Companies want more leads. The first thing that comes to mind is “I need more traffic.” But is that really your problem?

More traffic is not what you need

In my previous job, one of the first things I did with a new or potential client was analyze their calls-to-actions (CTA). Many clients would come to us wanting more traffic, but when I had to LOOK for how to contact them, I would tell them more traffic isn’t necessarily where we need to focus right now.

Let me be more specific, the “Contact Us” tab should not your only CTA!

Don’t make it hard to buy!

Last week, we needed to buy Adobe Acrobat. We visited the site, credit card in hand, ready to buy. It took us a lot of poking around to be able to do this! We could have downloaded the free trial in seconds, +1 Adobe for that. But we were past that, we wanted to buy! Adobe is lucky they have a stranglehold on the market or we would have went elsewhere fast.

Locating the buy or contact button shouldn’t be time intensive. If it is, you’re straight up losing money! Make it easy for someone to convert on your site.

CRO

Conversion rate optimization is equally, if not more important than search engine optimization. People spend so much time driving traffic to their site, user experience and converting visitors is often a second thought.

Focus on making adjustments to boost your conversion rate while keeping user experience positive. This is the quickest way to more leads and sales!

Have balance

Think about how you want to funnel visitors from information discovery to action. Think about why visitors are on your site, on specific pages. Be sure to include a CTA on nearly every page on your site, even your blog. Having said this, DO NOT overkill your CTA’s. Too much can be a real turnoff to visitors.

Always be testing!

Conversion rate optimization is not a one time thing. It’s not a campaign. It should be an ongoing project. Just because you made a big increase in conversion rate doesn’t mean that’s as good as it can get. You would be surprised at the difference you can make by changing things like:

• CTA placement – above/below the fold, on the left or right side of page etc.
• Headline copy
• Adding a video
• Lot’s of content vs shorter content
• For real estate sites with IDX, when to pop your form

These are just examples and I’m only tipping the iceberg here.

When testing, pick one thing to change at a time. This way your data is clean and you can attribute your metrics easier. Also, give the tests enough time to gather data.

In conclusion

Increasing traffic is important. But if you’re site is not setup to convert properly, you could be wasting time and money. Keep visitor experience in mind and always test. Conversion rate optimization could easily be your quickest way to earn more leads!