The Myth of Conversion: Why Only Improvement is Paramount

Chances are, your company’s website is more valuable to you than just an expensive advertisement on the Internet. You use it to attract new customers and clients. You use it to educate. You use it to support every product and service your organization offers. By having access to a professional looking and dynamic website, such as the Ultimate MSP Website, your organization can be more visible and publicly offer more incentives to potential clients. Just how many new customers would it take to produce the kind of ROI to justify paying the cost of your website? Using statistics can help you determine the answer to this question.

Software has been developed that is solely dedicated to the measurement of trackable variables from your website. This is known as analytics software. Measured by utilizing statistics, the numerical representation of your website traffic is measured and delivered to the user through graphs. This software provides almost as much confusion as it does knowledge, however, as it exposes relative novices to concepts and statistics such as bounce rates and impressions, while attempting to get them to understand the difference between "engagement time" and "page visibility time". The bottom line is that no matter what your statistics say, to properly market your website, you will need to understand two very simple concepts.

Concept #1 - If you want to be an authority, you’ll need to be an educator

Your website may be the most information-latent site on the Internet. It may be devoid of any contrived marketing jargon and other petty annoyances that users tend to be frustrated with. It may have a beautiful layout and is pleasing to the eye. Unfortunately for you, however, compliments don’t pay the bills. To get the most out of your website, you need to embrace your role as an authority and educate visitors enough so that they consider your expertise.

Chances are, even your site's most frequent user has not seen every page of your website. In fact, it would be a safe assumption that, unless you build the site yourself, you haven't seen every page on your website. Understanding the basic make-up of a website will be key in determining the initiatives that are most important when building a comprehensive website marketing strategy. Consider that most users will be coming directly from a search engine or from a third-party link of some sort, and most of them have a specific reason for their visit.

By using analytics, you can understand what these people are looking for and properly use that knowledge to align your website’s marketing strategy in concert with that information. Even if the user got to your site via social media, chances are that your website is the medium in which you will make your first true impression. After all, Facebook pages look like Facebook pages, no matter what images you decide to use. Once they get to your site, you better have the resources to back up your role as a technology authority. By displaying useful information, you get potential customers to lean on your organization for their technology questions. If building trust with your visitors is your goal for your website, you’ll need to realize an educated customer is the best customer and give them a chance to get the answers they are seeking without jumping through too many hoops. By giving off the impression that there is no one that is more knowledgeable in your market is imperative, especially in larger, more competitive markets.

One problem companies run into is that even though their web visitors have come to their site for a specific reason, visitors still may not be ready to get down to business. It's true that nowadays most consumers will be more diligent in their purchases, as the Internet provides information about products and services that simply was not available before. With this considered, you can understand how providing elements of your expertise improves your standing as an authority. The more people (especially locally) that lean on you for your expertise, the more authority you have and the more likely you will gain additional opportunities. To achieve this goal, populating your site with useful content is the simplest manner to give the impression that you are the area's top resource for the information, goods, and services the customer is looking for.

Concept #2 - Average statistics are certainly average

When using analytics to try to develop the kind of marketing strategy that makes the most sense for your organization, you’ll inevitably run into the statistical mean for website conversions. Most sources report a conversion rate between two and three percent (2%-to-3%) to be normal. For some industries, it can be as high as 10%. The problem with the consideration of figures such as these is that you are invested in determining your website’s value simply on how it fares vs. the statistical mean. A positive ROI has very little to do with this rate. In no way is it printed anywhere that you need to get between two-and-three percent conversion to be successful (especially not 10%). You need as many new contracts as you can handle, and in no way does this number have anything to do with some superfluous average. Basically, to measure your website’s effectiveness, you have to consider how much time and money has been spent working with it and how successful it is at marketing your products and services.

Your company’s website doesn’t need 3,000 hits per day for your MSP to be successful. You need buyers. Think about a clothing store. Thousands of people will see a shirt by simply walking past it in the mall, but that shirt may never be sold. There has to be something that draws a potential customer’s attention, and more importantly, provides value to them. It’s fair to assume that more shirts are sold when there is a huge advertisement of the shirt on some unreasonably attractive person, or when a discount is attached to it. Marketers need to use these opportunities to get information. They can achieve this from a strategic promotion or by offering something for free. On a website, there are more opportunities to do this than in any other medium. People universally consider “free” as a valued proposition, even though they are actually trading their information for this “free” offering. Unbenounced to the recipient, their information may be all you need to successfully convert them into a customer.

The benefit of running an IT services company is that your success usually coincides with the success of your clients’ businesses. This can make for long-lasting professional relationships that do nothing but bring additional success and alternate business opportunities to your firm. Ask for referrals and post these compliments on your website proudly and prominently. This relationship; the one that began with a man filling out a form for more information could quite literally pay for your website FOREVER. If you consider the average statistic as average and search for improvement from your web marketing, by making one sale, you’ll immediately see the value in your website. By selling more tomorrow than you do today, the average conversion rate becomes irrelevant.

Technology company owners and executives need to understand the value that a website can deliver when aiding their marketing blueprint. It can be the hub of their entire marketing strategy. Work hard to run campaigns, run promotions, offer knowledge, embrace your role as an authority in business technology solutions, and your sales team is sure to see a difference in the leads you get, and the type of leads you get.