What is a Conversion Rate? – PODCAST

I want to talk about something called your website’s Conversion Rate, how important that is to your website, and how neglected it really is. Conversion rate is the percentage of total visitors who convert while visiting your website. Now, depending on what type of website you have, your conversion might be different. Your conversion could be a sale, capturing a lead, registration, signing up for something, or some other kind of call to action on your website. Your conversion rate is the amount of people you get to actually take one of those steps or actions.

If you have 100 people visiting your site, and one person decides to fill out a contact form, then you have a 1% conversion rate. If 2 people do it, then you have a 2% conversion rate. One or two percent might seem pretty low, but it’s really not bad. It’s actually pretty good. Anywhere between 1 and 3 percent conversion rate should be considered a pretty good rate for a website. So, if you have 400 people come to your website every week, and you don’t have 4-8 people contacting you or taking an action, then conversion rate should be something you really start thinking about, as well as how to optimize your conversion rate or get more people to take that next step or call to action.

There are a number of reasons why you would want to perform Conversion Rate Optimization on your website. If you wanted to take advantage of the traffic you already have coming to your website, for example if you have 400 visitors coming to your website and you’re seeing a 0.5% conversion rate, then taking a look at your website and increasing your Conversion Rate could mean more revenue with the same amount of traffic you already get. That’s something nobody wants to shy away from.

Another reason is that before you start to put your money into a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program or social media, or any other kind of online marketing, it’s really important to take a look at how many people your site is able to capture, or how many leads are really coming through there. If you put a lot of money into SEO, and you have a 0.5% conversion rate or lower, you would be pouring money down the drain. If you had a 2, 3, or 4% conversion rate, then that’s a great time to put money into an SEO plan, because you know your website can actually make that sale for you.

The other big advantage to conversion rate is especially neglected:  companies put up a website, and that’s it – they don’t touch it again. They don’t take a look at it and they don’t follow the numbers to see what’s working and what’s not. Taking a look at your Conversion Rate is a fairly new thing to do or track. If you start optimizing your website by looking to increase your website’s Conversion Rate and getting more leads from the traffic you already have, then you’re going to have a much more efficient online marketing program. You’re going to see a much higher return on any investment that you’re making. Starting early is the best way to go.

The next question is how do you change or increase a Conversion Rate? This can be different things, but usually it starts with the design of the site. Your website is an online salesperson, and it is out there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is either selling for you, telling a story, and doing a wonderful job, or it’s not. If your salesperson – your website – isn’t showing up looking “ready for work,” then it’s not going to get you sales. A lot of websites out there aren’t designed well. They don’t look professional; they don’t look like a professional designer touched them; they look like they were thrown up in five minutes; or they might look like they were thrown up in the early 90s. It’s important to make sure that the design of your website gives people the trust you need to instill in them for them to give you a call, take another step or even stay on your website.

The next part is making sure you have pieces in place to convert. It’s surprising how many websites have a “free-for-all” attitude, and don’t have a path or clear direction for visitors to travel down. Once they get to the end of that path, all that’s there is a phone number or contact form. If you increase the number of ways that you can convert people – having multiple order forms, quote forms, get them to sign up for a newsletter, get them to do something, or get them to do one of five things – then you’re going to increase your odds of having somebody do something with your website. Any lead and any information your gather is somebody you can follow up with, and reconnect with, which is vital in the online marketing world.

Changing conversion rate does get more detailed than that, but that’s the big stuff. We’ve covered the parts you really should be concerned with. Take a look at your site, check out your design, make sure you have a sales pitch and a sales path, and a way to capture information and you’re on your way!

If you are interested in leaving questions, feel free to post them on the blog and we’ll respond with comments. You’re also welcome to contact us on our website if you have any more questions or comments.

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