Amy Isaman
You’ve built your site, launched it into the world, and….crickets. Why isn’t anyone calling?
This can be scary especially when you’ve made an investment of time and money into your website. Thankfully, it IS possible to get your website to work as hard as you do.
If you want to increase your conversions, you’ve got to tackle this in two ways:
1) Make sure your site is optimized and designed strategically to convert those visitors to potential clients and customers.
2) Increase traffic to your site through marketing and outreach.
Design strategies to increase conversions
1) Speed it up!
When somebody comes to your site, the FIRST thing you should look at is how fast it loads. If it takes more than 5 seconds, people will leave. We all do it, we visit a site looking for information and if that little spinny thing spins too long, we’re outta there!
The easiest way to increase your site speed is to set up a caching plugin. There are quite a few free ones out there, but my favorite is called WP Rocket. It’s a paid option as it works really well and is super easy to configure and set up.
If you’re not sure how fast your site loads, go to GT Metrix and enter your URL. If your site takes longer than 5 seconds, I recommend installing WP Rocket or another caching plugin.
Once your site is loaded, the next task is to keep people there and convert them to potential clients by either getting them on your mailing list or scheduling a call with them.
2) Refine your messaging and clearly communicate what you do or who you serve on your homepage and your blog and posts.
When visitors land on your website, do they know instantly that it’s for them? Can they tell what you do and who you work with?
Make sure that visitors can answer those key questions whether they land on your homepage or on a blog post. I call this your Homepage Headline.
You also want to make it clear what your blog focuses on. For example, this blog is “For Entrepreneurs Who Want to Create a Strategic Website.”
What’s your blog about? Make sure it’s clear in either the header or the sidebar.
3) Clarify your offers
Make sure you’ve clearly explained your offers on your services page. What do people get when they hire you? How will it benefit them? Also, explain how you work with them and how to hire you (see #4).
To “test” this, have a friend who doesn’t know exactly what you do read your services page. Then, have them tell you what you do. If they can’t? Revise your copy a bit to make it more clear.
This is one of those areas that can be a challenge for coaches as the work that they do or the results they achieve can be a little bit harder to communicate super clearly, but stick with it. It can be done.
4) Include contact information or a contact form
Make sure visitors can easily contact you whether that’s through a contact form or contact information listed on the contact page or in the footer, or in both places. Be reachable.
5) List out the steps that people should take to hire you
This one always surprises me. I visit a website and click on the Services page. All of the services and prices are listed out.
Then…nothing.
No clear instructions on how to hire or purchase the services. No call to action or guidance on HOW to give this person my money.
Spell it out, like this:
People LIKE to know what to expect. Let them know HOW to hire you and what will happen when they click that “Schedule a Call” or “Get Started” button on your site.
6) List your prices OR give a price range
I actually wrote a whole entire blog post on this debate, listing out the arguments for and against listing your prices. Ultimately, after asking clients and discussing this with potential clients, I believe that listing prices can absolutely increase your conversions, depending on the services or products you offer.
If you provide custom work (like I do with custom web design and branding), provide a price range for your visitors, letting them know that your range can be highly variable depending on their needs.
If your prices never change in that a product or service ALWAYS costs the same amount and you never vary it for clients depending on their needs, go ahead and list them.
Generally, people like having prices listed as it’s transparent.
7) Have an optin to your newsletter list
The best way to stay in touch with visitors and ultimately convert them to clients is to get them on your email list, so you can send them your newsletters and introduce yourself a bit more deeply.
Add an optin form to all of your main pages and to the sidebar of your blog. I recommend MailerLite for a great free option for those getting started with email marketing. You can easily create newsletters as well as automate your welcome emails and entire series of emails.
Convert Kit is my choice if you’re willing to invest in email marketing early on. If your email marketing will get a bit more sophisticated if you’ve got a variety of offerings or courses and different lists and groups, ConvertKit is designed for growth and their tagging and groups is slightly more sophisticated.
In any case, I don’t recommend Mailchimp. It’s a pain in the butt.
8) Create a Thank You Page on your site that people get directed to after opting into your list
Once you’ve got a form for people to give you their email installed on your website, create a Thank You for Subscribing page.
Most email providers give you the option of sharing a message, like “Success! Check your Email!” Don’t use this option. Instead, send your new subscribers to a Thank You Page.
On this page, you can:
- link to your optin goodies and give it to new subscribers right away so they don’t have to wait for the email
- introduce yourself and welcome new subscribers – you can do this with text or you could even embed a welcome video
- invite them to follow you on social media
- share some of your most popular blog posts or helpful resources
Here’s an example of one of the Thank You Pages for my Take Action Tutorials that I occasionally run:
9) Add testimonials to your website
Testimonials should be a key piece of your conversion strategy as they provide social proof that you can actually achieve and do what you say you can do. Be sure to add them to your homepage as well as your services pages.
Once you’ve got your website optimized with strategies to increase conversions, you’re ready to start driving some traffic to it.
Conclusion
Your website can and should be a strategic piece of your business growth and marketing, and marketing can take a ton of effort, so make sure you’ve got your website set up to work for you and capture that traffic.
xo,
Amy
PS – some of the links in this post are affiliate links which means I’ll make a small, much appreciated, commission if you choose to purchase the product after clicking the link. I only recommend products that I use and love!
Amy Isaman
