“ All your website can do is get the prospects coming there from other marketing activities to call , opt in or engage , so your website ’ s ONLY job is to convert visitors into leads . Therefore , your website doesn ’ t ' produce ' leads — your MARKETING does that .”
“ All your website can do is get the prospects coming there from other marketing activities to call , opt in or engage , so your website ’ s ONLY job is to convert visitors into leads . Therefore , your website doesn ’ t ' produce ' leads — your MARKETING does that .”
How many leads SHOULD your website produce ?
You ready for this ? Zero . You heard me … none . That ’ s because your website doesn ’ t make cold-calls , send out emails , stand at a booth at a trade show or knock on a prospective customer ’ s door and convince them to buy . All your website can do is get the prospects coming there from other marketing activities to call , opt in or engage , so your website ’ s ONLY job is to convert visitors into leads . Therefore , your website doesn ’ t “ produce ” leads — your MARKETING does that .
I suppose you could argue that if someone searches “ IT Services ” in your area and your website comes up , they click on it , and they opt in , call , etc ., your website “ produced ” that lead . But I would argue that Google search produced that lead , and your SEO plan and activities executed through your website facilitated that opportunity .
This is hard for many MSPs to get their head around , so they make the mistake of paying someone $ 10,000 –$ 30,000 to design a website with the intention of getting it to produce more leads and are then shocked to discover it didn ’ t produce any better , or only produced marginally better , than their old website . So , here ’ s my first big recommendation : Have a well-designed , working website with excellent copy that converts , then take the money you save on expensive design and put it into DRIVING TRAFFIC to your website .
In fact , I ’ ll argue that your website only really needs five pages :
1 ) Home 2 ) Services 3 ) About Us
4 ) Blog 5 ) Contact Us
Testimonials can be put throughout the site , and an offer should be on critical pages like the top of the home page and the Contact Us page . Then use LANDING PAGES for offers and campaigns ( more on this in a minute ).
If you look at your website ’ s analytics , you ’ ll discover the two most visited pages on your site from organic traffic are the Home page and the About Us page . Therefore , those pages need to be very well-written so a prospective customer is convinced to call or opt in .
Conversion : The TRUE measure of your website ’ s effectiveness .
Now that we ’ ve established your website doesn ’ t produce any leads ( your marketing does ), how DO you know if your website is effective or needs work ? You look at conversion .
Conversion is a measurement of how many unique website visitors call your office or fill in a form . If you had 2,000 visitors to your website last month and generated two phone calls and two form fills from that traffic , that ’ s a total of four leads and a 0.2 % conversion ( 4 ÷ 2,000 ). Most websites convert at around 1 %– 2 %. E-commerce sites tend to convert higher at 2 %– 5 %.
MSPs ’ websites tend to convert at a lower rate , around 0.1 %– 1 % on average . However , those are averages and do not necessarily mean your site has to convert that low . Further , that ’ s a measurement of your generic website with general traffic , not necessarily specific landing pages you are using in a marketing campaign that drive people from an email , ad , or other marketing promotion to a landing page .
So , the first step in figuring out if your website is converting well or not is to get a true measurement of its conversion . That requires you to PROPERLY install and configure either Google Analytics or some other website tracking software to get accurate data . Over the years , I ’ ve had members make radical changes to their websites because they didn ’ t “ feel ” it was producing anymore , or they were bored with it , only to discover that the changes instantly stopped all lead flow . Further , I ’ ve seen MSPs taken advantage of by web design companies who convince them their site is ugly , old , and unproductive , then sell them a $ 20,000 website project WITHOUT ever even looking at the DATA for its current conversion ! It ’ s shameful . Would you allow a doctor to do major surgery on you without data in the form of X-rays , MRIs , blood tests , etc .? I should hope not . This is why a critical first step in improving your website ’ s performance is to get a real and true reading of conversion .
Now , which analytics software is best ? Google Analytics is free and very powerful , but it ’ s a nightmare to figure out and can cause you to waste a lot of time
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