3 Must-Have Website Features that Convert Visitors into Customers

Recently I had a conversation with a voiceover expert who
had paid a good chunk of change to Google for his Adwords campaign.  His
complaint?  He got lots of traffic (and paid Google for lots of clicks) but none
of them turned into clients, or even into prospective clients, for that matter.
I took a quick look at his website and quickly realized his problem — a major
website sin committed by online business owners everywhere.  He expected that
the visitors to his site would take him up on his invitation to contact him
immediately to hire him upon learning about his services.

What’s wrong with that — isn’t that a reasonable call to action?  The
fallacy in that line of thinking is that unless the visitor has already been
searching for exactly the service you offer (and I would estimate that to be 1
in every 100 or so visitors to your site, but it’s probably closer to 1 in every
500), you’re never going to see or hear from that visitor again.  Think about it
– how often do you buy someone’s services as an impulse purchase?  So, if you
expect visitors to go immediately from meeting you to hiring you, you’re going
to be sorely disappointed.

Instead of trying to immediately convert the visitor into a paying
customer, initiate a relationship with your visitor.  This means that you have a
strategy to move him through your like, know, and trust process so that he’s
well acquainted with you when he decides to he’s ready to purchase your service.
What’s the secret to this relationship-building strategy? It’s a simple process
of including the following 3 must-have features on your website:

1.  A clear call to action.  This is true whether you have a 1 page
website or a 100 page site.  Your primary call to action, or your most desired
response from your visitor, needs to be made crystal clear on your site.  I
believe without a doubt that the call to action that will earn you the most
money in the long-term is to capture your visitor’s contact info in some
way.  Typically this happens because you’ve created a form where the
visitor is asked to input his name and email address into that form.  Why would
someone willingly part with his contact information?  Because you have created a
compelling offer — your client capturing device. 

2.  A client-capturing device.  A client-capturing device is a free
giveway that is of value to your target market and serves as a solution to a big
problem that challenges your target market.  Once upon a time, the offer for a
free ezine was sufficient to capture a visitor’s contact info.  Alas, that is no
longer the case, so you have to up the ante and provide even greater value to
your visitor. Your client capturing device can take any of several formats — a
PDF ebook, a recording of a teleclass, a 6- part ecourse, a short downloadable
video. In whatever form it might take, your client capturing device needs to
provide some solid information to help your target market solve a pressing
problem and not simply be a piece of fluff that advertises your business.  If
your giveaway is all fluff and no substance, you will have lost this prospective
customer for good.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t promote your business in this
giveaway.  That’s one of the purposes of the giveaway — to tell your prospect
what action to take next, whether that’s to buy a product, subscribe to your
membership website, call you for a free consultation, or buy your service.  Many
times, the next action you ask the visitor to take is to enroll in your-stay-in
touch mechanism.

3.  A stay-in-touch mechanism.  Your stay-in-touch mechanism
enables you to "reach out and touch" your prospects on a regular basis.  This
mechanism could take the form of a weekly email newsletter or a daily podcast or
regular blog postings or a series of autoresponders to follow up with them.  To
move a prospect through your marketing funnel, it’s helpful to use multiple
methods to stay in touch with them.  So, through a series of followup
autoresponders, I ask my prospects to subscribe to my email newsletter and point
them to my blog, as well.  For best response from your visitors, you must use
your stay-in-touch mechanism at least once a week.  The more frequently they
hear from you, the better they get to know you and the greater the likelihood
that they’ll convert from prospect into customer.

Take a moment to assess your website for its client attraction factor. 
Are you ready to receive visitors? Add these 3 features to your website and
watch your prospects turn into customers.