I need to do business with a local business (not a want, not a “wouldn’t-it-be-nice”, but for the sake of the condition of my property need).  It was getting close to the end of the day around 4:40pm and I needed to check the hours of a retail trades’ business thinking they may be closed.  Since this is a trades business, sometimes they’re open at 8 or 8:30 and closed by 4:30 or 5.  I would have been cutting it close to make it there by 5pm.  I checked their website, but there are no hours listed!  Not on the home page, not on the contact page, and not in the footer of the website (3 very important places to check for store hours.)  Past this, I googled their name to see if their hours are in their Google listing… No joy.

I considered putting it off until tomorrow morning, to be sure that they were open when I visited, and my wife makes a suggestion.  ”Have you thought of this Option B?”

So, because the business A didn’t have their hours on their website, I had thought about delaying giving them money, and also, had the opportunity to research another company with a similar end result, but different approach to business… In the end, I made the trip to business A hoping they were open.  They were and we completed our transaction, but how many times would you like your clients to have the opportunity to reconsider doing business with you?

My 2 Cents: Make sure your basic and neccessary information is available in whatever possible format your clients may require it.

Well, a conversion rate is the percentage of users who take a certain action when visiting your site.  A ‘conversion’ could be requesting a quote, joining your mailing list, making an online purchase or downloading your ebook.  You get to determine what your goal is for conversion.  For every 100 people who visit your website, how many ‘convert’ to your target action?  This percentage is your conversion rate.

How do I increase my current conversion rate?

Exactly!  This is the question you need to be asking!  We often get asked “How do I get more people to visit my website?”, “How can I rank higher in Google?” or “How Do I get more people to click my links on Twitter?” but the real question, the real distilled goal of why we want more traffic, a higher Google ranking and more clicks from twitter is that we’re hoping with higher traffic, we’ll experience a higher quantity of conversions.

Don’t Be Fooled:

There’s a difference between seeing a higher quantity of conversions and seeing a higher conversion rate!  One month you have 200 people visit your site this month and there are 4 conversions, your conversion rate is 2%.  Next month you spend a bucket-load of advertising dollars and you have 1000 visitors and 20 conversions, you’ve increased your conversion quantity, but your conversion rate is still 2%.  Increasing your conversion rate is way more cost and time effective than driving a higher number of visitors to your site because you’re converting visitors you already have, rather than finding ways to bring in new visitors. Not to say there isn’t a place for higher traffic, but let’s consider tracking and increasing your conversion rate.

Ideas to track and increase your conversion rate:

• Install Google Analytics in your website code.  This will tell you how many visitors you have, how they came to your website and how often they’ve completed your conversion.
• Include in your conversion a way for users to let you know how they found your site.
• Offer a way for users to let their friends know by email or Social Media that they completed your conversion process (ie. Thanks for downloading our ebook.  Click  to share this with your friends on facebook now!)
• Put a button, link or image on every page of your website offering the visitor to make use of your conversion.  ”Request a quote now”, “Find out more” and “Download Today” are common conversion tabs.
• Post a link to your social media channels of a testimony from a client’s conversion. For example: “Thanks Fresh Idea!  I didn’t realize installing Google Analytics Conversion Tracking was so easy…” find out more: www.example.com/conversion“
• Create a landing page where visitors first arrive, and offer them something in exchange for their conversion. “Sign up now to receive our free e-newsletter…” (be sure to offer a “Not Now” or “No Thanks” button out of courtesy.)
• Refer to your conversion throughout the content of your website and on Social Media regularly.

If you’d like help with getting Google Analytics on your site, or with analyzing and discussing your current conversion rate, click here to connect with us:

Connect with Us!

(notice that button?  It’s a blatent conversion tool…sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves)

However, the answer to this question really comes in 2 parts, and so we’ve  broken it down for ease.  As always, we’d love to hear any feedback you have on how this has worked for you, or if there’s something that’s not mentioned that you’d like to contribute, please leave a comment below.

Part 1: Social Media is the greatest and most effective traffic generator.

A few ways to generate more traffic for your website:

• Create a blog on your website, then promote and  link your blog using Social Media.  For Example: “There’s a new law affecting our industry.  Click here to find out how it affects you as our customer: www.example.com/blog” OR “We’d like to introduce the newest member of our staff: www.example.com/blog“
• When offering promotions or deals, link the full details to your website, rather than giving all of the details on Social Media. For Example: “XYZ Widget is half off!  Print your coupon here: www.example.com/coupon“
• Use your the customization tools available on Social Media to link to your website when possible:

The 3 links on our facebook page are “Our Portfolio”, “Book your Free Consultation” and “About Us.”  These link straight to our website and can be used by any user visiting our facebook page.  We don’t have to convince them to type something into their browser, or hope they get the web address correct, they simply click from facebook and the information is at their fingertips.

• Watch what other users are saying on their Social Media Channels.  Create conversations and join in on discussions.  Offer your services when applicable, and refer to your website for more details.  Visit their website, then make a comment on their social media channel to let them you know you did.

Part 2: Is “How Do we Drive More Traffic to our site?” even the right question?

In our experience, this is often the wrong question, because the real question usually is “How do we gain more customers / earn more profit / build our mailing list / generate more leads with our website?” or what’s called a conversion: Converting visitors to take a certain action and become clients.

The missing link to this puzzle is often thinking that more traffic automatically means more leads.  For example, if you average 200 visitors a month, and 4 people fill out the “Request A Quote” form, then 2 % of new visitors to your website are converting.  The thought is, if you can increase your traffic from 200 visitors a month to 1000 visitors a month, then with the same 2% conversion, we should see 20 people filling out the “Request A Quote” form, and while this logic and math is likely accurate, increasing your conversion rate is often more cost and time effective than driving a higher number of visitors to your site.   Read our article below on increasing your conversion rate on your website!

How to increase your website’s conversion rate.