The online sales funnel can be broken down and analyzed into countless steps. But, for most industrial manufacturers, there are two main goals: Attract visitors to your website, and get those visitors to convert to RFQs and ultimately sales! Many small businesses struggle to differentiate between the two, which can lead to ineffective websites and fewer conversions. Although seemingly similar, these two stages require very different tactics and strategies for success.
Step 1: Attract Traffic to your Website
Attracting traffic to your site used to have tricks and secrets to it. SEO (search engine optimization) was a booming business and things like keyword stuffing and link farms could push a site to the top of Google’s results. In modern times, those marketing tactics are dead and gone. The only “trick” to modern SEO is hard work.
According to HubSpot, the industry leader on inbound marketing technology, “Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts.” Content creation and SEO are no longer different tactics; they have merged to essentially be the same thing. Producing more content drives more organic traffic to your website, which requires regular effort and dedication on your part.
Outside of creating content to drive organic traffic, you can also use search marketing (SEM) to drive paid traffic through programs like Google AdWords and Bing ads. These services allow you to pay for your website to show up at the top of the results when someone searches Google using a term of your choice.
Adding new content and paying for search ads are generally the two main ways to increase traffic to your site, but what happens once you get users to visit your site?
Step 2: Convert Visitors to RFQ’s (and Ultimately Sales)
Well, this is where the work shifts towards your sales funnel. If your site is set up well for search engines and you are driving tons of traffic, but there are no RFQ’s coming in, the problem is likely with your website. Small factors can play a huge role in converting traffic into leads. Without a proper analysis of your web traffic, it is hard to pinpoint the exact reason you’re not getting conversions. However, some basic website “must haves” include relevant CTA’s on each page, making sure your marketing efforts match what is actually being sold on your site, and having an aesthetically pleasing design with simple, user-friendly navigation.
While your website does not need constant optimization for search engines like it used to, it does require upkeep and regular analysis to make sure the traffic you are driving to your site is not wasted.
Web marketing is not easy, but the more you understand about how your website handles traffic, the more you can convert visitors into sales. Driving traffic to an unproductive site will only do so much for your business. You also need to make sure that you are moving your visitors into your sales funnel. If you have any questions on where you web traffic is coming from, where it’s going, or how your website can be more effective, shoot us an e-mail. We are always happy to help!