Importance of SEO experts in your website

Importance of SEO experts in Tanzania or wherever.

 

Therefore, you have got yourself a nice website. You thought that now when you built it, they will come in packs throwing money at you. In addition, do you really ignore SEO experts in your location? For, example we are SEO Specialists in Tanzania, or SEO experts in Tanzania we offer a free consultations. Therefore, it is a matter for you to come up with your website and let us analyze it. If not, continue reading:-

 

Your website is not converting, and you do not know why. Welcome to the life of an online business owner!

 

Selling through your website is hard. Do you know that?

 

All that agonizing over design and copy, all that excitement of finally having a place to share your offer with the world – it’s just the beginning of your journey to sales and leads. A precondition.

 

A gazillion things can go wrong, and you’ll never know. And, frankly, you aren’t even supposed to because making websites convert is not what you do for a living.

 

That’s my job. So, let me help.

 

Below, you’ll learn about 7 possible reasons why your website isn’t converting views into sales and what to do about it.

 

Those reasons are quite simple. In fact, those are the same reasons a steakhouse in your neighborhood had to shut down (long before COVID).  Therefore

Why Your Website Isn’t Converting View to Sales

 

 

1 YOU LET VEGETARIANS JUDGE YOUR STEAKHOUSE
WEBSITE TRAFFIC MISMATCH

Website visitors from the UK can’t buy products shipped to the US only. Your foodie followers from Pinterest don’t care about content marketing. No matter how good your website is, you won’t convince a vegetarian to order a steak.

To have a chance to convert your views into sales, you need to make sure those views come from potential customers who are actually interested in your offer.

How to identify and fix website traffic mismatch

Website traffic mismatch comes in 3 main forms:

• No/very few visitors
• Visitors from the wrong sources
• Visitors to the wrong web pages

Here’s how to find out which of these problems you have and how to fix them.

Problem #1: No/very few visitors

 

Well, I guess the mystery of no conversions is solved then.

This is an expected situation if your website is new, and/or you don’t rank in search, post on social, or run paid marketing campaigns.

The solution? Get more targeted traffic, which is a topic of its own worth dozens of books and a gazillion blog posts.

In a nutshell, here’s how you can attract more prospects to your website with digital marketing.

 Getting more traffic from organic search

 

Figure out what phrases your target audience is using to search for information about their needs and problems. Write (a lot of) articles targeting those phrases. Optimize your sales for search engines as well.

Pros (if done right):

• A reliable source of continuous free traffic
• Targeted traffic from people who are interested in your offer (and higher relevance => increase in conversion)

Cons:

• It’s hard to do it right
• It requires a lot of time and effort
• It can take months (or years) for you to see any results

If you have some free cash, hiring an SEO specialist who’ll conduct keyword research and create a content strategy, and a writer to write your content will do the trick faster.

 Get more traffic from social networks

Figure out what social networks your prospects hang out on and post there regularly demonstrating your expertise.

Pros (if done right):

• If driven by a solid marketing strategy (and “let’s throw things on a wall and see what sticks”), helps you connect with your target audience, peers, and influencers to get occasional subscribers, clients, guest post opportunities, and backlinks.

Cons:

• Unpredictable source of traffic
• Requires consistent effort
• Likely to consume more time/money than the sales you’ll make from it because you’ll be competing with cat memes and updates from friends for the attention of people who may not even be interested in your offer.

To make it worthwhile, select only 1-3 social networks to post on, but take your presence seriously. Post regularly, craft custom and engaging content, and engage with the content of others.

 Get traffic from a paid advertisement

Create pay-per-click campaigns on Google AdWords, Facebook, and Co.

Pros (if done right):

• Immediate results

Cons:

• Isn’t cheap
• Stops working the moment you stop paying
• Won’t work for every business

Even if you’re planning to hire an agency to run your ad campaigns, make sure you’re familiar with how it works so that you can double-check their work.

Problem #2: Website visitors from the wrong sources

 

Seeing a spike in traffic and already anticipating sales? Hold your horses. Maybe somebody has shared your article on Zest – a place where marketers are looking for content to share, not for things to buy.

To check where those website visitors are coming from, open a report Acquisition -> All traffic -> Source/Medium in Google Analytics.

Traffic sources overview in Google Analytics

If you want to see the traffic sources for a specific page, open a Google Analytics report Behavior -> Site Content -> Landing Pages, click on a page you’re interested in in the table, and set the Secondary Dimension to be “Source/medium”:

Google Analytics: Traffic sources for a specific page

How to get more website visitors from the right sources

 

Great question! Also known as the Holy Grail of online business. The answer depends on:

• who is your target audience is
• where they hang out online
• how much time/money do you have on your hands

…and is often a combination of SEO, social media posting, and occasional paid marketing campaigns.

Problem #3: Website visitors to the wrong pages

That’s a typical case of a web page that ranks well in search but has nothing to sell or is top-of-the-funnel content.

Check your Behavior -> Site Content -> All pages. Is it possible that the pages that get many views are purely informative and present neither your offer nor a lead magnet to at least help you grow your email list?

 

#2 YOU THOUGHT VEGETARIANS ENJOY BACON WRONG AUDIENCE TARGETING

Who’s your target audience? (Gosh, I hope not “everyone” )

How NOT to identify your target audience

What are their problems and needs? Are you sure you got all of that right?

The thing is, only a proverbial salesman can sell snow to the Eskimos.

In real life? You can’t create a desire if there’s none.

The ultimate proof of this is an “Unsubscribe” page. Whatever words you use or whatever color you’re “Resubscribe” button is, 99.9999% of the unsubscribers aren’t going to click.

Why? Because they have no desire for your offer (which is, to subscribe).

This happens on your sales pages, too.

Not only when you define your audience wrong but also when you misinterpret their stage of awareness.

Stages of awareness of your prospects and what your copy should communicate at every stage (Sources: Copyblogger, this post by Joel Klettke).

For example, if you target established businesses with your marketing training, they’ll have no desire to read 10 paragraphs long descriptions of the problems they’re already aware of.

So, you may be better off shortening it down to one paragraph and concentrating on describing the solution you offer – how it helps and why.

Bottom line: Defining your target audience doesn’t end with age, gender, or occupation (although it should certainly start there). For every page, think about:

• What do your prospects already know about their situation and your offer?
• What’s missing for them to convert?

Defining your target audience doesn’t end with age, gender or occupation. Make sure you get their stage of awareness right.

A page that has little to do with my target audience, but ranks well in the search #howunfairisthat

Would you like to guess how to get visitors to the right pages? Yep, the good old combo of SEO, social media, and PPC.

#3 YOUR DOOR IS JAMMED
LOW WEBSITE SPEED

After 4 seconds of waiting, 25% of visitors jump ship. Maybe your visitors don’t make it to your website because it’s so bloody slow.

Website speed optimization myth #1: You need a tech person to make your website load faster.

The truth is, you can do 75% of the things yourself and speed up your website considerably within an hour of effort.

This table gives you an overview of what you can do yourself:

Things you can do to make your website load faster

Want your website to convert better?

Follow the instructions in this guide “How to Make Your WordPress Site Load Faster (Without Breaking It or Going Crazy)”, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to make your website load faster

#4 YOUR STEAKHOUSE IS A FILTHY MESS
VISUAL CLUTTER

Do your website visitors have to close two popups and a cookie notification before they can see your content full of ads and shiny visuals? If you put your needs before theirs, they’ll run faster than you can blink.

Visual clutter increases cognitive load (the amount of mental power your visitors need to process the information), which adds friction and makes the user experience worse.

Do not forget to check how your pages look on mobile devices to make sure they are mobile-friendly. Often, web pages that look fine on desktop devices appear cluttered on mobile, because… it amount of content, and much less space.

How to avoid visual clutter on your website

• Remove everything that does not contribute to that particular web page: irrelevant links, meaningless images, meaningless text highlights, etc.
• Avoid too many visual highlights at once
• Avoid conflicting colors and patterns
• Keep your fonts consistent. My recommendation for playing it safe is to use:
  • 2 fonts (headings/body text)
  • 4 font sizes (heading/subheading/body text/CTA)
  • 3 colors (headings/body text/CTA)

… While keeping everything readable (i.e. readable fonts, font sizes, and colors). You can use a third font – a readable script font for (very!) short phrases.

A side note: Your web designer may think otherwise and will try to tell you that using 6 fonts and 10 colors on your website is what “modern web design is about”. In this case, ask them a simple question: “How will using additional font/color/element make my message stronger?” If the only answer they can give you is “It doesn’t, but it looks pretty.” you can disregard their advice.

A real-life example: How removing visual clutter brought a 340% increase in conversions

 

I got a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts from Michael sharing his “Thank you” page. He embedded a one-question survey on it hoping for responses.

Although it wasn’t the topic of the post, I couldn’t (yet again) keep myself from giving unsolicited advice.

I told Michael that:

• his page has too many visual highlights and calls to action (Download a guide, fill out a survey, share on social media, etc.)
• …and that whatever he wants his new subscribers to do, they’ll be more likely to do it if it’s the only call to action on the page.

Michael got straight to work.

And what do you know?

Already within 11 days, the updated page got him as many survey responses as his old page did within 4.5 MONTHS! Later, he wrote to me again saying his conversion rate jumped from 6.3% to 27.9% (887 conversions).

A real-life example: How removing visual clutter increased conversions.

Bottom line: Want to increase your conversion rate? Remove the visual noise around important elements on the page (especially your call-to-action buttons).

Real-life example: How removing visual noise raised conversions from 6 to 31%. CLICK TO TWEET

 

#5 YOUR MENU IS AUTO-TRANSLATED FROM AN CHINESE UNCLEAR MESSAGE

How do you think your potential customers will buy from you if they can’t even understand what you offer is and how it helps?

Here’s an oh-so-typical example:

I really hope they auto-translated it from Chinese. Because if someone wrote it in the sound mind of an English native speaker, they should see a doctor asap.

Traffic mismatch, such as word salad instead of a clear message is the main cause of high bounce rates.

Talk to your prospects like you would talk to them in person. Use plain words and sentences that sound natural to make sure your visitors understand you.

Have you been staring at your website for far too long to judge if your copy is clear? Use these 6 tests to spot and eliminate BS from your copy, in particular:

• The BS Test and the Google Translate Test find a vague, unnatural, or too clever copy
• The Forehead Slap Test that finds fake benefits no one gives a damn about
• The “So what?” Test that converts fake benefits into real ones your prospects actually care about
• The 5 Seconds Test shows you if your prospects can grasp your message quickly
• The Ctrl + F Ego Test finds spots in your copy where you’re talking too much about yourself

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to use specificity to make your prospects imagine the things you’re talking about better. Because if they can’t imagine it, they won’t buy it.

“But how would I know what my potential customers think of my message?”

 

Don’t have the budget to pay people from your target audience to give you in-depth feedback? Heat maps and session replays are the second-best options to learn what your visitors think about your website.

My go-to tool for this is HotJar. I’ve been using it for years to analyze my own website and the websites of my clients.

You can use any other tools that let you record how your visitors interact with your web pages. Just don’t brush it off as “too much work” (because it’s not). Without analyzing real user session recordings, it will be pretty hard to create a high-converting website.

 

#6 YOUR STEAKHOUSE IS EMPTY DURING RUSH HOUR NO SOCIAL PROOF

Do you also get an uneasy feeling entering an empty restaurant during lunchtime? There must be something wrong with them if their place is so empty, right?

A website without social proof looks as suspicious as an empty restaurant during rush hour.

Use these types of social proof on your website:

• client logos
• trust seals – certifications, awards, “featured in” logos, etc. (but only those your prospects recognize and care about)
• client testimonials
• customer reviews
• case studies

What makes a testimonial or review effective?

Not all testimonials/reviews are created equal.

For a testimonial to work its magic and raise your credibility in the eyes of your prospects, it has to be trustworthy. In particular, it should be:

• Short and direct
• Believable:
  • Use full names and, if possible, headshots of the clients
  • Specific enough to sound authentic
• Back up your claims:
  • Reinforce your unique value proposition, and/or
  • Use data behind the value service/product delivers, and/or
  • Address the initial fears of your customers and explain how they were eliminated

An example of an effective client testimonial (source)

Little known fact #1: If you have a testimonial carousel, you don’t have testimonials

 

Do you make your testimonials rotate? Congratulations! You just threw your social proof out of the window.

If you don’t believe me, go try reading them yourself as if you see them for the first time. What, that paragraph disappeared before you could read till the end? Exactly my point.

Not to mention that sliders are generally irritating and ineffective.

Your testimonials are your keys to new clients. So, treat them like royalty and put them prominently on display giving your prospects as much time as they need to read them.

Little known fact #2: A testimonial page weakens your social proof

You don’t have any testimonials on your service pages but have a bunch of them on your Testimonials page?

I see. So, you expect your visitors to take the initiative and check out your Testimonials page to comb through a dozen testimonials to find one that’s relevant to a service they’re interested in.

This explains why you’re still reading this article trying to figure out why your website isn’t converting.

 

#7 A STEAKHOUSE NEXT DOOR IS BETTER IF YOU LOSE TO THE COMPETITION

People shop by comparison. Here’s how to make sure this comparison is in your favor.

A word of caution: Before you draw any conclusions from the info below, make sure you aren’t comparing cows and tractors. You should only compare your website to the websites of your competitors that:

• are in the same niche
• have a similar target audience and business model
• offer products/services that solve similar problems to whatever you sell.

Make sure your website is prototypical

Your website won’t be the first-ever website your prospects see in their lives. Moreover, it won’t be the first website they see in your niche.

So, when they think “copywriter”, for example, they already have a mental image of what a copywriter’s website should look like.

This is called “prototypicality” – a mental image your brain creates to categorize stuff. If something is prototypical (i.e. matches the mental image people have for this category), it’s easier to understand and use.

This means, if your website has a similar look and structure as other websites in your niche, your visitors will have less trouble using it. Plus, prototypical feels familiar, and familiarity evokes trust.