What is a website conversion funnel?
A website conversion funnel is like a map that shows the steps people take on your website before they become paying customers. By dividing this journey into different parts, you can discover areas where you can make things better and increase the likelihood of conversions.
The website conversion funnel is made up of four stages: Getting people to know about your website, sparking their interest, creating a desire for your product or service, and finally getting them to take action and make a purchase.
Let's go through each step:
Awareness: This is when someone new visits your website. To attract visitors, businesses use different methods like ads, content marketing, SEO, and social media.
Catching Interest: After getting people to your site, you want to spark their curiosity about your product or service. You can do this by using pop-ups, engaging content, products, videos, and more.
Creating Desire: Now, you want your potential customers to really want what you offer. To achieve this, highlight how your product solves a problem and what makes it unique compared to others.
Taking Action: This is when the conversion occurs, such as a purchase or email subscription. It's the moment your visitors become customers.
You might wonder how many people actually reach the "action" stage. Well, only a portion of your prospects do (in fact, the average conversion rate is less than 4%). However, with effective funnel optimization, you can increase that percentage and go even higher.
How to optimize your website conversion funnel
1. Draft a customer journey map
First, let's explore how your website visitors interact with your site.
To do this, we'll create a customer journey map that illustrates how people access and engage with your website.
A typical customer journey map provides insights into:
The specific pages or paths customers follow on your site.
Their actions and behaviors on these pages.
The emotions or impressions your website evokes in them.
The challenges they face at each stage of the purchasing process.
Possible solutions to address these challenges.
For instance:
Here's an example of a customer journey map for someone interested in purchasing a new car 👇 As you can observe, the customer may take various steps before ultimately deciding to make the purchase.
Understanding customer journey maps is easy to grasp: shoppers don't follow a straight route on your website.
Mapping their journey helps you understand their behavior and identify areas for improvement in order to build a strong website conversion funnel.
For instance:
In the car buyer journey mentioned earlier, we can improve their experience by:
Introducing a wishlist feature, allowing them to save and compare car options.
Implementing a user account feature for a personalized and convenient browsing experience.
Ensuring the search function works effectively, enabling them to find relevant car choices.
By incorporating these enhancements, we can provide a better overall experience for potential car buyers, increasing the chances of successful conversions.
2. Set conversion goals
Defining a conversion goal is crucial as it guides your site users and assists them in reaching their desired destination. When you have a well-defined goal, it becomes simpler to design a website that enhances the conversion path.
Your website's conversion goals should align with the nature of your business.
For example,
Some businesses may aim to increase sales.
Observe the numerous sales promotions and buttons for product categories on their website.
Examples of goals for online stores:
Get sales
Build an email list
Get customer loyalty program sign-ups
3. Create customer-focused content
By incorporating videos, blog posts, case studies, and product reviews into your website, you can enhance the overall experience and generate more interest in your product. As customers engage with different types of content, it becomes easier to nurture their interest and guide them through the sales process.
To maximize the impact of your content, optimize your web pages by including a clear call-to-action. These call-to-actions act as signposts, directing customers through each stage of your sales process and encouraging them to take desired actions.
By strategically combining valuable content with effective call-to-action, you can create a compelling and seamless customer journey on your website, leading to increased conversions and customer satisfaction.
4. Encourage to convert
In some cases, potential customers may already be familiar with your brand but have not yet made a purchase. At this stage, it's important to provide them with an extra push.
This is where incentives like discounts, free trial offers, consultations or guides, free shipping, and more come into play.
Let's focus on discounts as an example.
Discounts serve as powerful lead magnets that motivate customers to take the next step, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter. That's why online stores often rely on discounts to drive conversions.
By offering discounts, online stores have successfully converted 5% of their website visitors. Implementing this strategy can be highly beneficial for online businesses, saving time and quickly capturing email addresses.
By strategically using incentives like discounts, you can encourage potential customers to take action, increase conversions, and build a valuable email list for your online store.
5. Monitor your performance
Regularly monitoring your sales funnel's performance is essential to evaluate whether it is meeting its goals. You can track the effectiveness of your sales funnel by analyzing various metrics, including:
Traffic: Measure the number of store visits, website visits, or page views to assess the overall reach of your funnel.
Goal Conversions: Keep an eye on key actions such as product checkouts, email sign-ups, or other desired conversions to gauge the effectiveness of your funnel in driving desired outcomes.
Conversation Paths: Analyze the sequence of page transitions within your funnel to identify any bottlenecks or areas that require improvement.
Abandonment: Monitor metrics like cart abandonment or page bounce rate to understand where potential customers are dropping off and make necessary adjustments.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you access and analyze these website performance metrics. By navigating to the "Acquisition" section and selecting "Overview," you can access a comprehensive dashboard displaying general information about your website's performance.
Here's an example of how the dashboard might appear, providing valuable insights into your website's overall performance.
With a dashboard like that, you can check the sources of your site traffic and the conversion from each source. Countercheck these reports with your previous reports on website performance.
Conclusion
Your website conversion funnel is an essential part of your marketing effort. While you work hard to capture leads for your business, the ultimate goal is that they convert to paying customers.
Apply these tips and get closer to achieving your marketing goals and to converting those prospective customers.