It’s a good sign when prospects can easily find your website, but if the site experience is frustrating, those visitors won’t be returning. It should come as no surprise that 88% of online consumers would be less likely to return to a website after a poor experience. Clunky design elements, difficult navigation, and poorly rendered mobile pages can all be culprits--but so can errors. Seemingly insignificant website errors can have a major impact on users engaging with your website, and ultimately whether they convert to sales leads.
Here are 4 website issues that can cost you sales leads and how to fix them:
1. Sluggish Page Speed
How fast your website loads can affect the customer’s experience. A page load delay as small as one additional second can reduce conversions by 7%. Slow page loads can be caused by everything from the way your themes and plugins are installed to how many images and media files you’re hosting.
There are many free applications out there for testing page speed, such as Google’s page speed insights tool. If your page load is caused by bigger issues, it may require web designers and/or IT to step in, but here are some quick fixes you can implement in the meantime for more sales leads:
1. Compress images: Making image files smaller helps them load faster on the site. Your largest images should be no more than 1MB. Ideally, images should be no more than 300KB for a quick page load. Since blogs usually have the most images, it may be a good idea to start there.
2. Get rid of unnecessary plugins: Outdated or unused plugins lingering on your backend will slow down your site significantly. Take a quick audit of these tools - can anything be eliminated? If so, those plugins can be disabled and/or deleted to improve page load speed.
2. Inefficiently Programmed Chatbots
Chatbots are a great customer service tool that allows 24/7 support within the website and real-time conversations for customers looking for solutions to their problems. Chatbots are great for answering customers’ questions and helping them find information.
Contrary to what some may believe, chatbots are not just for large corporations. Their uses are beneficial in small businesses and across industries. However, if your chatbot is not providing the experience the customer expects, they will not stick around. If you are failing to meet people’s needs and concerns, you may not be focusing on the correct topics. In addition, a misconfigured chatbot may mean you’re missing out on key data around conversion rates, purchase intent, and overall engagement.
To fix these issues, it’s important to take a look at your chatbot flow and how it relates to your customer journey. Different types of people are coming to your website, not just customers. Complete strangers and sales leads may be visiting, too. Is your chatbot programmed to effectively engage them all? Getting the chatbot running at its full potential will make navigating the website a much better experience for the customer.
You’ll also want to look at your chatbot KPIs and make some calculations. The measurements you uncover can inform the right changes to the chatbot. The metrics will also show you what is currently working to increase sales leads and what’s standing in the way.
3. Tracking the Wrong Keywords
How often are you assessing the keywords on your website? Do you know which keywords are currently driving traffic and conversions? Tools like Google Search Console provide insight on which keywords are driving organic traffic and which pages your visitors are spending the most time on.
Understanding how these keywords are affecting your site traffic is so important to converting sales leads. Missed opportunities can be uncovered. For example, if you discover that your visitors are finding your site from the term “bird feeders” you must ask yourself two questions:
“Is this what we want to be found for?”
“Do we have enough content for different stages of the buyer’s journey with this keyword?”
If the term isn’t ideal, consider how you might change its uses on your site. If “bird feeders” is a keyword you want to be found for, you must then think about what else is missing from the sales process. Do you need more content for different stages of the sales journey? Someone who is just starting out learning about bird feeders won’t be looking for the same content as someone who is an avid bird watcher. Building content around the keyword will help engage audiences at every stage of the buying cycle and highlight your company’s expertise. This all circles back to better engagement on the website, and more sales leads as a result. Looking into the keywords and phrases that are currently working (as well as those you are missing) and updating them on your site will help you to stay relevant in search results.
With older websites that haven’t been updated, the keywords within the website may not be as helpful. Keywords are very important for keeping up with your competition and allowing the consumer to find your website on their searches.
4. Useless Search Bars
Search bars are very convenient ways for customers to navigate your site when they already know what they are looking for. Search bars help make the experience less frustrating because they can search for their desired products. If the keywords and term tags are not being used correctly, it can backfire. Customer drop-offs can occur when their searches are not matching the products that are filtering up. It will make it harder when searching for the product if they are not of the same category.
When creating a search bar, having filters makes it easier for the customer to find exactly what they are looking for. Work with marketing to make sure content is tagged with the appropriate terms as well. This can reduce any issues and make the buying experience enjoyable.
Concluding Thoughts
Keeping sales leads coming in means staying on top of all aspects of the sales cycle. Your website is a representation of your brand, and, when used correctly, an extension of your sales team. To learn more about tools that can help you with sales management, visit our website, here: https://www.techadv.com/solutions/sales-management