Written on: October 1, 2012 by Ben Gutkin
The best way to tell if your website is generating traffic is to look at your Google Analytics. This free service will tell you how many visitors you have had, what pages they go to, and how long they stay on each page.
But what it won’t tell you is how many actual leads you’re getting. In online marketing, we refer to an action taken (a phone call, submitting an online form, sending an email) as a conversion. The more conversions you have, the more effective your website is at driving business.
If you think you’re phone isn’t ringing, either it’s not, or you’re not actually tracking your calls well and you don’t really know whether your calls are coming from your website or from some other source. (The way to rectify this is to use tracking numbers, but let’s save that for another conversation.) So for the purpose of this answer, let’s assume it’s the former and your phone just isn’t ringing. The implication here is that users aren’t fully engaged with your site, and consequently aren’t taking action.
The call to action
In some ways, marketing on your website is just like any other type of promotion. You have to ask for the sale! Every promotion, be it a postcard, a newspaper ad or a radio spot, needs a call to action. And your website is no different.
A strong call to action is the key to conversion. If you tell your prospects exactly what you want them to do, they are much more likely to move from being a “browser” to an actual lead.
The bottom line? Every page of your website should have a marketing purpose, and your prospects need to be guided to do what you want them to do.
