Have you ever wondered why your site or marketing campaign is bringing you lots of targeted traffic, but you’re just not able to turn that traffic into the extra revenue you are seeking?
One thing I have noticed about Louisville web design companies is that many of them know how to initially set up a website for their clients but lack the foresight in helping their clients with their future online marketing campaigns. No, I am not talking about helping them with PPC or their Facebook page, but with their actual website and how their website can dramatically increase their conversions, revenue, and lead-generation goals.
I have been helping several companies with their local Louisville SEO projects, and almost all of them have asked me the same question, “How can I drive more leads/revenue into my site?” A lot of them simply think they can just drive more traffic to their site and that will fix their problem. While this sounds logical at first, the better method would be optimizing your site first and then driving more traffic to it once the site is optimized. Think of it like this, you wouldn’t crank up your air conditioning in your house when it’s hot outside while your windows are wide open, would you?
The hard part is, many of these same clients had a website built for them that they are not able to edit. Either their web design company has them “locked” into a system that is not user-friendly, or they simply have a system that is so grossly complex that if you make one change you have to edit several files and spend lots of time to make that one simple change.
I was working with one Louisville ecommerce company that was receiving hundreds of targeted visitors for their products every day. They were only converting maybe .30% (yes, only .30) of their customers. I devised a plan to help them convert more of their customers with ideas such as:
1. Capturing their email before the sale/before they left the site (to be used in a Louisville email marketing campaign.)
2. Install a live chat system to help customers that were on the site find the product they need.
3. Add in upsells and cross sells to the checkout funnel.
4. Change up the “calls to action” on their buy-now buttons and quote cart system.
5. Offering different payment options for those that would rather pay with Paypal or Google Checkout.
I had determined that these changes would result in my clients’ conversions being raised to a full six percent, which would result in a change of over 1,270,000 dollars in revenue per year for them. The problem? The web design company made it to where their site was almost uneditable. Making these changes would have resulted in hours and hours of programming because the clients’ code was not commented, locked down to a proprietary system, and encoded with source code encryption. Not only that, the web design company wanted to charge 300 dollars an hour to make these changes and had projected these changes (that only they could make) would take three months to implement.
Optimizing your site will provide you the largest gain in ROI that you will ever see, but if you do not include a knowledgeable online marketer in your site-planning projections, you will only end up hurting yourself and your business later down the road when it is time to ramp up your marketing campaigns.