Image via istockphoto
Written by Eric Gockel
Did you make any resolutions for the new year? If you haven’t, here are some of our own that we’re constantly trying to improve.
Measure
The old quote “What gets measured gets managed” holds true with your website. If you’re not already measuring something, it’s easy to get started.
Set up a Google analytics account so you can see how much traffic you’re getting, where users are coming from, and what pages they’re looking at.
Next, set up some Goals! I’m often surprised when I see client accounts with no goals set up in their analytics. Again, these are fairly easy to set up. You can add goals to track:
- E-book downloads
- Whitepaper downloads
- Newsletter signups
- Account creations
- Trial signups
- Leads
Once these are set up you can dig in deeper and see which sources are driving higher quality (read: converting) traffic to your website to see if you can optimize for traffic from that source, whether that be creating more original content, marketing on other websites, and so on.
Test
Don’t argue about what the text should say on your homepage or what the image should be. Test it! There are many resources available online to start simple testing various aspects of your website from home pages, lead generation forms and well as registration/purchase funnels.
If you send out newsletters using a service like Mailchimp, there’s no excuse to at least test something each time to learn a little more about your leads and prospects.
The images that show up on your Netflix start screen are no accident.
Improve
While you’re measuring and testing, look for opportunities to improve workflows on your website and allow your users to complete tasks faster like checking out, registering for a service or trying to find content that might lead to a sale.
“Clearing rocks from a stream…”
— as Lou Friedmann from Bento for Business would say.
Check with your support staff and anyone that interfaces with customers to see if there are any patterns of complaints or suggestions that you can implement to make their lives easier. You can also employ the service of a user interface (UX) designer or information architect (IA) to review your website or web app with a fresh perspective.
Feed
Content is being added to the web every second. If you haven’t added content to your website in months (or years?) you risk falling behind and losing relevance. To stand out in search, and get links from other websites you constantly need to “feed the machine”.
According to a study by HubSpot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.
Another statistic was that B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0 – 1 times per month.
But more importantly, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 4.5X more leads than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.
Always Be Closing
This classic sales phrase is a little different when carried out online. You can’t pressure folks to buy your product or service when they come to your website, they’ll just leave. Your first job is to qualify the visitors to make sure there’s a right fit and they’re in the right place.
Did they do a search on rubber boots (shoes) and wound up on your car parts website? Check your stats and see what keywords are driving traffic to your website and which ones users are bouncing on. If they are for words and phrases that are relevant to your site, see if the landing page can be optimized to reduce bounces.
Even if those visitors aren’t ready to buy today, try to make something available that they can take action on today, like sign up for newsletter announcing upcoming specials, events, etc. Differentiate yourself with a blog filled with posts that make you stand out from your competition by educating and entertaining your visitors.
Good Luck
You don’t have to do all these tomorrow obviously, but try something new each week and see what works for you and your team. You may not see results right away, but with testing and measuring, you’ll at least see your progress and hopefully learn a few things along the way.
Please share your goals how they’re working out for you in the comments below!