People used to refer to the Internet as "The Wild Wild West." It was a time you could try anything, break all the rules, with a no-holds barred attitude. But just as the West was tamed, eventually the Internet "settled down," rules were put in place, resulting in more structure and less "black hat." (Yes, some people still call traffic driving methods "white hat" (legitimate) or "black hat" (can get you banned by the search engines).
Even now, some businesses believe that they can create a website, and they'll automatically sell their service or product. Unfortunately, if this was true, everyone would be getting rich from their sites and no one would have to worry about SEO or landing page conversion rates. But there's more to marketing your service or product than simply driving traffic.
Having a successful website (of any kind) means that you have to be consistent, dedicated, willing to take a few well calculated risks, constantly test and then analyze the results of your traffic and the way it converts to a sale or lead. The action your visitor takes after they arrive at your site is the most important factor in the success or failure of your online marketing efforts.
Do they just leave or will they convert to a sale or lead? This is where many websites fall short in their marketing efforts. Why? Because in today's online marketing, your website is your sales tool and every visitor counts. This is why creating a baseline conversion rate then working to improve your visitor conversion rate is critical. Even when some of the best sites are at 2-3% conversion rate, improving your landing page, even 1%, can mean a tremendous increase in your ROI.
Increasing your website's conversion rate can be time consuming. It means creating a control page, making one small change and comparing the results to see if it's made a difference. Most often these can be A/B (or split) tests. You'll create several versions of the same landing page, and then test them against each other to see which is the most effective. When you're testing your landing page conversion rates, you don't have to go through it alone. There are numerous resources available to assist when you're testing your conversion rates. Here are three of my favorites:
1. Google Experiments: Good old Google. Doesn't it sometimes seem like they've thought of everything? Google Experiments is quick and simple to use, and your visitors are automatically directed to your various landing pages as they click on Google's PPC Adwords. You can then analyze the conversion rate or call to action to determine which landing page is the most effective.
- Pros: Simple to set up, easy to use. You can simultaneously split test up to 4 landing pages.
- Cons: You will have to use Adwords (PPC) for it to work.
2. Unbounce: An extremely powerful platform designed for creating, testing and analyzing your landing pages. Unbounce has a variety of pre-made templates that allows someone to be up and running and split testing their conversion rates within a very short time. There are a variety of templates that offer lead generation, mobile, click-through, social media and product launch.
- Pros: Simple to set up, premade templates allow you to quickly and easily set up your landing pages.
- Cons: Can only split test two pages at a time. Price is driven by site visitors and can be costly.
3. Hubspot: Among the many advantages Hubspot offers is the ability to split test your landing pages and analyze conversion rates. You have the option of testing every element on your landing pages and creating as many variations as you want. You can also track the leads that are generated and analyze how they convert.
- Pros: Hubspot is one of the leaders in inbound marketing so they know how to do it right. Hubspot is a full-featured marketing system.
- Cons: Although the price might make some people pause, the features make it worth it.
Driving traffic to your site is just one small part of selling your product or service online. However, as we've explained, it's essential that it's targeted to your niche and, even more important: it converts. Since your website is an important element in your success, why leave it to chance? Contact Stream Creative to discuss how we can help you drive targeted traffic to your site and generate targeted leads that convert to sales.
