What is website success? Every site on the web claims to be very different and in many ways they are, but unfortunately this “I’m different” mentality is used as an excuse to why they fail to use benchmarks or basic website analysis.
The secret to success is not focusing on how you are different, but how you are all the same; the desire for conversion. An e-commerce site converts visits to sales, an industrial site converts visitors to leads and a blog converts visitors to subscribers.
Unfortunately most websites and their marketing strategies miss the boat completely. They measure success by Google rank or traffic, instead of conversions.
There seem to be two conversion camps: websites that too confusing and intricate to navigate and those too simple to attract qualified traffic.
You need funnels! Think of your website funnels in a literal sense for a moment. You are the pitcher, your customers are the water and the glass is your shopping cart, lead generator or subscriber sign up. Many websites think they are pouring from one pitcher to the next, but this is not really the case. You are really pouring from a pitcher to a small opening that leads to a larger volume (like a beer or coke bottle).
The most effective way to do this is not just to start pouring. While you will get some conversions, you will also miss out on a lot of opportunities and will find that you spent a lot of time filling that pitcher, just to hope most or all of it would go in that bottle.
Instead use a funnel, this may seem at first like a slower process, but nearly all of the water will fall into that bottle. Funnels are what ensures that a visitor will flow in the right directions for conversion. While this does make a lot of sense, implementing it effectively can prove to be difficult.
Using funnels can be easy, but consistent implementation of them can be anything but simple with sometime of simple automated tracking system. If only there was something the most amateur of website owners/marketeers could use…if only!