SBX 27: 5 Website Mistakes That Are Killing Your Conversions

When it comes to generating leads and sales for your business, is your website less like Ron Popeil and more like Willy Loman?

Well, don’t feel bad if it is, most business websites are setup to fail from the start.

Your website does not have you, the all knowing business owner, standing by to deliver your magical sales touch every time a new person comes to your website.  Your website is its own standalone salesperson and needs to have all of the right tools to convert casual visitors into hot leads for your business.

So how do you do this?  For starters, you need to know what elements need to be on your website to give it the best chance to convert.  You also need to know that great design does not equal a website that will convert.  Amazon.com isn’t very pretty, but it works like a Mule when it comes to creating sales.  Most people place a higher importance on visual design than on the words on your website.  Great design is nice, but it’s the words that sell.

Come join us in episode 27 of The Small Business Express as we discuss the strategies and elements that go into creating a high converting website.

Listen and Learn…

• Why most business website suck at converting visitors into leads
• How to map out your entire website to lead visitors towards your conversion goals
• What landing pages are and how to use them effectively
• Why copywriting plays second fiddle to pretty design and why it’s the most important thing on your website
• What’s a Value Proposition and why websites without one are killing their conversions
• How to craft every page on your website so it supports your conversion strategy

Action Steps from this episode:

1. Know what your main goal on the website will be. If it’s to contact you or to download a report, look at your website with a critical eye and see if that’s what the page is setup to do. If not, then start restructuring your website to lead people down that path.

2. Avoid common conversion killing mistakes. We talked about your value proposition, creating clarity on your website and removing unnecessary distractions. The point is to make the path to conversion as clear and easy as possible, so the when your designer wants to add a beautiful image slider or fancy fonts that are barely legible, tell them , no thank you! Clarity always trumps fancyiness when it comes to converting visitors into leads. Make the path to conversion very easy and very clear.

3. Create a conversion funnel for your website. Now that you know your goal for the website, you understand what junk needs to be removed and the important elements that need to be put into place, you can create a conversions funnel for your website and start mapping out how each of your important pages are contrubuting to your new conversion strategy.

Links and Resources:

1. Hemingway App is a great writing tool that Mike likes to use that helps you keep your writing focused and without the fluff.

2. We didn’t mention it this episode (but have in the past), but the Conversion XL blog is a great resource to learn everything you need to learn about website conversions.

3. 5 Mistakes That Kill Website Conversions.  A recent blog post Gary wrote about website conversions

4. Fiverr.com.  Online marketplace where you can get thousands of different tasks done quickly for only $5.  You have to sift through some of the junk, but there are some real gems there is you look.
5. Mike’s epic interview with the great Kevin Rogers (SBX 25) about using testimonials to turn visitors into customers

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