WSI Blog

Does your website get plenty of traffic but not very many conversions?  You're not alone.  In fact most websites have a 0% conversion rate.  I can't tell you how often I hear business owners say, "our website is just there for our customers to look things up", or "we only have a website to prove that we're legit", "we don't rely on our website for marketing or getting us business".  How about this one; "our customers don't use the Internet".  Hello.... it's 2008!  Your customers absolutely use the Internet and if you're not there, they're finding your competition.

OK, so let's assume that you're living in this Millennium and you realize that you need to be on the Internet and you need to attract visitors to your website in order to be successful.  But out of every 100 visitors to your site; only 1 actually takes action - a phone call, an email, a download, a sign up, a purchase, a request for information; whatever the action you want them to take is.  A 1% conversion rate is very common; in fact that is the average conversion rate for eCommerce websites.  And those sites are supposed to sell.  Websites that are designed as 'brochures' with the hope of providing the occasional lead usually have an even worse conversion rate.

Why are conversion rates so low?  Because these websites are failing at effective communication with the audience they are attracting.  They make it difficult to find information quickly and provide no compelling evidence why you should take action.  More times than not websites don't even direct visitors to take action and if they do it's a link to open an email to send; not very intuitive and not very dynamic.

Imagine your website gets 1000 visitors per month at a 1% conversion rate; so 10 people are taking an action that you desire them to take.  How can you get that number of conversions from 10 to 50 without paying more for traffic?  It's actually quite simple.  You improve the conversion architecture on your website.  Imagine if you could enhance the design, perhaps add a landing page, throw in more calls to action, make the site a bit easier to navigate, add multiple conversion points so there are several actions visitors can actually take as opposed to just 'phone us or send a email', and perhaps even add some professionally written web copy that makes your company sound more professional and speaks more persuasively to your audience.

Now you have an effective Internet Marketing System: A) a website B) build traffic and C) convert more customers.  Just do the math.  If you can improve your website so that your conversion rate increases by just a few percent, you could end up with a 3, 4 or even 5% conversion rate. 

So using the example above, that same 1000 visitors with an improved website could easily increase the number of conversions from 10 to 50 with a 5% conversion rate.  And once you have improved your conversion rate, then you can invest into more traffic.  Your conversion rate will usually remain consistent as long as you are driving qualified traffic to the site; ie. targeting the proper keyword phrases and the right geographic area.

Here's an example.  James Snow Parkway Self Storage in Milton is a relatively new client.  Their site went live May 28, 2008.  Previously the client had a website that had no conversion architecture, no real marketing purpose and was basically just an online brochure.  This month they got a 7.11% conversion rate.  Out of 661 visitors for the month, they had 47 online conversions.  In addition to this, we recently added a toll free number on their site which allows us to track the number of phone calls they get from the website and they are averaging over 2 phone calls per day (68 in October).  When you factor phone calls in with the online conversions, their website is converting at a rate of 17%! 

So what makes more sense to you; increasing your traffic by 17x or improving your websites conversion architecture?

Every once in a while, someone throws you a real zinger.  It's like if you were to come off the elevator and someone is standing there and says "excuse me, do you know where the elevator is?" 

Has that ever happened to you? Someone says something so astonishing that you're standing there scratching your head not really knowing how to respond? 

Recently I was talking to a business owner here in Milton.  I won't disclose the type of business or who it was because my point here is definitely not to offend anyone. 

The business in question spends about $12,000 per year on advertising.  Most of it is in newspapers - about $800 per month or so.  The rest is doing miscellaneous stuff that by their admission provides no measurable results for their business.

Their $800 or so per month newspaper budget is spread between two local newspapers.  They occasionally get appointments booked from one of the papers when they advertise specific offers and promotions and the other one "never generates any phone calls"; although people do mention it so there's obvious brand recognition value.  The point I'm getting at is that they are spending about $800 per month with no way to know how many people actually SEE the ad not to mention how many actually READ it.  They get extremely minimal actual RESULTS from it and yet they continue spending their money on this medium that is providing very little value to their business.

So in our conversation, I suggested that they do pay per click advertising for their business in Milton.  I was able to provide local search activity on Google that found that over 4000 people in Milton were searching for their services each month and that their site was only being shown for about 20% of the time to all that potential traffic because their website is poorly optimized.  Pay per click advertising would guarantee that their website appears on the first page of Google EVERY time someone locally searches for those phrases and that they would ONLY pay for it if people actually clicked on it and visited their website!

I should mention that the product/service that this company offers is very competitive, but that there is very low competition on Google so from my experience, this would be the absolute best marketing they would ever invest into.  Now here comes the kicker... the thing like I mentioned above about the elevator question....

They said "why would we want to pay for traffic to our website?"  Now in their industry, for $800 per month, they would be getting at least 3000 visitors to their website each month from Pay Per Click Advertising.  We probably couldn't even spend their whole budget; I don't think we'd actually get that much traffic. 

But let's assume that only 1000 visitors came from pay per click and it cost them about $250 on that, which is very realistic in their industry.  A BAD website should convert at about 1% to 2%.  Let's say that that $250 advertising budget converted a very poor 1% or 10 new customers. 

In their business, their average order is about $125 and people use their product at least 6 times per year.  That means that those 10 customers that cost $250 to get are worth $7500 per year to their business.  Multiply that out and after 12 months, their business would have grown by over $90,000 per year in sales - for a $250 per month advertising budget.

I think the real question is, "Why on Earth wouldn't you pay for traffic to your website?

It seems that everywhere I turn these past couple of weeks, business owners are scared to death about the current economy.  Every piece of news is using terms such as 'financial crisis', 'recession', 'depression', 'economic downturn' and 'slowing economy'.  Add to that things like 'shrinking Canadian dollar', 'higher unemployment rates', and 'falling home values'.

It's no wonder everyone is tightening up their purse strings.  It certainly seems like the walls are caving in around us.  But if there's a any light at the end of the tunnel, it's that we've been here before and made it through and we will make it through this one too.

One major difference we have today is that the way businesses deliver their message to their prospects has changed dramatically from the last time we went through a recession.  Take a look at this chart from eMarketer.  

Traditional advertising spending is SHRINKING while electronic media spending is growing; even in an economic downturn.  Why?  Because that's where the market is.  It's not a fad or a trend like in the late 90's.  Internet Marketing is an absolute necessity for business to survive in the 21st century.  And it's only going to continue growing. 

Are you skeptical?  Check out some of the recent forcasts in our newsroom.  This industry is growing at an unprecedented pace.  Business owners can choose to get in now and ride the wave or wait a few more years and start choking on the backwash of those who did while trying to catch up.  What will you do?

Pretty often I hear business owners say that the only inquiries they ever got from their website were not of the quality that would make them worthwhile.  Obviously this means that the 'Internet doesn't work in their business'.

Meanwhile these companies websites are usually more than 5 years old and give nothing more than the company name and some sketchy information about them and occasionally a bit about the products or services they have to offer.  It's not suprising that they quality of traffic or inquiries has never been very impressive.

Here are the Three Golden nuggets that you need on your website if you ever want to attract the quality of traffic and leads that you need to grow your business.

1. You need to apply Search Engine Optimization on your site for the correct keywords early on in the development process.  Would you build a house without a foundation?  Not in Canada, you wouldn't!  By researching the best target phrases and keywords early in the process you'll be able to optimize your site to be found on Search Engines like Yahoo!, Google, MSN and others for years to come.  Unless you take this part of the development process seriously your site will do nothing more than flop around like a leaf in the wind.
2. You need to use Paid Search Marketing to drive immediate traffic to your site.  No matter how effective the initial optimization of your website is done, there is no getting around the fact that Search Engine Optimization is a natural or organic process; it takes time to start working well and gets better with futher time and nurturing.  Pay per click is the only way to guarantee your position on the first page of a Search Engine.  Also it allows you to target an unlimited number of keywords or phrases, which is viturally impossible with Search Engine Optmization.  And the best thing about it is you only pay if someone actually clicks and visits your site.
3. Once you get these people to your site, you have to capture their interest immediately.  Some reasearch done at Carleton University as reported by the BBC,  has suggested that website visitors will make a dicision about your company in as little as 1/20 of a second upon landing on your website.  So first it must look professional and accurate.  Second it must immediately identify with your visitor and their reason for visiting.  And third, it must contain enough rich content to give them a very good understanding of how your product or service will help solve a particular problem that they may have.  Once you have all that in place, you have to tell your visitors how to do business with you.  Don't leave this to chance. Ask them to take action and explain to them specifically how to do it.  We call this Conversion Architecture.

That's it!  The secret formula.

As the markets all over the world are seemingly crumbling around us, it's good to know that there is a way to reduce spending and still remain competitive.

Every article I read points to Marketers cutting spending in traditional media, but increasing spending in Internet Marketing.  People are spending more of their time in front of their computer, in their home and in their office shopping, researching, social networking, you name it.  With gas prices as high as they are, people are less likely to drive to a mall or go anywhere unless they know exactly what they are going for.

Most businesses do not sell products on the Internet; even the most successful Internet Marketers.  But they know that the majority of shoppers will research their products or services online before buying.  That's why so many businesses in B2B sectors as well as B2C are putting their marketing dollars into the Internet.  There's nothing else quite like it.