12 Techniques to receive more enquires from your website

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "12 Techniques to receive more enquires from your website"

Leonard Allen
8 years ago
Views:

12 Techniques to receive more enquires from your website At Flow20, approx. 70% of our work involves designing and developing websites for our clients.

1 12 Techniques to receive more enquires from your website At Flow20, approx. 70% of our work involves designing and developing websites for our clients. And, if there s anything else we love as much as doing that, it s testing websites and finding ways to make them work better. In other words, improving their conversion rate - the % of total visitors that will make an enquiry or purchase something (we re big fans of Google Website Optimizer and Visual Website Optimizer). The techniques presented in this guide is the result of countless days of testing various websites with real users, carrying out analysis of test results, testing again with improvements and so on until we couldn t find any significant room for improvement anymore. We hope you find this guide as useful as we do. So, lets get started. 1. Phone number If you are a small business, this will be the most important piece of information that you can have on your website and ideally, you want this to be seen in as many places as possible. Your business contact phone should be placed, in addition to your contact page, somewhere on the website header so it appears site-wide. Including your business hours under the phone number can also prove to be a subtle way to encourage visitors to pick up the phone and get in touch. The only exception to this rule is if you want to encourage users to contact you by other means such as or an enquiry form. And, there s one other valid reason for which not to have your phone number on every page, and, that s if you wish to track where all your leads are coming from, especially if you re carrying out multiple marketing activities (using Google Analytics, this is possible, with a phone number, it isn't very easy). 2. Contact address As with the phone number, you want this to be placed on a sitewide location so a prospect can get in touch with either or phone. Placing the address somewhere alongside the phone number is always a good idea. 3. Call to action button every small business website needs to have a Call to action. In our case, it's Request a Quote. For a hairdresser, it may be Book an appointment, for an online

In other words, improving their conversion rate - the % of total visitors that will make an enquiry or purchase something (we re big fans of Google Website Optimizer and Visual Website Optimizer).

2 shop Start shopping. Whatever the Call to Action for your website is, you want to make sure this is prominently displayed, in the form of a button so it's difficult to miss, in a site wide location. Another option is to place this towards the top right of every page, in the form of a Quick form. In fact, this can be more effective than having the button across the top of every page. 4. Contact form it's amazing that many websites still don t have a contact form on the contact page. Even if you have listed all your contact details clearly along with an address, a contact form is essential as it provides yet another way for the user to get in touch. In this case, more is definitely more! 5. More middle of the funnel content If you re only focusing on generating hot leads (those who are ready to buy right now), you re leaving a large % of future customers likely to convert at some point, IF you take care of them NOW. Consider proving non-sales orientated resources such as case-studies, whitepapers and guides to help demonstrate your expertise in your sector and stay in the mind of your prospects. You should do this to build a relationship so when the time comes; your prospects remember to get back in touch with you. 6. Use logos just like in the off-line world, your brand needs to inspire trust and confidence with your prospects before they ll consider doing business with you. One of the most effective ways of doing this online is using logos. This could be logos of the clients you work with, any accreditations of awards you may have. If you run an Ecommerce site, having logos such as Hacker Safe or VeriSign is absolutely critical.

Contact form it's amazing that many websites still don t have a contact form on the contact page.

3 7. Add a video - Having a video on your website has many benefits. Google loves videos which means that a website with a video has a 75% higher chance of appearing on page 1 than one which doesn t, landing pages which have a video have a 30% lower Bounce Rate (a Bounced visit occurs when a visitor enters and leaves on the same page without having clicked anywhere else) and websites with videos have a 29% higher Time Spent on Site. From a conversion-standpoint, websites with a video have a 85% higher conversion rate and for Ecommerce websites, we have seen this number go as high as 200% when a professionally-crafted product video is placed alongside a product page. 8. Optimise your contact form The number of fields on your contact form has a direct impact on its conversion rate. The more fields, the lower the number of people who are going to fill them out. Ask only for essential information and try to limit the number of fields to 4 or less. And, forget using the word submit. Ever. More descriptive form submission buttons can increase your level of enquiries by as much as 300%! 9. Use live-chat We know this isn't feasible for a lot of businesses, but if you re serious about finding ways to generate more enquiries, a live chat can help.

Bounced visit occurs when a visitor enters and leaves on the same page without having clicked anywhere else) and websites with videos have a 29% higher Time Spent on Site.

4 One of the perceived downsides of a live chat is that it s found to be very time consuming without much benefits. However, the number 1 cause of this is placing a live chat widget across every page which immediately pops open once a visitor arrives at your website. To get the real benefits from live-chat, you want to: a. Place it only on your money-pages. If you re a hair-dresser, then this could be your Prices, Services or Request a Quote pages. b. Good live-chat software comes with a nudge feature you can program the live chat to open the chat invite window after a few seconds. We have found 4 seconds to be the winning number. By inviting users to chat after a certain period of time, a) you ve qualified them which means the chances of that live chat session amounting to something real is higher and b) your visitors will view the invite as a useful tool rather than an annoying disruption which is the case with most websites that make use of live chat 10. Cross browser compatibility If your website was built not so long ago and by a professional Web Design firm, chances are that it works fine across all browsers. However, you may still want to test in all the 4 major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari) to make sure it s working well. Especially important is to test your forms and any other lead generation tools you have. 11. Mobile the mobile web is growing at an alarming rate and there s never been a better time to make your website mobile compatible. Local businesses have a much higher of mobile traffic and if your business belongs to this category, having a mobile version of your website or at the very least, making sure it works fine on a mobile is a must.

To get the real benefits from live-chat, you want to: a. Place it only on your money-pages. If you re a hair-dresser, then this could be your Prices, Services or Request a Quote pages. b. Good live-chat software comes with a nudge feature you can program the live chat to open the chat invite window after a few seconds.

5 12. Ask for feedback Apart from using A/B testing tools we talked about in the beginning of this guide, there s another, very effective way to help you generate more enquires ask your users how you can improve your website. there are many ways you can do this send out an to your closest customers asking them what they like (or don t like about your website), install a feedback widget tools such as Kampyle or Qualaroo, get feedback from prospects who call you and so on. When you combine the two sets of feedback (those from testing tools vs. direct from clients) and convert that into a set of actionable items, you ll gradually begin to notice the improvements in the level of enquiries this will bring.

there are many ways you can do this send out an email to your closest customers asking them what they like (or don t like about your website), install a feedback widget tools

The importance of a modern website & how to avoid getting ripped off when upgrading. For More Information Visit Www.FormlessGroup.

Web Design Consumer Awareness Guide The importance of a modern website & how to avoid getting ripped off when upgrading For More Information Visit Www.FormlessGroup.com What you ll learn in the next 10