Many businesses get lots of clicks and page views on their website. The challenge lies in turning that engagement into a sale.
Lots of visitors and views are encouraging, but ultimately nothing if that traffic doesn’t generate revenue. How can businesses attract website visitors and encourage them to become paying customers?
Below, 15 members of the Forbes Agency Council shared their top ways to increase engagement and turn web traffic into sales.
Members of the Forbes Agency Council discuss ways to increase engagement and conversions on your company’s website.
Photos courtesy of each member.
1. Provide clear and relevant content
Relevant content and a clear message to your audience combined with a great user experience increases engagement and converts website traffic into sales. If it’s not easy to get to the content they need, you’re going to lose them. Understand how your business’s sales funnel and timing influence your prospects’ online behavior. Pique their curiosity and guide them through their funnel. – Megan Devine, d.trio Marketing Group
2. Understand your multichannel metrics
Whether your goals are local or national, internal or external, it’s important to understand your multi-channel metrics, UX, and audience flows within those channels. We recommend eliminating “metric silos” and blending and layering data from all channels. Drive strategy, content and creativity from there. It is a metric that combines real-life experience and expertise. – Susan Evans, Evans Larson Communications
3. Ask customers for feedback
Listen to your customers. Ask where you’re failing and use that data to become a better marketer. The better experiences you create for your customers and potential customers, the better engagement you get. Better engagement means better sales. – Justin Christianson, Conversion Fanatics
4. Capture Leads and Automate Marketing
Lead scoring and marketing automation top the list. Creating smart content is a cost-effective way to acquire quality leads, but it requires the right tools and processes. A well-oiled customer relationship management system ensures that you can nurture your prospects. When your sales team can focus on quality leads and automated mechanisms to attract top-of-the-funnel leads and prospects, you’re well positioned for growth. – Sarah Steever, Paulsen
5. Create and curate compelling social media posts
On social media, create and curate posts that drive engagement with your users. The key is to ask questions, leverage polls, and develop content that sparks curiosity. Social algorithms thrive on this. Swipe-up features and links can drive traffic from these posts and direct users to your shop page. Limit the number of clicks when directing people to your website. Your customer experience should be simple. – Nick Blacker, Sparq Designs
The Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives at successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. am i eligible?
6. Optimize your landing page
You should have a high-quality landing page that is user-friendly and mobile-friendly. A good overall consumer website experience is key to converting traffic into sales. If your website is misleading, confusing or hard to navigate, it will be very difficult to convert traffic to sales, especially for new users. – Spencer Hadelman, Advantage Marketing
7. Give something away for free
We offer a lot of free stuff, but it’s a way of keeping our company first and not undermining our interests. Alternatively, you can provide a preview of the content (e.g. by email) and a link to the rest of the content (which can be traced), but the value should come first. Remarketing efforts can then re-engage and target visitors later. – Bernard May, National Positions
8. Thorough research and testing
Best practices are a good starting point, but nothing beats rigorous quantitative and qualitative research followed by regular testing. This applies to the entire customer journey from click to purchase. Don’t forget to test your sales process, pricing, etc. -Gyi Tsakalakis, AttorneySync & EPL Digital
9. Combination of automation and human interaction
Combining automation with human interaction provided the coveted one-two punch of turning visitors into customers. Each site visitor is greeted with an automated message from the chatbot. If they reply, it is passed to a member of our team to continue the conversation.The chatbot acts as an opener to start the dialogue, and the responding team her member acts as a closer to convert. – Adam Binder, Creative Click Media
10. Identify barriers and adjust accordingly
Do your research to understand your biggest touchpoints that are blocking viewer conversions and adjust accordingly. If the price is too high, please reduce the price. If your customers want more information about your product, work with influencers to open the box and review it. Make the user experience that leads to sales as smooth as possible. – Emilie Tabor, IMA – Influencer Marketing Agency
11. Work with nano and micro influencers
You can contract with nano and micro influencers to create highly nuanced content across the customer funnel and plug into dozens of ad permutations. Test across multiple digital channels to optimize conversions. – Maria Shipka, Rinchia
12. Be clear and open about company values
Consumers today want to buy your brand as much as they want to buy your product. Be clear and open about your company’s values and how you live them to find your core audience. Nurturing that relationship certainly goes a long way, but it’s the best way to consistently improve overall engagement and sales. Then they will believe in your product. – Brian Sullivan, Sullivan Branding
13. Create locally relevant content
The key to optimizing website engagement and conversions is making sure your site content is locally relevant. Photos, copy and promotions are customized for your audience and relevant to their needs. must be Customers are local and often want to build relationships with local businesses. Making sure your content is locally relevant builds trust, conversions, and ultimately loyalty. – Stephanie Shreve, PowerChord
14. Focus on Technical SEO
It’s easy for marketers to think of technical optimization as something that exists to boost rankings. That’s true, but consider the following: The better your site is, the more likely users are to take the desired action. Load times are a good example. There is always a clear relationship between site speed and conversion rate. —Donna Robinson, Collective Measures
15. Personalize UX with Dynamic Content
Use dynamic content wherever possible to personalize your visitor’s experience. Aim to interact on a one-to-one level as much as possible. To allow visitors to take action when consuming information on her website, also include a lead her capture and call to action form. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
