Do you have a website where you sell a product or service? Is your goal on this site to motivate the visitor to take action? Whether it’s a purchase or just subscribing to a newsletter. Then that means you also have a conversion funnel that may not be properly optimized yet. Conversions may also occur, but not exactly where they should.
When it comes to a well-optimized conversion funnel, the visitor is essentially going through a relatively long process. Obviously, you recognize your need first, but then you have to maintain your interest! In the following article, we'll try to describe what you can do to achieve a successful conversion funnel. Stay with us too!
Let's see, what is a conversion funnel?
A little back to basics. A conversion is an action a potential customer makes on your website. This could be a payment or something as simple as signing up for the aforementioned newsletter. And what is a canal or funnel? In reality, this is the route the consumer took to go from A to B.
So the conversion channel itself is an imaginary process. This is where the customer goes through and performs the various conversions. The further down we go in the funnel, the narrower it is, so the fewer potential customers. The intention is to have as many clients as possible drawn to the bottom of the channel. Therefore, when developing the channel, careful consideration must be given to its correct optimization.
A conversion funnel is well-optimized if you consider not only the whole but its individual sections. The better a section is tailored to the needs of your customers, the more likely it is that visitors will move on to the next one. Therefore, at each stage, it is worth thinking about what are the factors that are most important to your visitors.
The 4+1 section of the conversion funnel
Before we get into creating a conversion funnel, let's see exactly what stages it has. The four basic stages that we typically separate out are awareness, interest, desire, and action. However, we also brought in the fifth point that many may forget. This is nothing more than keeping in touch after the action. After all, most of the time we want our customers to be our returning customers. But let's also see what these sections are!
The first and greatest element of the funnel is nothing but awareness. Because you can attract new clients here, this is crucial. People have a problem they’re looking for a solution to, and that’s where you come into the picture. You must grab customers' attention! This can be done through search engine optimization to be at the top of the search results list, but you can also perform various advertising activities. It is also important that your site is a source of expertise. With these, you can take your visitors to the next stage. You can use HARO to highlight your expertise in high profile publications and of course earn some powerful backlinks.
In the second phase of the conversion funnel, all you have to do is keep the interest! And this is where the user experience comes into play. On the one hand, you need to understand what your visitors want, and on the other hand, you need to make it happen. This can include site layout, load speed, responsiveness, or even design. The website should not be too crowded, the content should be informative and easy for visitors to understand.
If you've already scouted your customers and maintained their interest, get them to need your product or service! The customer has a problem and the goal is for your product to solve it as best it can. To do this, you need to show content that proves to the visitor that yes, it will be relevant to them. This could be, for example, a blog post, a video presentation, video marketing or even a case study. The point is for your prospective customer to see and understand that your product is truly effective.
And last but not least, the action, or when it comes time to buy. Once a visitor has gone through the conversion funnel and reached the final stage, there is still a chance that he will step back. You need to design the final steps to be as simple and fast as possible. Even long load times or misunderstood buttons and unclear information can scare away potential customers. The simpler you make the last steps, the more likely visitors are to go through the last section of the funnel.
And finally, relationship management. After the sale, it is important to nurture and build a relationship with your customers! Once you've passed them through your conversion funnel, there's a good chance it's easier to pass them through again. There are a number of ways to retain customers, such as sending them a personalized newsletter. The point is to pay attention to them, as retaining customers is always cheaper than getting new ones!
And now let’s see how you can create a conversion funnel?
You will need more time for your conversion funnel to work effectively. Each section should be designed to lead the potential customer further. The point is to make your website enticing to the visitor! Now let's look at what you need to pay attention to when creating your conversion funnel.
1. Start with the basics!
Goals
Before you start anything, determine what your goals are. Want to get more purchases or new subscribers to the newsletters? It’s important to ask yourself these questions and decide what you want to achieve. The more you are able to pinpoint and narrow down your goals or objectives, the better results you can achieve.
Customer knowledge
Once you’ve clarified to yourself what you want, focus on who you want to do this too. Who will be your customer? Understanding them is also extremely important, as you need to tailor your webpage to them for the right user experience. Find out what their problem is, and what they want, and try to provide a solution. So for a visitor to get from awareness to action, you need to know him so you can tailor your conversion funnel to it.
Additional resource: What companies are in the basic industries field
Tools
Okay, you have what you want to measure and what kind of people, but the question is, what tool will you use to measure? To do this, you need to choose a tool that is suitable for collecting data about the operations you want to measure. Typically, one such tool could be a heatmap that shows you which area of your website was the busiest or what is distracting your visitors. With the right tool, you can see how your visitors are performing on your website, and whether changes may be needed.
2. Do it!
Content
Proper content is essential for visitors to navigate your conversion funnel. However, it doesn’t matter at what stage with what content you’re trying to drive a visitor.
Walking at the top of the conversion funnel is worth posting informative things that grab a person’s attention, like articles.
In the middle part, it is worth providing information about specific products. Be it short demonstration videos, interactive flipbooks or testimonials from previous customers.
Finally, there is nothing left at the bottom of the channel other than to give one last boost, typically with promotional offers.
CTAs
What about the buttons? Well, there are many types of these, you also need to specify the color, size, font, and placement. In order to be as effective as possible, you can easily change them. Here are some tips to keep your changes to a minimum:
First of all, the attention-grabbing text on the button is very important!
Second, pay attention to the color selection and the shape of the button. Don’t be too extreme, but stand out from the website.
Finally, placement and quantity. If there are a lot of buttons on a page, the visitor is confused, so try to place fewer, roughly 2-3 CTAs on a page.
Payment
It is important to know that many times potential customers leave your website at the last minute. This is because there is a lot of information when it comes to payment, they get confused, it may distract others or the last step is simply complicated. To remedy this, here are some tips you may want to consider:
Perhaps most importantly, allow the visitors to pay as a guest, meaning they don’t have to create an account for it.
On the other hand, don’t forget about the speed of the website. If the loading time is long, you can easily lose people.
Finally, trust is key! Give them a money-back guarantee or a free return etc.
3. Analyze and change!
Data
Since you determined at the beginning what instrument and what you want to measure, you have no choice but to analyze. This, however, requires patience. Data analysis should not be based on 1-2 day or 1-2 week results. In the beginning, you should wait, say, a month to get more relevant data. Because the more visitors you can gather information about, the more accurate your data will be. Leave yourself some time for that!
Changes
After analyzing the data, you'll see where there are any errors in your conversion funnel. In this case, it's a good idea to make changes based on your visitors' behavior. For example, if the visitor doesn’t scroll down to the button, move it to another place. But the same is true of a newsletter sent to your audience. Take an A / B test. Do 2 variations that you send out to 2 separate groups and see which one performed better.
Automation
Everything in its time! You have the ability to send out your newsletter to customers automatically. If you have multi-part content that the customer has subscribed to, don’t send him everything at once! Do it more serially, for example, you send him a portion a week. And in the end, give him an offer for something else. This will keep you in touch with him and keep him interested.
Here are some important optimization tips
Mobile-first philosophy
Design a website that is mobile-friendly, as most people today make purchases from their phones. That is, when you create a website, strive for responsiveness to make it work well on all devices! Use shorter content and larger, more visible buttons on the telephone appearance of the website. Also, what is very important is that the contact details and prices are clearly visible and clickable, as this is what people are most interested in. Finally, don't forget about design! Everything looks different on a mobile phone than on a desktop computer.
Webpage load time speed
Strive for speed for the user experience! This applies to the entire conversion funnel. At first, this makes the first impression, since you don't want to wait for probable minutes for a page to load either. Nor is it true in the other stages, if there is a lot of waiting time, visitors will easily become impatient and prefer a competitor. Also, it's good to know that load speed also plays a role in search engine optimization. Don’t want to be the last hit on the list because of a slow website.
Social proof statistics importance
Wouldn't you rather buy from a site that has good reviews or has big brand logos? This will give your prospective customers a sense of authenticity and security. Use social proof statistics like case studies, customer reviews, google reviews and display collaborating partners. Visitors to your site will perceive this as social evidence and will buy from you sooner and with a calmer heart.
Conclusion
So we could see that the conversion funnel has four main sections, each of which needs to be properly designed. The funnel should not be interpreted as a whole, as you can easily slip on small things. And of course, don’t forget about the extra element of keeping those who have already passed through the funnel!
Since both the visitors themselves and the competitors are constantly changing, you should keep up with them as well. Keep track of them so that your website's conversion channel is always as effective as possible! So stay evolving and don’t be intimidated by small changes!