As you already know by now, engagement is the key to customer conversion. People need to be provoked to interact with businesses and enjoy doing it. Marketing communication needs to be a dialogue, on each of your channels – social media, emails, YouTube channel and website.
Today we will focus our attention on your website. To see it in perspective, social media is the conversation starter, like the entry hall of your home where you welcome guests. The website is the living room where you invite them to make themselves comfortable and enjoy dinner and talks.
Many brands are brilliant at running their social media channels, but once their leads reach the website, the conversation stops. There is nothing engaging there and the visitors find a disorienting discrepancy between the warm and lively conversation on Twitter or Facebook, and the cold and barren look and feel of the website.
This is the time, then, to tackle the issue of websites in their role of keeping the conversation going, and encouraging visitors to convert through a series of meaningful interactions. These are:
- Engaging Content
Users expect to find an answer to the social media promises when they reach your website. You hinted at your expertise, you told them that you hold the solution to their promise – and now it is time to prove it. Content is not just a marketing and SEO tool, it is a way of keeping users engaged.
If they like what they read, they will also interact – by sharing your articles to friends’ emails, to their social media pages, and by talking about your articles with other people in their circle.
- Give Visitors a Voice with the Comments Section
Once they read something, your visitors should find a way to share their opinion. This is why even the most basic blog template has a default comments section. These comments are a gold mine for a savvy company. They provide you with fresh and genuine ideas, feedback and help you determine how your prospects feel about your business.
- Calls to Action
We have covered the topic of various calls to action which you should include in your website in a previous article. CTAs are a must-have item on each page of your website. The reason is simple: people will not volunteer to take action unless you tell them to. If they do not find an invitation to subscribe to your newsletter, very few will do it on their own (if they found your articles exceptionally useful and well written).
Most of the time, people actually feel disappointed when there is no CTA at the end of an article or product description. Their natural reaction is “and now what?”
- Search Fields
Your website may be very simple or extremely well organised, but you should still provide your visitors with a simple search box. Some of them are in a hurry and may actually want to place a quick order for a product. If they cannot find it really quickly, it could mean a lost sale for your business.
Search fields in websites are also useful for your SEO strategy: by looking at the terms used by your visitors each month, you can identify the meaningful keywords you should try ranking for.
- Full Contact Details
We may state the obvious, but the more contact options you provide your visitors, the more genuine and trustworthy your business looks in their eyes. The key contact options you should have are:
- A quick message form – this also helps you collect email addresses;
- Mobile and landline phone number;
- Email address;
- Address.
As an extra feature, include a Google Maps widget pinpointing your exact location. It will help you rank well in local directories and make your visitors more confident in your reliability as a business.