Your website looks great. Traffic is on the rise. You’re running a few Facebook ads, and you’re sending out newsletters. Things are going pretty well – except that pesky sales column is still stuck at $0. What gives?
Your demographics are off
You’re clearly targeting well enough to increase your traffic, but something is going wrong if none of those visitors are biting. In this case, you might want to look at your demographics.
If you’re using fairly vague customer profiles, try zeroing in on a smaller, focused, and hopefully more engaged audience. Take a look at your CTR to see who is actually engaging with your posts on social media, and try targeting different niche demographics instead of a wide swath.
Doing this could help you find a more narrow and exact customer profile that has intention to buy.
IF YOU’RE USING FAIRLY VAGUE CUSTOMER PROFILES, TRY ZEROING IN ON A SMALLER, FOCUSED, AND HOPEFULLY MORE ENGAGED AUDIENCE.
Your keywords don’t match your goals
Take a look at what keywords are driving your traffic – there are a couple things that can go wrong here.
First, are your visitors just seeking out information? You may have an active keyword that’s drawing people in that have no intention to buy — “best laptop processors” vs. “cost-effective laptops.” If people are going to your site to find out more about a product they’re interested in, they are extremely unlikely to convert. Try ramping up the keywords that are more sales-focused.
Second: are you “tricking” people into visiting your website? Check the popular keywords to see if they’re directing your visitors to relevant pages for what they want. If they’re looking for a comparison list and being directed to a product page, they’re going to leave your site immediately, and that means you’ve found a successful keyword…but not for you.
You aren’t telling them what to do
This is a huge problem with social media campaigns in particular, but can be a problem with websites as well.
Take a second look at those social media ads you’re running. What is your viewer supposed to do? Visit your site? Sign up for a free trial? Download this whitepaper? Make sure you’re telling them to do that, clearly and immediately. Try experimenting with different copy for your call to action to see what works best.
If your CTR is high, meaning that people are engaging with your ad (either by liking, commenting, or clicking the link), they may like the ad but just not know what you want them to do from there.
On your website, make sure your call to action button isn’t too hard to find, and is as concise as possible.
Your website is not actually that nice
We know, your website is your pride and joy. But you’ve been working on it for too long, you’re too close to it, and you have no idea what a first-time user is experiencing. Things that seem obvious to you will not be obvious to your user.
If you’re getting visitors but no sales, it’s time to experiment with some A/B testing, and potentially invest in some site testers. You need to find out what they don’t like or don’t understand so you can fix it. Whether that means upgrading your checkout experience to involve less clicks or creating a smarter dynamic search feature that anticipates what customers are looking for, it’s a task that requires some elbow grease if you’re to improve sales.
But how do you figure all that out?
Well, that’s where the data comes in. You need to invest in a tool that can give you relevant and accurate data about where your visitors are bouncing or converting, how much time they’re spending on each area of your site, and how they’re navigating to different areas. All this data will help you see everything through the eyes of your user, so that you can make necessary changes to make their experience a positive one.
YOU NEED TO INVEST IN A TOOL THAT CAN GIVE YOU RELEVANT AND ACCURATE DATA ABOUT WHERE YOUR VISITORS ARE BOUNCING OR CONVERTING.
You don’t look good on mobile
As you know, mobile is the name of the game — clearly, because of those social media campaigns you’re running. But there is no faster way to alienate a mobile user than to not make your website optimized for mobile users.
Is it formatted correctly? Is there a clear way to get to the menu and navigate around the page? Are the buttons visible and not hidden behind weirdly-misplaced text? Is the clickable area of a button too small or too large?
All that increased traffic without the payoff could be because your mobile visitors love your ads but are bouncing because of poor design for tablets and phones.
Getting your website up and running and starting some ad campaigns is a great start, but there’s a lot more work to do. Getting an increase in traffic is the first step; the next one is to make more sales! Hopefully these tips helped you think about where you might be making missteps, and how to steer yourself back in the right direction.
Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.