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welcome to the intuitive website's internet marketing podcast bringing you the country's top podcast on the subject of internet marketing with your hosts glenn thayer and the ceo of intuitive websites thomas young folks welcome back to another episode of the intuitive websites internet marketing podcast uh today tom and i are going to talk about the online conversion funnel now i know if you go back to a lot of the other podcasts that we've done here over the last couple years we've talked about conversions a lot so you can go back and listen about conversions to your heart's content however one of the things that we're really dialing in today is is the process that your users go through when they arrive at your website the process that goes through their mind before they contact you or they make a purchase and so we're just going to really kind of go through that and bring bring that back to light because if you've got a lousy conversion funnel and a lousy conversion process you're you're leaving money on the table you're you're losing conversions right there so tom let's just kick it right off what is specifically the online conversion funnel it is really the path that users are going to take um to find your website and to convert either to an online sale through e-commerce or through an inquiry or lead lead generation and what's really key here is that you understand the different types of funnels that different types of customers use to convert with your website that we don't wing it that we plan it out and then that you use google and google analytics to actually track the very specific funnels as goals and and one of the reasons i even use the word funnel is i mean in the old days of of selling the sales person used to have you know the sales funnel where they'd move people through their sales funnel and close the sale well google uses that now that same term in their stats in their stats program google analytics which is the the world's leading stats program for the web and so that's that and it's free and so that term is very important and and you have to think about the people that interact with your website and even google because they'll go to google before they find you as a funnel as a process that moves them through to finally to conversion and the sites that have the highest conversion rates are the ones that understands their own funnels and user needs and they move people through the funnel um you know keeping in mind that that funnels are based on content website pages photos with captions um and that different users can take different paths based on how you segment their users and then they can also come to you from other websites like social media websites like facebook and so forth but but that's what that is that's what the online conversion funnel is all about so how does the do we have any examples of how the funnel works yeah there's lots of examples and i just i just jotted a few down here in my notes one is um real estate websites and real estate websites are very interesting because you know what they want from the user is to either buy or sell a home right that's what they want but the user that's not usually on their mind when they're on a real estate website what's on their mind is searching for properties and and trying to get a sense of what how that property is going to meet their needs and the idea of buying or selling is probably not in the forefront of their mind as much as it is checking the house out understanding the house and seeing it so what's good what's the location like what are the schools like what how far is it what's in the freeway experience it's the biggest purchase of their life so so what real estate websites do in their funnel is home search the first thing you'll see on the top real estate websites is start searching start looking because we know once we can get you in there and you can start looking that you if you find something that you're interested in that will usually become a conversion right and then poor real estate websites talk about themselves how great they are their experience they you know feature a few properties with some bad photos and they're just not going to convert it at the rate that uh you know realtor.com or remax.com or those types of websites what about netflix yeah netflix is a great i mean we've talked about in the podcast they're great with their conversion because basically it's a very straightforward sell but they're big on either a free month of a trial or how it works in fact they only have three conversion points on their website which is brilliant either get your free month trial browse our selection or look into how it works if you're more of an analytical person so they this is all part of their sales funnel in fact if you look at their website you'll see things like arrows that point you through the funnel and you know do this and then do that and then do this and then boom so their their sales funnel is like their website you know somebody charted out a sales funnel and said let's make this into a website and there you go on netflix um product websites uh like we've we talked about zappos at amazon you know they start with shop and compare related products other people have purchased this you know so if you're on zappos and you're you know especially if you're a woman and you're looking at a pair of pants and you want to find some shoes to as an accessory well you know there's a whole a whole group of accessories including shoes that other people bought that go really well with with the with that those pants in fact most of the the models that you'll see on on product websites that are wearing clothing obviously a lot of times they have shoes on and they have accessories on i think it would be a cool feature to be able to actually click on the accessory that the model is wearing and basically add those to your card because i just know that that a lot of women i know maybe guys do this too i don't but some guys probably do it a lot i think very few guys do that actually but women look at a model and say oh isn't that cute what she's wearing that's a cute outfit that is a cute outfit how can i just buy that outfit so that is an example i mean it's another example of a sales funnel because you're pulling people in they're looking at images and before you know it they're filling their card up with these things well how does how does social media play into this uh for sites like myspace or or facebook especially i mean especially facebook now yeah uh with all their pages and being able to have the advertising and searches and everything going right into facebook how does that work with well facebook is huge for this and in fact it's um what you're seeing is uh you know website marketers scrambling like crazy to try to figure out how can we use all the traffic from facebook and all the interactions on facebook to start the process of of a sales funnel and i mean facebook would be at the very top of the funnel right so if you're a lead generation website obviously it's going to be the content and the perhaps some some offers or promotions or giveaways that's going to drive people on the website if you're an e-commerce site what i think you're going to see and you're starting to see it already is basically a very blurry line between facebook and your website and you'll soon be able to just order from facebook so a friend will link to the the zappos website in fact we probably could go look at zappos now and see what they do on facebook but you'll just have a direct link and you'll buy from from facebook and then you'll see a combination of of kind of forces from you know from google from facebook from the website from friends from email all being the beginning part of this conversion funnel based on the hot points for the user which might be pricing selection in zappos case is probably going to be customer service and pricing in this great return policy but yeah absolutely you this has got to be part of your web strategy and if you think of it as a funnel and you put facebook at the top then the ideas will start to come as far as how do you stimulate that traffic from facebook into your website well you know here's an interesting thing with facebook because uh isn't it true that that facebook once you like a business because since we're talking about businesses you like a business on facebook can't the person who owns that business page have exclusive content that can only be accessed by somebody who who clicks the like button yeah you think there's a way that you can set it up so you have it's almost like a loyalty programmer come get something you can't get anywhere else just click like and you can get it here yeah and and and that whole process is you know the way that's going to move in the future is there's going to be a much tighter connection between facebook and e-commerce websites because i think facebook is still trying to find a way to develop a revenue stream and i think it would be a great way for them to do that and i'm actually looking at the zappos site which what's interesting about zappos is that the facebook link is just not prevalent to me i haven't seen it yet i've been scrolling up and down but i bet if you go to facebook and search zappos they'll have a facebook yeah they do have it they've got one right there yeah it's facebook.com zappos right and so it's interesting that they what what i'm guessing that they they don't they don't want you to leave the website um and go to facebook and start chatting with your friends they want you to stay on the zappos.com site when you're there so they're really not in any way showing you or giving you a link to facebook and it's probably a smart move because they get enough traffic that you know they can just get that traffic directly from facebook now they do have the i love zappos icon at the bottom but that but yeah no connection there between um facebook and that graphic so that's a little bit of a you wonder what the strategy is behind that but it you know it looks interesting you click on it it looks like a facebook um it has the same colors as facebook but it doesn't look like it's actually facebook is that like an affiliate program yeah it looks like they want me to add this to um to your myspace yeah that's that's what it is but there's it's an interesting thing because on on facebook it does say uh let's be in a like-like relationship gain access to exclusive content right so if you like it if you hit like then you have uh something else i'm going to like this and people are going to go what you like zappos.com i just want to see what the exclusive content is so if i hit like you know it's going to load up a bunch of stuff from from zappos they've got fans of the week it looks like a zappos and it looks like beginning of zappos website so what's interesting though is that when you have a business like zappos that has a pretty huge marketplace and a pretty huge list of fans and subscribers and customers you can start to do these things with facebook when you're a small business it has to be a much more niche and much more focused with what you do on facebook and it's obviously going to be a lot smaller approach but the value can still be there because you have customers you have a business so focus on that value and use facebook in this case to be the top of that funnel to bring them in and hopefully eventually have a connection with your company and become a customer absolutely well let's let's go back to the the regular websites now and how how can website owners and marketers set up a funnel on on their existing websites and i'm we're going to make some assumptions here that there may or may not be a sales funnel set up so if they have kind of a kind of a sales funnel or none at all how do they go about doing that well you know most websites we've talked about this for years and it's still the case most business websites are just online brochures so there really is no form of a sales funnel there it's just an about us kind of page they might list products and services and so forth the way to set up a sales funnel on your site is if you're if you're an e-commerce site let's do that one first go and look at what zappos and amazon best buy and these netflix are doing they're great at this and the bet the more of what they do that you can introduce into your site the better if you are looking to generate leads then you've got to understand that lead generation will come from content content distribution and content that is on your site so have a blog integrated with your website where you talk about key issues in the industry in the marketplace have an email newsletter that you archive and you send out monthly basically in a lot of ways do what we do at intuitive websites go look at our resource section and you can see that that that content is what drives people to contact us and say we want to know more about your services you can do the same thing become product experts in your industry and then you know include this in your navigation menu make sure that the navigation menu is seen as a funnel and this is a really important point in user testing in our stats we see this over and over again whatever is to the furthest left and top of your website is going to get the most attention and the most clicks so um you know you probably don't want to have the about us button there you probably want to have your services and products and your your type resource type information there your blog and so forth because that's the kind of content that will um convert you over now if you're if you want to just include it in your services you know then focus on benefits not features which is sales 101 you know focus on the value that customers get from your services not so much on how great you are all those things are the building points of a conversion funnel and then this all ties into the fact that the more content you have on the website the better the chance of conversion and the better chance you'll be listed in google for the terms you want to be listed on so it's it's just a good way to go on a website in general and we're we're recommending that our clients that are lead generation websites have four to five hundred pages or more of content how does somebody get that much content because i know some of our listeners are dirt heads are going to be spinning four to five hundred pages i have myself i might be at a a solo uh so a priority yeah proprietor there's nobody else that works for you or you might have a staff of five people how do you generate four to five hundred pages of content oh my gosh it seems crazy doesn't it but you know if you start with one one page a day you've got three hundred plus pages by the end i mean so what is what is a page let's qualify what a page yes because that's somebody's thinking i've got to write an entire paper i mean could that just be a paragraph on on something could that just be it could be a blog post it's a paragraph absolutely but here's the bottom line marketing and sales have changed in the old days you picked up a phone book and you started calling more or less i mean you did you generated your own leads right in the old days that's what you did picked up the phone and made calls and went to see people that doesn't work anymore so now instead of doing that you have got to have the communication skills to be able to write and post good content on the web that people can relate to that is what that's what's replaced this idea of of chasing leads around i was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday who's a successful realtor here in colorado springs and and we talked about the fact that in the old days you'd go knocking on doors more or less and try to shake the trees up and find some leads and now you don't you wake up in the morning and you blog and you post stuff about trends in real estate trans you know and there's a lot to talk about it's if you don't if you need something to talk about just go open the paper and there's stuff about real estate in the paper every day so in your industry the same thing's happening so this the selling and marketing skill sets of old don't apply anymore the new skill sets are around writing content talking about who you are talking about the industry and then people find you make a connection to that content and contact you and convert and you don't you know you also don't have to be you don't have to have all of the content that's i think that's where that's where the the hiccup happens it's too many people think that they have to have original content they're creating every single day you can also be a content curator yeah and that's and that's just more of what you're doing is whatever field you're in or your expertise you say okay hey i found this article that was written about my industry it's like you find a new book like tom perfect exactly let me find a new book comment on a new book on an article a newspaper posting whatever yeah and this is how it relates to people who who are are my customers or my clients this this book would benefit them this article would benefit them so now you've you've summarized that put that on your website and linked to it and said here's where it is so now you you've given them more value and you haven't had to go out and write original content you're just commenting on it and how it can be used and photography is a great way to post content you know if you have a project that you're working on go out to the field every day and take some photos of what's happening and put a couple captions in there great content and i guess you know i think the important thing for for website owners and marketers is to understand this shift and understand that your marketing through your website it's a shift in how you sell now what about clutter i mean some people's websites are just so cluttered uh how does that become a barrier well there's there's two things that we want to talk about as far as barriers to conversion in this funnel because once you get the content in place you have a good navigation system and people start to move through the funnel what can really slow them down is if there's too many options because then you really don't have a funnel you've got you know a pizza you know with too many toppings you just don't know where to go you want the funnel to to send them toward the contact us page which is another thing that could be a barrier because if you don't have a good contact us page they'll leave and i would set a contact us page actually as a goal in google analytics because that is an accomplishment if people end up there so we've talked about this in another podcast you can go back and and read and listen to them but the websites that are really good like the zappos and the netflix and so forth and eve and actually best buy is doing a great job of this is they give people actually much fewer options than what they have in their company and they let those options be the starting point in the beginning for the funnel so the fewer the options the better the results you'll see in conversions and in your funnel and and one of the big things with the contact us page and this is maybe a personal issue on there is please have all of your information listed on your contact us page yes um not just having a contact us form you know seeing that even though there's a form i mean i've got a form on my website and people use the form people don't con people don't call me they use the form they do however you have to have that phone number there you have to have your email address in there and it can't just be info it has to be to a person because when i look at that i was like oh somebody's actually going to get this so when i enter the form and i don't call people either i use the form however when i see that there's a phone number and i see an actual email address to a person i feel confident somebody will return that email through the form right exactly absolutely so uh what are the action items for for this podcast tom well i think that you know like we've said in many podcasts um go go in your web marketing strategy go in there and and put a funnel together and just write out the steps that you think users will take before they contact or buy from you definitely set up google analytics and set up goal tracking in google analytics that matches what you just outlined in your in your strategy and then of course watch what happens in google analytics and make changes as you need to um to drive those those conversions uh you know watch your web stats on a weekly basis i i would recommend for most most of us we talked about having an excellent contact us page we have a podcast just on the contact us page go and listen to that get the skills and understand how to write conversion-based content that includes not just written content but as glenn said links to other resources other content photos images and graphics whatever it might be look at netflix and how they use graphics best buy does the same thing uses graphics really well to drive you through this uh sales funnel also include a blog that that you have the discipline to post to on a regular basis um even if it's monthly that's that's a plus and then you know finally really understand how your users convert and segment out your users because different people convert in different ways and that's really the bottom line the more you can understand that the more you can implement these strategies the higher your conversion rate across the board well folks thanks again for joining us also remember if you have anything that you want us to talk about any questions that you have uh feel free to email us you can email us at info intuitivewebsites.com uh you can shoot tom an email that's tom intuitivewebsites.com feel free to just give us a holler got questions want something want some subject for us to cover during the podcast please do that once again thanks for joining us this has been an intuitive website's internet marketing podcast for more information and to see all the available podcasts and much more visit intuitiveblog.com if you have a website you'd like us to review or an issue you would like to see covered in future podcasts email us at info intuitivewebsites.com