How to build a website that converts?

Websites today are not just the digital face of your business as they used to be. They can be much more. For example, if implemented properly they can function as a lead magnet for your business that can keep your sales engine going. There are so many technologies that can integrate with your website and help you to achieve these business goals.

But what are the business goals that my website can achieve?

Before you work on a new website project, it is important that you identify and define the major objectives that you want to achieve.

• If you need to increase your sales, you need more leads.
• Do you need more clicks? Or page views? Higher page views increase your credibility in the industry and ends up improving your reach and search rankings.
• Do you want the visitors to purchase something through your website? Or do you want them to contact you? If you are an e-commerce website you would want more purchases but if you were a service company, you would need people to reach out.
• How many visitors do you need to reach these goals? Working backwards from your conversion rate, you can see how many visitors you would need on your website.

All these questions and many more like these are examples of some of the objectives that your website can help you meet.

It is important to note that you cannot (or should not) focus on all of them at the same time. For example, qualifying your leads through a website quiz works towards a different goal than prompting them to buy your service online. Thus, it is particularly important that your website design and user journey aligns with your business needs.

That is all good, but how do I define the right goals for my website?

Based on your business needs you can define the goals for your website. A widely used framework for any type of goals and you might have come across is – SMART.

S- Specific

M- Measurable

A- Achievable

R- Realistic

T- Time Bound

Let us run this framework on a real-life example. We recently launched a completely new website for our client. One of the goals they had was to increase expand their geographic reach outside of Queensland, Australia where we are based. So, how did we make this goal SMART?

S – Client should be known as a respected custom software developer in all other states of Australia, not just Queensland. We would know we are successful if 40% of our monthly traffic is from within Australia but outside of Queensland.

M – This target can be measured through different analytics tools available that provide site traffic information (such as Google Analytics).

A -The goal is achievable because currently, we have 15% of our traffic coming from outside of Queensland. If we use our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay per Click_ campaigns to target visitors from outside Queensland, we can bump the number up to 40%.

R – For a software development agency that has already worked with businesses in different states as well as the federal government, the goal is realistic.

T- We must achieve our goal by the end of first half of 2022.

For those of your curious minds reading this, currently, 79% of our traffic (as of Aug 9, 2024) is from outside of Queensland.

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Thanks, but my objective is to drive more sales

Sure, if generating more leads and converting them is your objective, you should design your website with the sales funnel in mind. The sales funnel is an introductory marketing concept that defines the various stages of a buyer’s interaction with you.

Let’s discuss the sales funnel in more depth

Awareness – This is the top part of the funnel. At this stage, the potential customer has just come across your product or service. As the visitors on your website move through the funnel, many will drop off, but some will move forward. Therefore, it is important that your website is easy to navigate, and the visitors can find the information they are looking for.

Usually this is the lead generation stage where the users will land on a particular piece of information such as a blog or home page. At this point, you do not have to go for hard sales but try to genuinely pique their curiosity. If you can achieve this, they are more likely to move forward.

It is important that their journey on the platform and call to actions (CTA) are well defined.

Interest - Once you have satisfied the initial curiosity and they have started looking for more information on your website, this is the interest stage. The visitor would now read other blogs or go to the ‘About Us’ page to learn about the business. They might even check out your team and your processes.

To double down on this, if you also utilise Search Engine Marketing (SEM), you can target this same set of customers when they are looking for similar information again.

For the client website, if you liked the information you have read, you would go and read about theri team and processes. You may even download resources from their website. This is an example of how you can progress the visitors through to the next stage.

Decision- The ones that remain have by now decided to interact with your business. At this point, CTAs such as ‘Learn more,’ ‘Testimonials’ and ‘Download Our Guide’ among others are useful. They will read case studies, find reviews about your business, check product or services details, pricing options and download available material.  

If you are selling products through your platform, think of the option as ‘Add To Cart.’ By this time, they are satisfied with what they have read and finalising their options.

Taking forward our website’s example, if you have decided to explore our services because you wanted to get a new website built, you may check out their services. You would also go and read some case studies about their past work.

Action - And finally, they convert. This is usually an exceedingly small percentage of visitors and varies from industry to industry. However, at this stage the visitor has become a customer. This is a transactional stage where they would either “Checkout,” click on “Contact us” or “Book a meeting.”

By this stage, the customer is happy to pay for your product or service. For a business-to-business transaction, they would give you their time for you to show them how your product or service is going to solve their needs.

For us, this is usually when a customer would book a initial consultation with them or contact them through the form.

Great stuff! Finally, how do I measure these results?

For each of the stages above you would need to setup KPIs that are measurable. Let us see each of them one by one.

Awareness - At this stage you would use SEO and SEM to increase awareness about your brand. Some examples of metrics that can be measured at this stage are:

• Number of visitors
• Search result ranking
• Organic vs Inorganic traffic

Interest/Decision – This is the middle of your sales funnel and defines how the users have interacted after landing on your website. These KPIs could be: -

• Number of pages visited
• Product or Service pages viewed
• Sign up
• Bounce rate

Conversion – At the final stage of the funnel, we can measure:-

• Forms submitted
• Checkout completed
• Purchases abandoned
• Meetings Booked

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So, there you are. Now you know how to identify, define, and measure the goals for your website that align with your business needs.

If you would like us to help you build a website for you that meets your goals, contact us.

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