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“How to Make Your Website Work as a Sales Funnel”

A workshop held by Jon Walter for the Creative Cumulus Facebook Community

This workshop was an in-depth exploration of some of the topics raised in Jon’s talk at Networking In… The Cloud a few weeks prior.

It focused on the following key topics – click to skip ahead to each relevant section and watch recaps of the session below.

Establishing a baseline of metrics

Building on the baseline for increased conversion

Traffic


Key takeaways:

 

  • Setting and forgetting the Google Analytics tag won’t give you much meaningful information. Set up goals to begin to understand the paths your web visitors take through your website and where the blockages are.
  • Don’t be disheartened if your traffic is low – you’re right at the start of this journey and the first step is setting your own personal benchmark. Avoid comparing with others who are likely at a different stage to your business.

Useful resources:

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Conversion Rate

 

Key takeaways:

  • Decide on your conversion goal – this could be either filling out an enquiry form, contacting you, or buying a product or service directly.
  • To work out your conversion rate, take a time period (e.g. one month) and divide the number of your defined “conversion” by the total number of visitors to your site during that period.

Useful resources

  • If you’ve set up Google Analytics properly you can make use of the Conversion Paths report to show you what actions your customers typically take on your website before they convert and optimise for those.

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Search Rankings

 

Key takeaways:

  • Even if you’re just starting out, it’s important to get a clear understanding of which search keywords your customers are using to find your website. Use these to inform your content strategy so more potential customers can find you.

Useful resources

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Site Performance

 

Key takeaways:

  • Google is set to update its algorithm in May 2021 and will heavily penalise any website that doesn’t perform well on a mobile device. It’s critical that you address this urgently if you currently receive any proportion of your site traffic through organic search.

Useful resources

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Setting Website Goals

 

Key takeaways:

  • Fill in the following phrases about your website in order to keep a clear picture of what it’s supposed to be doing for your business.

My website gets [ ] visitors per month, with a conversion rating of [ ]%.

It ranks on [ ] page of Google for the following keywords: [ ].

It loads in [ ] seconds.

Visitors who come to my website are able to [ ].

This website is for [ ].

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Accessibility

 

Key takeaways:

  • Flat images with text on them (like those created in Canva, Photoshop etc.) are unreadable by screen readers. If you must use them, add a meaningful alt tag that includes the image text, but also consider whether you need e.g. testimonials to be in an image format in the first place.
  • Keep in mind colour contrast and font size when designing your site. Use online checkers to identify whether you’re meeting accessibility guidelines.
  • Don’t use headers to change text size. Improper use of headers can make it confusing for users with a disability to navigate your site, and can also impact your search visibility as Google won’t understand fully what your site is about.
  • We should carry accessibility best practices over to social media too in order to be fully inclusive to our audiences.
  • There doesn’t need to be a trade-off between accessibility and usability/ design. 

Useful resources

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Site Structure and Content Planning

 

Key takeaways:

  • Break your content down into different pages and sections, each targeting different stages of the AIDA funnel. Google will struggle to fully understand what your site is about if it’s only a single page targeting multiple keywords.
  • Interlace each page with testimonials and client lists rather than having separate pages for them. Adding social proof within the context of your service offerings is a more streamlined way of building credibility as someone navigates your website.
  • Use your headers and footers to guide people through the funnel. Keep your most important services front and center (or, left, if you’ve got a traditional header layout) and always have a call to action at the top for those who are ready to convert straight away. Don’t let your visitors get to the bottom of any page without options on where they could navigate to next – be it a call to action or further content.
  • Use a variety of content to keep visitors interested as they browse your site and move through the sales funnel. Targeted landing pages, and video done well can be great tools to add. Consider offloading video hosting to a third party platform like YouTube to preserve your web hosting space if it’s limited.

 

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