What should be the top priority of a small business website?

Many entrepreneurs devote all their time and effort to driving traffic to their small business websites. They purchase paid search ads, boost search engine optimization, develop a social media presence and craft highly targeted email marketing efforts, all in the hopes of getting more visitors to their company’s homepage.

It’s easy to make web traffic a small business website goal – thanks to analytics packages, measuring improvements in visits is a cut-and-dry task and well-planned marketing efforts can generate traffic without breaking a sweat. This is precisely why many entrepreneurs measure the success of their websites through the number of visitors they get.

However, this is also a crucial mistake that many inexperienced small business owners make – traffic should never be the core objective. Think about it this way: If 10 million people visit your homepage but no one ever converts, is your website really a success? Conversions should always be a first priority, and visits should only be used as a means to accomplishing that goal.

How to bolster conversion rates

After realizing the importance of converting visitors, many entrepreneurs ask the same question: How? After all, it isn’t as straight-forward as generating visits. Optimizing keywords or paying for ads is easy, getting people to commit to a purchase, fill out a lead sheet isn’t or call a company isn’t.

“If you want to increase the amount of business you get from your website, make sure you invest in optimizing your website’s conversion rates. Sometimes a few simple adjustments to your site can result in double or triple the number of conversions,” American Express OPEN Forum notes.

The best way to start improving conversion rates is by adding contact information to websites. Many small businesses make the mistake of hiding this data away in an about page. This is particularly the case for service-based businesses – if customers can’t figure out how to contact you, they simply aren’t going to be taking the next step in the interaction.

Every page should feature contact information somewhere. Obviously, this should be more prominent on the “About Us” section. However, even on other pages, this information could be included in a header or footer. For instance, entrepreneurs should be sure to include a phone number, email address, social media profiles and physical address.

Entrepreneurs should also be looking to create an efficient sales funnel, which sets up a path for site visitors to convert into paying customers.

“New sales are at the point at the bottom. New visits, contacts or leads are towards the top. You want to move the new visits and leads down the funnel in order to convert them into sales,” the news source explains.

Micro-conversions can help accelerate the trip through the sales funnel. “A micro-conversion is something in between [visits and sales]. It’s an action you might not typically consider as much as traffic or sales, but driving more interest by moving visitors further down your sales funnel is an equally important way to drive purchases,” OPEN Forum adds.

That said, traffic is an important metric and is something small business owners should strive for. Conversely, a site that only gets two visitors a month will only have the maximum potential of generating two sales. The key lies in striking a balance between the two objectives.

Does your company have a sales funnel in place? How do you maximize both conversions and visits?

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