Have you heard of the term “rainmaker”?
In the business world, rainmaker is a word used to describe highly prolific members of sales teams.
What makes these individuals stand out?
They are believed to possess a special talent for turning prospects into actual buyers.
In today’s highly connected world, many business owners rely on a common rainmaker – their website.
When optimized right, your site can easily turn your visitors into leads and eventually, product purchasers in no time.
While there is no shortage of ways to pull this goal off, I have outlined five of the easiest ways you can adopt to achieve this objective.
1) Make time for conversion audits
Let’s crush a common myth: Not all aesthetically appealing websites are designed to convert traffic into leads.
Auditing, testing and optimizing your website won’t only help you identify problems and address them on time; it can also help you achieve a robust customer base by helping you generate more leads.
True, the whole idea of doing a conversion audit can be overwhelming.
Fortunately, it gets easier as you go along.
Here are some of the key elements that you can check.
Layout and design
A website that’s eloquently designed can do little for you if it is not compelling enough for the end users.
Optimize your layout and design and make visual scanning effortless by:
- Using white space accordingly
- Utilizing typography and fonts that are easy on the eyes
- Incorporating a large and visible call-to-action-button
Bonus Tip: Some studies indicate that mobile traffic nowadays account for at least one third of the total web traffic.
Suffice it to say; not having a design that’s responsive and device-optimized would be synonymous to flushing likely revenue down the drain.
Fortunately for you, ingenious technologies like CSS3 and HTML5 makes it possible for your site to conform to all devices and resolutions easily so you can make the most out of your lead generating efforts.
Social optimization
While many entrepreneurs treat social optimization as an afterthought, it is a mistake that you need to steer clear of.
Since social results can dramatically affect your search engine ranking, having a seamless and fluid flow between your website and your social channels should be a priority.
That means, you need to:
- Integrate your website graphics and branding on your social properties.
- Observe and provide the same level of open discussion and friendly customer service on your website as you do on your social channels.
- Customize your Twitter, Google+ and Facebook pages so it has the same tone and style used on your website.
- Provide your followers on social networks more reason to connect with you. Quizzes, contests and surveys are just some of the great portals you can use to encourage valuable interaction.
2) Make your site conversion ready.
Generating website traffic can often come with a hefty price tag.
Even if you don’t necessarily pay for every visitor individually, (read: pay-per-click advertising) in most cases, you still need to invest money in social media marketing and SEO to help achieve the number of leads you desire.
Sadly, most visitors that leave a site often do not return.
One of your primary goals then should be to make conversion easy the first time they visit.
How do you go about it?
Provide incentives
One way to make your lead capture system effective is to dole out incentives.
You need to give this strategy some serious thought. Don’t just focus on give away anything YOU think is valuable. Think about your customers’ needs and tailor fit the kind of incentives you’ll give away based on that.
Will they perhaps need a free estimate? A comprehensive digital download of proven and tested tips? Or a 10% discount coupon?
The bottomline is you need to entice your visitors with an offer they’ll find hard, if not impossible to resist.
Use web forms
Real-time chat, embedded web forms, and header bars are some of most effective ways to capture contact information.
However, many savvy entrepreneurs prefer using web forms more than the others as it is known to be more efficient in converting visitors to customers.
What makes web forms stand out?
They entail less work compared to shopping carts and other account sign-ups as it does not require providing credit card details.
3) Showcase your credibility.
As a marketing tool, testimonials can be very potent.
What many people do not realize, however, is you can always take the way you’re using your testimonials a step further.
How exactly do you go about it?
Add rich media like audio and video.
Rich media versions of testimonials will not only significantly lend support to what you have to offer, it will also effectively highlight and cement your credibility in the industry.
Bonus Tip: Product videos can help prospects feel more confident and informed about their purchase so do not think twice about putting one in your site.
Statistics show that videos can drastically increase conversion rates across a wide range of industries – particularly e-commerce sites, so use that knowledge to work for you.
4) Install a live chat feature on your website.
Many business owners make the mistake of assuming live chat is only beneficial for websites looking to generate ecommerce sales. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Here’s a simple analogy to drive my point.
Think of a restaurant working on generating physical location visits and reservations.
With live chat, providing assistance with reservations and even seemingly trivial things like location clarifications becomes a lot easier.
What are the key benefits of installing live chat that you can’t afford to miss out?
Customer convenience
Understandably, many online buyers will want fast assistance when they are shopping online. In fact, 44% of online consumers claimed that having a live person assist them is by far one of the most integral features any site can offer.
An emarketer.com survey indicated that a whopping 63% of visitors are likely to return to a site that offers live chat.
At least 38% of those respondents credited their purchase to the chat session itself.
Increased revenue
Because installing a live chat feature on your website can help you reduce your abandoned shopping carts, your revenue is bound to increase as a result.
When using a live chat feature, you’re not only able to immediately help anyone who needs assistance, you can also task your team to up-sell your other products as they chat with the customers.
5) Make your contact details visible all throughout your website’s pages.
Making sure that your website’s “contact us” page is visible is one thing, but making your contact info visible all throughout your web pages is another.
Notice how this website has it’s location, contact number, and fax number on each of its webpages? Doing so makes it easier for their visitors to contact them immediately for inquiries.
While this advice seems common sense, you’ll be amazed at how many businesses fail to apply it to their websites. People tend to be gung ho at showcasing their business’ offers, and their website’s features to the point where they end up making it impossible hard for their visitors to contact them for their services.
Don’t make the same mistake.
6) Identify your visitor’s behavior when on your webpages.
Crazyegg, is an innovative heat map tool you can use to identify the location of clicks made by your site visitors, alongside its referral or traffic source.
This amazing tool can also conveniently show you the pages your visitors have scrolled.
How can you benefit from identifying areas your visitors frequently click on?
- You can easily reposition your offers from the so-called ‘dead zones’ to areas that attract the most clicks.
- You have the option to test different call-to-action locations to determine which ones are clicked-on and viewed the most.
Conclusion
Without the right strategy, it’s easy to miss out on the opportunity to convert your visitors into strong leads and your leads into buying customers. While the list of techniques you can do adopt to achieve this objective is infinite, the five quick methods enumerated above should get you off to an amazing start and help you effectively steer your business in the right direction.
Photo courtesy – © Coloures-pic / Dollar Photo Club