5 reasons why your website isn’t converting leads

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Inbound marketing is all about attracting new visitors and moving them along in the sales funnel until they pop out the other end dripping with confidence and delight in your brand – so much so that they’ll become champions of your brand by starting the attract phase all over again with somebody new.

It’s hard enough attracting potential leads on the web. What bites the big one even more is when that fish takes off with the bait before you can even convert them. Keeping people on your site can be a tough sell if you don’t have the content to support your brand promise and there are a variety of common problems that can lead to an early exit for users.

1. Poor navigation

If visitors are having a hard time finding what they have come for or if they can’t manage to navigate around your website in a timely manner, confusion will quickly set in and they will be quick to move on. Navigation and calls to action that provide a clear next step should be prominent, easy to follow, and grouped together in a strategic spot on every page. Also make sure that text links within your content are styled differently from normal text so that users can quickly identify them.

2. It’s all about the product

Potential leads are visiting your site because they’re hoping that you’ll solve their problems. They’re not ready to see all the features of your products or services. They want to first understand how your business can benefit them by solving a problem.

Like how to get blood out of cashmere. A lot of blood.

You could achieve this by providing things like helpful tips or downloadable content, etc. Once you’ve built that initial trust you can then start moving them to the lead phase and start introducing them to the products or services that can fill that need.

3. Intrusive eye candy

Helpful content and exceptional interactions with your brand is what will help convert leads and ultimately close more sales. This can’t be achieved with flashy animations and intrusive advertisements that force the user into watching something they don’t want. Focus on creating quality experiences that provide helpful content to the user.

4. Poor content structure & legibility

Visitors rely on a memorable experience to return or interact further with your website, so let’s not forget the importance of good design and content structure. Elements like fonts, color choices and even use of proper headings and bulleted lists are all very important in creating a great web experience. Your website should not only look consistent with your brand but should offer the same quality experience that they would receive in person.

5. It’s growing cobwebs

Your website is a living, breathing piece of your marketing strategy. It needs to be consistently fed new helpful content to keep the inbound machine firing on all cylinders. It’s a common misconception that your website needs to be updated daily in order to be effective. The truth is, as long as your site is updated on a consistent basis, you’re still staying relevant to search engines. Even if you’re only publishing new content biweekly or monthly, at least people know that you haven’t been killed in a silo explosion.

It’s not enough anymore to just have a website that operates essentially as an online brochure. People are researching their problems online and educating themselves on the best brands that they feel can help fill those needs. That’s why inbound marketing is so successful. It involves all of the methods needed to attract new visitors, convert them into leads, close more sales and delight those new customers into becoming promoters of your brand.

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