If you have a cleaning business website that looks amazing and attracts traffic, you can pat yourself on the back. You have an asset that could be immensely valuable to your company. However, getting too excited about traffic stats would be a mistake. The number of people visiting a business site is only relevant if those people are potential customers. Furthermore, if visitors fail to convert into customers, your website generates interest, not money.
If traffic is high but conversions are low, what’s going wrong? It could be that the design and content of your site suffers from some fundamental flaws. Here are eight tips to help you start a cleaning business and turn your website traffic into leads or sales.
- Write Content for a Narrow Target Audience
A website attracting the wrong audience will not damage your business. However, the objective of a business website is not to entertain or inform; it exists to generate sales or leads. You are only interested in attracting people who might buy something from you.
If the people visiting your website are not your target audience, you might need to refine your content. Start by identifying the type of person most likely to buy for you. Then write content that will appeal to and attract that specific audience.
It is better to have lower traffic and higher conversions. So fine-tune content to target specific groups of people. Suppose your business relies on local customers, for example. In that case, include mentions of your location in your content.
- Create a Strong Home Page
The home page is the page people will either land on or navigate toward to find out more about your brand. Therefore, this page must describe what the business does and its unique selling points. The home page should also include clear calls to action and navigation to sales pages.
Try to keep the content on the home page concise. For example, this is not the page for a long-winded business history or product description. Instead, treat the page as a teaser that directs visitors to the more substantial content.
- Develop Simple and Targeted Navigation
Try not to overcomplicate navigation. Make it easy for visitors to locate what they need. And emphasize the navigation options that lead to sales or lead generating options, such as contact us forms, sales pages, and quotation request forms. Evaluate the customer’s journey yourself. How straightforward is the navigation from the home page or a blog post to the lead-generating pages? If it takes too many steps, the site navigation might need rethinking.
- Simplify Forms
The reason you are not getting leads could be that your contact forms are overly complicated. People don’t generally like filling in forms that ask too many questions. Consider reducing the number of fields to make getting touch swift and straightforward. Offering multiple contact methods also will help. For example, display phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses.
- Add Easy-to-Locate CTAs
Calls to action (CTAs) must be in prominent positions and distinguishable from the rest of the content. Users won’t spend much time hunting for them if CTAs are hidden away. The best location for CTAs is above the fold, if possible. Alternatively, CTAs can be placed at the top of a sidebar. CTA buttons or text should be big and bold, and the color of a CTA should stand out from the background and the surrounding content. Surrounding CTAs with whitespace also helps users locate them.
- Push the Benefits
The features and benefits of a product or service are often confused. But the benefits are what will sell a product, not the features. Consequently, understanding the difference between the two and focusing on benefits will increase conversions.
A feature is something your product or service has or does. A benefit is something to be gained from using the product or service. The difference between the two can sometimes be subtle. But customers are more interested in what a product does for them than how it does it.
- Display Accreditation Badges
Accreditation badges build trust and provide third-party confirmation of your product or service. Consequently, displaying any accreditation you have will give people confidence in your brand. Accreditation that could boost conversions includes awards, trade association memberships, and trade or professional qualifications. Badges from consumer rating sites, such as Trustpilot, will also help.
- Boost Credibility with Social Proof
If you don’t provide social proof, your lead-generating website might fall at the last hurdle. Place customer testimonials or reviews in prominent locations on your website. And remember that social proof is not only a powerful persuader for B2C (business to consumer) sales. B2B (business-to-business) websites also benefit from prominently displaying customer quotes and case studies.
Conclusion
There are three primary reasons why a cleaning business website might get traffic but not conversions. The first is that you attract the wrong audience, in which case the content needs refocusing. The second reason is that the content is not persuasive enough. For example, there might be too much focus on features or insufficient social proof. The final probable reason for disappointing conversions is that it’s too difficult for site visitors to take the next step. For example, contact forms take too long to complete, CTAs are hidden away, or navigation is unintuitive.
