If your website’s not making the sales you hoped for, the first instinct is usually…
“I just need more traffic.”
But what if traffic isn’t the problem?
In this episode, we’re asking a smarter question:
Do you really need more visitors?
Or do you need your current visitors to actually convert?
I’ll walk you through how to tell the difference, what signs to look for, and how to stop pouring energy into traffic before your site is ready to convert it.
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Episode Transcript
If your website's not making the sales
you'd hope for, the firstinstinct usually is I just need
more traffic.
But what if traffic isn't aproblem?
I want us to ask a smarterquestion.
Do you need more visitors or doyou need your current visitors
to actually convert?
I'll walk you through how totell the difference and what
signs to look for and how tostop pouring energy into traffic
(01:11):
before your site is ready toconvert it.
I'll also share one story wherea client had plenty of traffic,
but one homepage tweak doubledtheir sales, and you won't want
to miss it.
Struggling to turn websitetraffic into real sales, you're
not alone and you don't have tofigure it out all yourself.
Welcome to Smarter OnlineBusiness, the podcast for course
(01:32):
creators, coaches, ande-commerce entrepreneurs who
want their websites to convertvisitors into buyers without the
tech overwhelm.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders,a website strategist and
conversion expert with over 20years of experience.
Each episode delivers simple,proven strategies to help you
generate more revenue and makeyour website your smartest sales
tool.
(01:52):
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're talking about do Ihave a traffic problem or do I
have a conversion problem?
So, in other words, do we needmore traffic to our website or
do we need to convert thetraffic we have better?
And one of the reasons we wantto think about that is more
traffic isn't always a greatfix.
If your website isn't convertingalready, isn't, you know, having
(02:15):
those elements in there thathelps it convert, more traffic
isn't going to help you.
It's just going to be a waste oftime, energy, and cause you a
lot of burnout.
It's like pouring water into aleaky bucket.
If you have holes in your bucketand you just add more water to
it, you're not going to getreally anywhere very fast or
(02:36):
very far.
You're still going to leak thatwater out the bucket, right?
So we want to make sure that ourwebsite is converting those
customers.
So what are some signs that wemight have a conversion problem
rather than a traffic problem?
You're going to want to look atsome analytics software.
You want to look at are yougetting visitors, but are your
opt-ins low?
(02:57):
Do people click around but theydon't take action?
How long do they stay on yourwebsite?
Do they, you know, only staythere for just a few seconds?
If you're not staying very long,there's something wrong with the
website.
Whether it's the copy, whetherit's the layout, something is
wrong to make them not confidenton the website.
(03:19):
Another thing that could behappening is you could be
attracting the wrong visitors toyour website, ones that aren't a
good match for you.
So this is kind of a you have toplay around with this to figure
out what actually is theproblem.
And this also is a red flag.
If you're running ads and yoursales aren't increasing, then
you're probably having somethingwrong with the conversion of the
(03:41):
website.
So when you bring in, so as longas your ads are written well,
this is a good test.
If your ads are written well andthey attract the right people,
but you're not getting salesfrom those ads, then there's
usually something wrong with awebsite.
So that's one way to try todetermine whether you have the
wrong people there or whetheryour website isn't converting
right.
(04:02):
So if people are asking for yourwebsite link or you know they're
getting there, but they're stillnot buying, your messaging is
probably off, or your user flowis off, or is confusing and
they're just not quite sure whatto do.
And that one client I mentioned,that homepage had great visuals,
but zero clarity on who theyhelped.
(04:22):
One small copy update and astronger call to action, and
they started converting theirexisting traffic almost
immediately.
So then what do we focus onbefore driving more traffic to
our website?
We want to make sure you haveone clear, compelling headline
at the top.
We want to make sure you conveyexactly who you serve and what
(04:43):
you do and how you help them.
Think of this benefit driven,not um feature-driven.
And then we want to have anobvious next step.
What is that next call to actionon the homepage?
Something easy to find.
We want that call to action tobe a button color that stands
out from the rest of yourdesign.
It still goes with your design,but it's the color that you
(05:05):
don't use very often.
And then we want to have easy tofollow navigation.
I recommend usually for umservice providers, course
creators, and coaches, five toseven max links at the top of
your website.
If you're e-commerce, then youwill have more links than that,
but we still probably want tokeep it under 10 to 15.
If you're e-commerce, we want tojust have those main focal
(05:28):
points you want people to clickon.
And then we want to make sure weare mobile friendly and fast
loading because most people willshop on your website first on
mobile.
They may complete thetransaction on mobile or they
may go to desktop, but manytimes we have our devices in our
hands when we're curious aboutsomething or want to search for
something, and we want to makesure we look great on mobile and
(05:51):
that it's fast.
And then we want to have trustbuilding very early on and
throughout your pages.
We want to have social proofphotos of you if you're a um,
you know, your own brand, um,great photos of your products if
you are e-commerce, um,testimonials, reviews of your
(06:11):
products or services, all thesethings build trust.
You also can build trust byhaving a blog that is regularly
updated.
So let's say you have a blog butyou haven't updated in like six
months.
It's somewhat better to not linkto it.
This gets a little tricky withSEO, though.
That's why I kind of hesitatedthere.
Um, it's almost better to notlink to it from the homepage, at
(06:35):
least not prominently if you'renot updating it, because that
you know erodes trust incustomers if you haven't paid
attention to your website forover six months.
But if you do have a blog andyou're updating at least once a
month, that shows the customersthat you regularly update your
site.
You're always there, you're youknow, working on things.
It also helps Google and thesearch engines to see that you
(06:58):
value your website and that it'sreally important.
So then I also talked aboutearlier on you might not be
bringing in the right visitors.
That is related to search engineoptimization and or social media
posts.
So we want to make sure that oursearch engine optimization, um,
the keywords that we are beingpicked up by the major search
(07:19):
engines match what we do and whowe serve.
So if your website is justdisjointed, so if your messaging
isn't quite right, if you're notspeaking to your ideal client,
that's going to affect who youbring in from search engines.
So while it's not somethingsuper fancy you need to do to
optimize for SEO necessarily forthis, we just need to make sure
(07:42):
that our website copy is reallydialed in to our ideal clients
and who we're serving becausethat helps the search engines
find you for the right people.
Now, there's obviously more toSEO, and you can like search on
our uh podcast website,smarteronlinebusiness.com, for
more SEO-related specific uhpodcast episodes, but just keep
(08:04):
in mind in general, you may youmust be speaking to your ideal
client to bring in the rightsearches and optimization um
leads.
Same for social media.
If you're not if your socialmedia messaging is disjointed,
if it's not the same type ofmessaging, style of messaging,
um, words you're using as is onyour website.
(08:27):
If you have a social media postand they expect one thing, but
then they click on the link andgo to your website and they see
something else, that's going toerode trust as well.
So we want to make sure ourmessaging is consistent across
all platforms and all the waysthat we get in to our website.
That helps build conversions,that helps build trust, and that
(08:47):
helps make your website a lotmore effective.
So if you're tired of posting,promoting, or even running ads
and you're still not seeingresults, it may be time to stop
worrying about traffic and startoptimizing your website to
convert.
And that's what we do inside theconverting website course.
I help you build a site thatworks for you.
We work hand in hand, side byside with QA calls where I'm on
(09:10):
the phone with you answeringyour specific questions.
And it's one that turns visitorsinto buyers with clear
messaging.
We work on smart structure andbetter flow.
So if you're interested in that,go ahead on over to
smarteronlinebusiness.comforward slash TCW.
And you're always welcome tojoin our free Facebook group.
Just go ahead on over toSmarterOnline Business.com
(09:32):
forward slash Facebook.
And then that bonus tip I wantto tell you about.
There are three things that Iwant to do after listening to
this podcast episode.
I want you to check if yourwebsite is ready to convert
before pushing more traffic toit.
So first off, look at your headhomepage headline.
Does it say who you help andwhat you offer?
(09:53):
I want you to check yourbuttons.
Are they clear?
Not just learn more or submit.
Are they actually clear?
And then is your opt-in abovethe fold and easy to find?
Or if you do e-commerce, is yourcontact information easy to
find?
Fix those three things alonecould make the next hundred
visitors more valuable than theprevious 1000.
(10:15):
That's all we have for thisweek's episode of the podcast.
I hope you thoroughly enjoyed itand I hope it gave you some
action steps on what to look atto help your website convert
better.
Small tweaks can make really bigimpacts.
Make sure to rate and review uson Apple Podcasts, and we will
see you next week.
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