Top Reasons Your Visitors Aren’t Converting Into Customers

Any marketer doing business online nowadays will tell you that getting traffic to your site is really important if you hope to do business. What’s the point of having a great site if no-one is going to see it? Getting traffic is only half the journey though.  Once visitors arrive at your site, are they doing what you want them to do? Whether your aim is to make  sale or get a lead, you should be paying close attention to what happens to your traffic once it arrives at your site.

Generally, traffic conversion rates hover at between 1-2%. That means that for every 100 visitors you get, 1 or 2 are following through. It is also likely that once someone has bought from you, or signed up to your list, they will return. According to the 80/20 rule, the top 20% of your customers will provide 80% of your revenue.

The main reason why people click away from a site they land on is if they find it confusing, or if it has nothing to do with what they are looking for. It may be tempting to fill a landing page with links, bright colors and flashing images but this can be a turn off for visitors seeking a quick solution to their ‘problem’. Also, if your visitor arrived at your page expecting information about movie reviews but  just found movies for sale, then he is going to be disappointed. You’re also  unlikely to win over a customer by trying to shove a product down their throat without answering their questions first, addressing their doubts, giving advice and building rapport and trust.

Building up a good conversion rate depends on having great:

On Page Copy

Keyword stuffing and unnatural sounding language on your page will not instill confidence in your site and get you customers. Your copy needs to be interesting, informative, include an appropriate amount of keywords and address the visitor’s problem or question. Your traffic should be arriving
on your page after using an appropriate keyword for that page and finding there what they expect. If they arrive there thinking ‘barbecue’ and find ‘patio furniture’ then they are going to click away without buying. Think about the visitor to the site: What is he looking for? Am I providing the answer?

Search Engine Optimization

Having good on-page and off-page SEO in place will help to drive the right traffic to your site. Tags, keywords, coding, links, site navigation and other factors can all influence your conversion rate. You need to help the search engines correctly determine what your site is about.

Pay Per Click Campaigns

If your budget allows for paid advertising, you probably pay to advertise on Google, Yahoo or Bing. Since you pay for every click that your visitors make to arrive at your site, it is very important that you make your money back when they reach the site.  This is called your Return On Investment or ROI. A misleading ad defeats this purpose.Your success in PPC can depend on the text of the ad, the size, the location and the amount of competition.

The most important thing is to measure your performance. Always track what you are doing and measure results. Tweak as you go along and see what happens. Do not change too many things at once or you will not know what  worked better. Changing a few words or the color can have a major effect. Learn from your mistakes and continue to educate yourself online. Read up on new developments and watch your competition. You can learn a lot from them too.

Landing Page Design

Visitors need to find a pleasant page that’s well written, easy on the eye, easy to navigate and get to the page where you want them to sign up or make the purchase. It is worth spending some money on getting a professional looking landing page and getting some help if all the tasks seem a bit overwhelming to you. You may find it hard to be a master copywriter, SEO expert, design genius and whizz marketer all rolled into one! Many give up on maintaining or building their site simply because they are trying to do it all or because they are waiting to master everything before starting.

To summarize, then,  for optimal conversion rates you are seeking to direct quality traffic (visitors seeking what you are offering) to your site (which should be user-friendly and sticky) to find the answers to their questions and the right product to help them.

Problem -> Solution = Sale/Signup

Question -> Answer = Sale/Signup

Drive qualified leads. Convert more leads to customers. HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Software: Free 30 day trial!