7 Ways to Convert Website Visitors into Subscribers
Below are seven steps on how you can convert website visitors into subscribers. About the author: Amanda DiSilvestro (SearchEngineJournal) writes digital content that helps businesses grow their website traffic and establish thought leadership. She writes for HigherVisibility, a nationally recognized SEO consulting firm that offers online marketing services to a wide range of companies across the country. Connect with Amanda at AmandaDiSilvestro.com to learn more! Search Engine Journal (SEJ) is dedicated to producing the latest search news, the best guides and how-tos for the SEO and marketer community. Image courtesy of Elenarts via Bigstockphoto.
Getting 100,000 visits to your website can feel awesome.
But if your conversion rate is low, all that traffic won’t do you much good.
That’s why it’s absolutely critical to focus on converting your traffic into subscribers (and ultimately turning those subscribers into paying customers).
So how do you do it?
Here are seven ways to convert website visitors into subscribers.
1. Create Quality Content to Match Search Intent
We know Google assesses the quality of webpages.
But what Google really wants is to show searchers the content that best matches (or answers) the intent of that searcher’s query.
So always create high-quality content that matches user intent.
This type of content will rank well and – more importantly – drive targeted traffic to your site.
2. Use the Right CTA
The right call to action (CTA) can be all the difference between having content that your visitors only consume (whether it’s a video or a blog post) versus content that results in your visitors taking an action you want them to take.
Check out this example from SexyConfidence.com:
This CTA is great because it doesn’t just ask you to subscribe — it entices you. (It also has a great design.)
How do you create the perfect CTA?
You must demonstrate value to your target audience.
With the right mix of engaging content and the perfect CTA, you will convert more visitors into subscribers.
Then, you’ll need to continue building trust and convincing your subscribers that your products or services are the best purchase they can make.
3. Focus on Design for Subscriptions
Making a good choice in the theme of your content is key to attracting visitors and getting them to subscribe.
Get creative. Instead of putting CTAs everywhere, stick to one or two and let the design do the talking.
Consider this example from fashion company Ugmonk:
Their main focus isn’t conversions, but rather subscribers. They have a CTA for people to keep shopping, but their CTA regarding subscriptions is much larger.
4. Use Different Types of Content
Varying the types of content you publish helps you reach different audiences.
Use everything you can think of that can add a different touch to your content every time you publish, such as:
- Infographics.
- Videos.
- Case studies.
- Experiments.
- News.
- Tutorials.
- Compilations.
Use your subscription button as a CTA and you’re good to go.
5. Use Lightboxes
Using a lightbox is another excellent way to highlight your CTAs and focus on subscribing.
Lightboxes don’t always work well for a purchase-now CTA because they occur so quickly when visitors may not be ready, but asking for subscribers works great.
6. Advertise Your Subscription: Solve Problems
The content that best converts is, undoubtedly, both helpful and useful.
Lots of people use Google to search for a solution to a problem or to learn something.
If your content successfully helps those people – while also promoting a service or product you sell – then you’ve hit the conversion jackpot.
Here’s a great trick:
Give readers a taste of how to solve a problem, but ask them to subscribe for more tips.
HubSpot is a master at this. They publish headlines that would presumably solve a problem, giving you a taste of their solution, but then ask you to do something else (in their case, sign up for an e-book; in SEJ’s case, subscribe to a newsletter).
It helps if you have a newsletter that focuses on this one specific problem. However, for many businesses, it makes sense to have two different segments when sending emails to subscribers.
7. Analyze Your Content
Once you’ve won more subscribers, don’t screw up! Make sure you keep them.
Focus on your content.
Specifically, analyzing your content
Measuring how the content you create performs will help you know which methods or topics have worked best and which ones to repeat later.
Some suggested reading on metrics to measure:
It’s important to set goals. This will help you discover which type of content best helps you achieve those goals.
For example, if your goal for last month was to increase the subscribers of your website, a thorough analysis will reveal what worked and what failed to gain traction so you can adjust your content strategy for this month.
Key Takeaway
Sometimes jumping straight into a “must-get-conversions-now” mentality will slow you down.
Once you have a great website, great SEO, and content (and maybe Google AdWords ads) that drive traffic to your website, you can convert those visitors into subscribers.
From there, you can take those subscribers and turn them into loyal, engaged – and paying – customers.
