One of the main reasons why businesses of all sizes are investing their time and money in developing a website is because they consider it to be a marketing channel that can help their business grow. The website is considered a cost-effective way of generating leads, orders, or both for businesses. Ideally, the business would like almost all the visitors to the website to convert into leads and orders. However, usually, only a small number of visitors will perform the desired action like purchasing a product, filling a form, or contacting via phone which is called a conversion. The website conversion rate is an indication of how effective the website is as a marketing tool.
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Calculating conversion
Typically a well-marketed business website has a large number of daily visitors. While some of these visitors may be the business staff, a large number of these visitors are potential customers of the product or service. If these visitors find that the business is selling the product/service they require, in case of an online retailer they may purchase the product from the website, which is a conversion. In other cases, the visitor may fill the contact form or contact on phone for a conversion. The website conversions are usually calculated in the form of conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors who convert into a lead using analytics tools
Conversion process
There are multiple steps in the process of converting a visitor into a lead. First, the business should make people aware of their products/services, so that they visit the website. The business should be selling items or services which the visitor is interested in purchasing so that the visitor will take further action. The website should persuade the visitor to purchase the product or fill the form, using a call to action (CTA) or a similar incentive. If the visitor is then convinced that the product/ service is what he required, he will take action to generate a lead or order, resulting in a conversion.
Benefits
Every business wishes to increase its sales to boost its revenues, so leads and orders are important. Compared to large companies, which have a huge marketing budget, most small companies have only limited resources for marketing and lead generation. The business website is an important marketing tool for small businesses since the lead generation process is largely automated. Online advertising or search engines help in making people aware of the business, its products, services, and if the website is optimized for conversions, the conversion rate will be fairly high, with little additional effort.
Improving conversion rate
Most business owners lose conversions because their website is not optimized. It is important to use tools like Google Analytics to monitor the behavior of website visitors and make changes accordingly to improve conversion rates. Using a call to action repeatedly on the website, compelling headings, images, and easy-to-use navigation can increase the conversion rate to a great extent. The website should be mobile friendly and visitors should be asked for their feedback on the website so that it can be improved.