Your website should be able to attract, convert, and delight. Through a solid SEO strategy and some good old-fashioned promotion, attracting traffic to a site isn’t the problem that most businesses face in today’s digital universe. Instead, what’s really causing business owners everywhere to bang their heads against the wall (or, in the case of some business owners in our own building; shatter toilet lids on the ground), is how to get visitors to convert once they’re on a website. Specifically, how do you, the business owner, get visitors to convert once they’re on your website?
Here are some common problems business owners face that are preventing leads from converting and some quick fixes to implement so you’ll quit banging your head against a wall and shattering toilet lids on the ground, and start converting more website leads instead.
(No, really, it happened multiple times. These are actual pics of the damage just for your entertainment).
Don’t be this guy. Follow these quick fixes instead:
Problem #1: There’s nothing to convert on. Or the things that are available to convert on are total pieces of 
.
.People are smart. Mostly. And because of this unfortunate realization, it means you can’t slack when it comes to premium content creation. Have you ever given your email address out to receive a helpful checklist, and all you got in exchange was a plain word document with 3 bullet points? How disappointing. Wouldn’t you feel baited and tricked if this happened to you? If you’re asking a visitor to give up their contact information in exchange for some type of helpful content or service, you better make it a good one. Instead of focusing on quantity, focus on quality. Although having a well-built out and robust content library complete with a full marketing funnel is important, it’s more important to have a library full of quality content. So, instead of trying to build as fast as you can, do it strategically. Really put the time and thought into the content visitors can convert on and it will pay off for you in the end.
Now, this may not sound like a “quick” fix, because it’s not, but in the meantime, you can focus on getting one or two quality pieces available for visitors to convert on in the short term while you’re building your long term strategy. On the other hand, if you have a ton of so-so pieces out there for people to convert on currently, a quick fix would be to take those down ASAP, and only utilize the best ones in your arsenal until you can get the others up to par. This will build a lead’s trust in your business, since visitors won’t get the impression that your content is crap, preventing them (or others they know) from wanting to convert on anything else in the future. Remember; you’re here to solve the visitor’s problem or help them in any way that you can. If the content you’re providing doesn’t aid them in some way, it’s not worthy of publishing.
Problem #2: Conversion paths are confusing and visitors don’t want to jump through hoops.
Ever been to a site that makes you click through 6 different pages before finally finding a form to fill out to talk to somebody? Or have you ever filled out a form that takes you to another page that makes you fill out another form that takes you to another page to fill out another form before finally getting what you wanted? Talk about exhausting. Now I know how Alice felt when she was falling down the rabbit hole.
If you make it too difficult for a visitor to either a) understand what they’re getting by filling out a form or b) get to an actual form, you’re going to lose them in a hot second and they’ll bounce from your site. They’ll find what they’re looking for elsewhere, and you just spoon-fed your competition a warm lead. A quick fix to this common problem? Keep it simple. Think from the perspective of a site visitor or one of your personas, not as somebody who knows the ins and outs of your business better than you know your own mother. Make conversion paths simple. Make it really clear what the visitor would be getting by filling out the form, why they should fill out the form, then let them fill out the form, and end it there. Voila! Let them seek out the information that they are interested in finding by making it easy for them to find. Make sure offers and pages that are connected make sense and you’re not making people jump through hoops. A great way to get a clear picture of what conversion path you’re taking your site visitors down is to map it out on a whiteboard or piece of paper to see if things are getting too complicated and what you can do to improve user experience.
Problem #3: Conversion pages don’t follow best practices.
This one is a quick fix. If you’re noticing a lot of visitors are bouncing from your conversion pages, look at some analytics. You can download a tool like Lucky Orange that allows you to see how users are interacting with your site. If you notice someone is only reading half of the page then dropping off, you have a good idea what you need to do to change things up. Maybe the form is below the fold on the page, so people didn’t even get a chance to see that there was a form there before dropping off and losing interest. Maybe there was navigation available on the page and you weren’t able to capture the lead’s full attention so they didn’t convert and moved onto something else. There could be a number of reasons, but if you follow best practices for your conversion pages, you will see conversion rates improve.
Problem #4: Lack of CTAs and proper site placement.
This may seem intuitive, but sometimes business owners only see things from an internal point of view and totally miss this. You may have created all of the necessary conversion pages, followed best practices, and even have great content, but nobody is converting. What’s the deal? Before you smash that toilet lid, check this out: can visitors actually access these pages? Sure, you know they exist because you created them and you memorized the URL. But do they? Have you forgotten to add critical pages to your navigation, or do you not have CTAs across your site to direct them to the conversion pages you created? Just because a conversion page is live, it doesn’t mean a visitor will automatically find it. It’s your job to guide them to take an action, so you need to design your CTAs to be succinct and attention-grabbing, and, most importantly, place them strategically on your site so that people are finding the relevant information they are seeking that will make them want to convert. It’s a lot like fly fishing: guide the hook into the fish’s mouth and yank! You’ll net ‘em in no time. (That fly fishing reference goes out to my dear boss, Eric Pratt, who is the master of the Brown Trout.)
Though it’s true that these are some quick fixes to some very common problems we see on a daily basis from business owners we work with as an inbound marketing agency, nothing answers the “no-conversions” riddle better than some good ‘ol analytics and a diagnostic evaluation. These quick fixes can get your business a quick win in the short term, but if you want sustainable lead generation, a long term conversion strategy needs to be mapped out and executed expertly.
If you’re experiencing any of these common conversion problems, or need something a bit more customized to your business case, get a marketing assessment! It’s a much better alternative to smashing a toilet lid in frustration.
