by Eugenie Delhaye, co-founder of My Little Big Web
When you receive an influx of organic traffic to your website from social media or quality backlinks, an important question tends to spring to mind: how can you capitalize on this new web traffic to create new customers?
Bringing in lots of traffic is only the beginning stage in making successful conversions. Your website could be ranked on the first page of Google and receiving multitudes of daily visitors but this traffic is worthless if they aren’t taking action once they reach your page.
Once you’ve spent a significant amount of time increasing web traffic from several different channels, it is important to understand how you can convert that traffic into valued customers.
Follow these 5 effective practices to make the most of your new visitors and begin seeing conversion results that lead to great success:
Create compelling calls to action.
One of the most crucial ways to capitalize on your web traffic is using strategically-placed and relevant calls to action. A call to action is exactly what it sounds like: inviting the user to perform an action on your website.
The actions you want the user to perform are entirely dependant on what your business offers. If you run a marketing agency, for example, your calls to action would likely include signing up for web marketing services with a clickable button.
Some things to consider when creating effective calls to action:
- Create a sense of urgency and be specific
- Don’t include more than one action per page
- Position your call to action for clear visibility
- Grab attention with color and contrast
- Be sure to study your results in order to improve
Using clearly visible, persuasive and compelling calls to action will significantly boost your click-through rates for all the web traffic you bring to your site.
Build an email list.
Having an email subscription service on your website that sends out newsletters with updates, promotions and calls to action is an invaluable way to convert traffic into new customers. With an email subscription option, you can begin to build an email list that will lead to successful conversions.
Because of the personal nature of email, you will be able to easily target potential customers in a casual and inviting manner. Marketing to consumers via email can be more effective than social media since you don’t have to worry about algorithm changes or outside influence. You have complete control.
Even better is the fact that there is an endless amount of great content to include in your newsletters. Exceptional content engages the user and makes him far more likely to perform the actions you want him to.
Ensure a high-quality user experience.
Perhaps the most important consideration to make when trying to capitalize on website traffic is the quality of your user experience. It should go without saying that a poor user experience will make people leave your site, simple as that.
A superior user experience will grab peoples’ attention and create a desire within them to perform an action on your site. In order to achieve this, you will need a great website design and layout, as well as excellent content for the user to engage with.
Having a great web design means everything from headings to page speed must be optimized to deliver the best experience possible to the user. You should also be certain that your website is mobile-friendly, an absolute necessity considering the number of smartphones on the market.
Final thoughts.
Web traffic on its own is entirely useless if you haven’t taken the steps necessary to convert visitors into customers. This can be achieved using compelling calls to action, getting users to join your mailing list and creating a memorable user experience with a well-designed website and great content to engage your audience.
Eugenie Delhaye is a web marketing expert and founding member of a Montreal-based agency called My Little Big Web. She has successfully managed over 600 marketing campaigns, written numerous articles and regularly share her expertise at SEO and marketing conferences.
