What is the top priority of your website?
Some entrepreneurs might say it’s to create a visually stunning website. Others might argue that it’s to increase your pageviews every month.
While all of these goals are great, nothing is more important than creating a simplified path to help visitors become paying customers on your site.
The best way to do this is through a website conversion funnel.
You may not realize it yet, but you could have some of the steps already in place! However, if they aren’t developed from a strategic foundation, your strategies may not be giving you the kind of results you’re hoping for.
I’m here to help you build a website conversion funnel that’s easy for visitors to follow and easy for you to create.
First, you must understand the four stages of this funnel:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
Let’s dive into each one and build your funnel as we go!
Stage One: Awareness
Before someone lands on your website, they have to first become aware of your brand. When we talk about the “know-like-trust” factor in marketing, the awareness stage accomplishes the first step of helping others know who you are and who you serve.
That’s why brands spend so much time, energy, and money on advertisements and marketing campaigns. These tactics help brands increase their visibility and introduce their brand to a new audience who may not have heard of them otherwise.
When more people are aware of your brand, they will be more likely to go beyond the awareness stage. However, it’s crucial they begin here. It’s hard to capture someone’s interest if they haven’t heard of your brand before, right?
Psychologists have found that the average person needs to hear a message seven times in order for it to sink in. No wonder marketing experts recommend consistently posting content! It’s the best way to keep your brand top-of-mind when potential leads are considering their options.
You might be wondering how you should go about raising your brand awareness at the top of your website conversion funnel. I’ll admit that it’s a hard thing to measure at times, but building these strategies into your marketing plan is totally worth it.
Here are a couple of ways you can help people become more aware of your brand:
Utilizing social media: Helping your brand become more visible on social media can be a great way to increase awareness and bring more traffic to your website. You can do this by regularly creating Instagram stories, connecting with others in Facebook groups, automating tweets with blog post links, and more.
Before you create a social media strategy, remember to hang out where your ideal clients already are. It’s so much easier to connect with them on a platform where conversations are already happening. If you’re not sure which social media channels you should create for your business, this set of questions may help.
Creating blog content: Blogging is one of the best ways to bring more visitors to your website. As you post regularly to your blog, you’ll be able to share valuable content and educational information your audience will love.
While you can use social media to direct more people toward your blog, you’ll definitely want to incorporate SEO best practices in your writing. By customizing your page titles and meta descriptions, including alt tags, and sprinkling the right keyword into your posts, you’ll be able to increase awareness for your brand.
Did that all sound like gobbledygook? Don’t worry. I break down how to do all of this and more inside my Simple Showit SEO course. It will help you demystify SEO so you can get back to the projects you love while becoming more visible on Google.
Other ways to increase brand awareness include:
- Guest blogging for popular websites
- Starting a podcast for your brand
- Guest interviewing for other popular podcasts
- Speaking at conferences and workshops
- Attending networking events
- Paid ads on social media or Google
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’ll give you a great head start in brainstorming how you want to help others become more aware of your brand.
Since 80% of brands treat brand awareness as their top priority, this crucial stage of the website conversion funnel cannot be ignored. The next step, however, is your time to shine!
Stage Two: Interest
Once someone knows about your brand, they’ll find themselves in the interest stage of your website conversion funnel. This is when they will find themselves asking a lot of questions while considering if your brand is a viable option for them.
When a website visitor is determining how interested they are in your brand, they will begin researching and collecting more information about your brand.
They may ask questions like:
- “What kind of services or products does this brand offer?”
- “Who are their services and products specifically for?”
- “Do those services or products seem like a good solution for me?”
- “What does this brand stand for?”
- “Can I ultimately trust this brand?”
As they decide whether or not to work with you or buy from your shop, you can be proactive about helping them increase their initial interest.
The best way to do this is by creating better messaging on your website. When writing your website content, think about how you can answer their questions before they even ask them. How can you write in a way that shows you’ve thought of everything for them?
That’s why it’s so important to start with a website strategy and build your website content from a solid foundation. Consider what may be important to your visitor and what information they’re searching for.
As an example, if they are searching for online reviews to learn more about your experience before they buy, keep an updated list of Google Reviews and include testimonials from past clients on your website.
Since the average consumer reads 10 reviews before making a purchasing decision, it’s best to cherry-pick your favorites and place them on your site within your content.
Here are a few other ways you can strengthen your website content:
- Include a FAQs (frequently asked questions) section
- Outline exactly what your process looks like so you can set expectations
- Explain the philosophy behind your work or product
- Share your expertise and experience in a personal bio
- Add a lead magnet to give value beyond your website content
- Give personal recommendations through a quiz on your website
Once their interest is at an all-time high, it’s decision-making time!
This brings us to our next stage: desire.
Stage Three: Desire
Do you remember the old notes that were passed in class, the ones with “Do you like me? Check yes or no” scribbled in messy handwriting? Well, in the desire stage of your website conversion funnel, you’ll be asking the same question. Ideally, the visitor will check yes!
In order to capture their desire, you must present your product or service as the perfect solution. It has to be written in such a way that it becomes a no brainer for them to buy it.
This is done through smart, sales-focused copywriting. Usually found on a sales page or Services page, this kind of copywriting is typically geared toward winning the sale.
You can increase this desire by:
- using action-oriented words that make them want to act fast
- including countdown timer for more urgency
- making a limited number of spots available
- saying the offer is only available for a limited time
- adding a special offer or discount to your offer
- offering a money-back guarantee or refund opportunities
If you can give more value, decrease confusion, or increase urgency with your copy, you’re on the right track. Just remember to use ethical copywriting tactics in this stage. To learn more about this, read this guide on creating a humanized sales strategy.
Another way to increase desire is by continuing to nurture relationships. Ideally, this is done through your email list. I love Flodesk for this because you can delight your audience with your email designs but keep them hooked with your automatically delivered content.
All you have to do is create an email sequence that welcomes visitors into your brand community, gives them reasons to hang out and learn from you, and gives them value before you introduce what you’re selling. You’ll have an easier time selling offers when your brand has already passed the “know-like-trust” test I previously mentioned.
When your audience desires the solution you’re offering, there’s only one thing for them to do next: take action!
Stage Four: Action
It’s been a long journey to get here, but when you get a pinging notification that someone made a purchase, you’ll be so happy you created a website conversion funnel.
You may think this is the end of the road, but we’re just getting started!
Once someone buys from you, this is your opportunity to make sure they have a great experience from start to finish. That way, you can easily retain your customers and create a lasting impression.
Too many entrepreneurs forget to nurture customers after they take action because they’ve already accomplished the goal of making a sale. However, it’s five times easier to retain a current customer than it is to win sales from new customers. It only makes sense to keep investing in those relationships long after someone takes action on your offer.
With this in mind, you can continue nurturing customers by:
- creating an onboarding email sequence to answer questions proactively
- offering video tutorials or instructions on how to use your product to its fullest potential
- giving them additional educational resources that add value to their purchase
- sending discount codes or other exclusive offers for current customers
- asking them questions and sending surveys for gathering their feedback
- giving them access to a knowledgeable, friendly customer service team member
Over time, you can also assess the performance of your website conversion funnel to see if it is truly optimized.
Remember, this is an experiment, so you don’t have to make it perfect the first time around. Take a look at your data and learn from it. You’ve got this!
