When business owners think of website design, they’re often thinking of one thing: Traffic.

That intuition makes sense. After all, if your website isn’t getting any traffic, it’s doing nothing for your brand or your business. But there’s a flip side: if your website is only getting traffic, but not producing leads, it is nothing but overhead. You’re paying to serve files to people who don’t move your goals forward.

A modern, fast, and secure website design is only one part of the equation. To turn traffic into business value, you need leads – and ultimately customers. The solution is simpler than it looks. When traffic doesn’t convert, you either have the wrong traffic for you or a broken conversion funnel for your traffic.

How to Know If You Have the Wrong Website Traffic

Too much traffic might seem like a good problem to have. After all, you’ve cracked the code on one of the issues many businesses never solve. But appearances can be deceiving. While it is true that most first-time website visitors aren’t ready to buy right away, some traffic will never convert at all.

Here’s the scenario: You’ve built a good distribution network around your content. You’re publishing regularly. Your traffic figures are moving in the right direction on a month-to-month basis. You might even have a few pieces of content that have been shared hundreds or thousands of times. But you have no leads.

The diagnosis: You may be making the right content for someone, but that person isn’t your ideal buyer. You’re scooping up low-intent traffic when what you might need is a more precise and selective approach to content.

Here are some of the signs you have the wrong traffic:

• Your business has positive online reviews, but none of your leads are attributable to your website.
• Traffic spikes when new content is posted, but those visitors don’t browse the rest of your website.
• You’ve had one or two “viral” social media pieces, but didn’t get inquiries or bookings from them.
• Most visitors to your website don’t deepen the relationship by joining your email marketing list.

What to Do About Too Much Low-Quality Website Traffic

Some teams do a really thorough job analyzing competitor content. They look for content gaps and try to 10x the content that’s working for others. But, in doing so, they can overlook key differences between their own customers and the ones that other brand is angling for.

The mismatch means that website visitors are prepared to view you as a credible source of industry insight, but they’re not really interested in your products or services. They use your content to get an idea of their problem and the potential solutions, then buy somewhere else.

To solve the problem, realign your content marketing:

• Consider consulting a marketing agency to get your content marketing strategy back on track fast.
• Connect with your highest-value repeat customers to understand the content that would help them.
• Revisit your ideal buyer persona. Is it in need of updating? Are your assumptions backed by real data?

How to Know if You’ve Got a Broken Conversion Funnel

A conversion funnel is the series of steps someone takes to go from visitor to lead or lead to customer. People need trust and safety before they’ll proceed through the funnel, which is one reason why it’s so crucial to have a responsive, secure website design for your company. As vital as that is, it’s only the foundation.

Conversion funnel problems are relevant when you’re getting traffic from the right audience, but not enough of your visitors become leads. That suggests some customers are muddling through so they can buy from you, but the friction they run into on the way could be costing you thousands of dollars in lost business.

First Steps to Optimize a Conversion Funnel

Optimizing a website conversion funnel is the kind of work that benefits from a marketing agency’s expertise. Everything contributes, from the fine details of the website design to the specific call to action each page uses.

Here are some of the factors to review:

• Before the first sale, are there micro-conversions like downloading an e-book or joining a mailing list?
• Does each micro-conversion provide valuable content aligned with a visitor’s goals and pain points?
• Is every conversion action (even the ones that seem obvious) signposted with a clear call to action?
• Is every step in the funnel working as intended? Is each step fast, secure, and easy on mobile?

A systematic approach to marketing takes the stress and guesswork out of telling your brand’s story. We can get you there from here. Contact New York Ave to learn more.