
- If you’re looking at the analytics from your website and it doesn't make any sense, it’s probably time to bring in an expert who can provide guidance
- Does the content on your website use market appropriate keywords that are meant to attract your specific target audience?
- If you’re using keywords that were not well-thought-of or strategically researched in terms of competition and search rate, then this could be one factor that your website sales are failing. Ensuring that you have the correct words at bay means that your website content contains highly sought after or highly used keywords by your target audience increase you chance your chance of appearing in searches and impressions.
- Where does your target market hang out?
- For example, your market or audience is mostly on LinkedIn, you have to ensure that you’re putting out content that leads to them your blog. It could be a blog, a video or any kind of social post, as long as that post has a link in the wording or captions that lead your viewers to your website.
- Are you using the right words to attract the right people?
- As an example, let’s use John Hill’s Ucidity, a Managed Marketing Services whose role is to get you to where you have set your eyes to-also makes strategically build websites by studying your market, analysing your competitors and ensuring that your website serves as a guide to your buyer journey. In this case, the Ucidity website (or its ads) will not attract people who are looking for a website to be built in five days.
- Put it this way:
- Because Ucidity’s website is built using keywords in its services like “strategic, managed marketing, convert sales, guided buyer journey” it is likely to attract visitors who look for a Managed Marketing Services and can build a website that converts through strategic efforts, analysis and study.
- It will not attract people who want to get a website completed in three days; because people who want this kind of service are likely to use “quick website, website in three days” in their searches. So, if someone were to enter these keywords in Google, Ucidity is sure to not show in the impressions or searches. But, if someone were to use the keywords that deliberately describe Ucidity’s services as mentioned above like strategic website, website analysis, etc., Ucidity is sure to be on the top impressions on Google.
- The right content at the right time
- Many of the websites that aim to sell a product or service flood their websites will sales pitches; discount coupons, one promo pop up after another. This could be a huge put-off for a potential client who is just at the early stages of their buying journey. They may be at that stage where they’re getting to know your business and services, where they’re probably comparing piercing from another company, so putting all these hard-sell features on your website can just drive them away. This is a classic example of putting out the right content at the wrong time. Allow your customers to get to know your brand first. Give some time to think things over, compare prices from one website to the other or perhaps compare prices from one company to the other. All of those discount codes and promo codes etc., that are on your website are a major turn off to most people.
- We earlier said that 67% of the people who engage with you make their decisions based on the website but that doesn't mean that you're going to flood them with a hard sell of promos, discounts, and limited-time offers.
Another way to ensure your website leads to convert into sales is to re-target them. Re-targeting allows your website and your brand to be at the top of the list of your customer’s minds when they are ready to make that purchase.
Retargeting is a type of advertising that allows businesses to re-engage customers who have abandoned their websites before making a purchase. There are various sorts of retargeting, but in this post, we'll focus on cookie-based retargeting, which is the type of retargeting that most retail marketers are familiar with.
Retargeting advertising, unlike banner ads, is shown to those who have already visited your website. Retargeting ads use pixel-based technology to track your audience throughout their online trip and then target them with customised product offers. Think of it as a shoe that you liked on Amazon, didn't purchase but ended up following you everywhere by showing itself an ad on almost every website or social media platform you visit.
Not Getting Enough Leads From Your Website?
If your website isn't getting enough leads, chances are that something needs fixing in your website. How it looks, its speed, its content or maybe it needs an overhaul
Chat with us and book a discovery call with one of our marketing strategists.
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