The number of accesses to our website has increased, but we are having trouble getting inquiries and responses.

Why do you have access to your website, but you are not getting more inquiries?

There are many possible factors. The key to improvement is to divide the customer’s behavior into stages and search for the causes one by one.
There is no “cure-all” for this problem. First of all, it is important to imagine the sequence of steps that a customer goes through when he or she “searches,” “examines and compares” a site, and “contacts (inquires)” the site. Even if the site is accessed, there may be a problem at some stage, such as not progressing to the next step. The first step to improvement is to consider the entire process in a segmented manner.

You have a lot of traffic, but do you know if it is coming from your target/potential customers?

Indeed, even if you have a number of hits, it does not necessarily mean that they are from leads (potential customers). There is no easy way to tell the difference, but it is important to check the “quality” of the access.
For example, there may be cases where a person is just researching something and has no desire to buy, or where a large number of accesses are recorded from your company or related parties. The value of the same 1,000 accesses can vary greatly depending on whether they are from prospective customers or not. We recommend that you take the viewpoint that not everyone who comes to your site is a customer.

How can I check if my company is selected compared to competitor sites?

The first step is to objectively compare your company with your competitors’ sites on the Web and examine and consider whether they would choose your company from the customer’s perspective.
The first step is to find several competitors on the Web. Then, compare each site with your company’s site and write down what makes each site superior and what does not. Then, put yourself in the shoes of your customers and ask yourself, “Would they really choose our company among these competitors? If you are not confident, you may need to review the content of your site and the way you communicate your services.

Is there a guideline for determining if a site is being compared to the competition?

Although it depends on the site, the number of accesses to the inquiry form, for example, would be one indicator. If this number is extremely low, the site may not be a candidate in the comparison phase.
Please check how many of the total site visits are to the inquiry form page. If this percentage is less than 0.3% of the total, it is possible that the customer thinks the site is not worth considering. If this is the case, there may be an issue at the competitive comparison stage.

Even though the inquiry page is viewed, the number of applications does not increase.

This may be due to the inaccessibility of the form or the uncertainty of what kind of person will respond. It is important to provide a sense of security and lower barriers.
If the form has too many fields or is difficult to use on a smartphone, customers will stop filling out the form. Anxiety such as “I feel like I will be immediately contacted by a sales person” or “I don’t know what kind of person will respond to my inquiry” can also cause customers to hesitate to take the final step. We recommend that you devise a way to eliminate customers’ anxiety and allow them to take action with peace of mind.

This is not a simple question, but rather a question similar to, “What can I do to increase sales in my store?” This question is not a simple one, but rather a similar one to “What can I do to increase sales at my store?

Therefore, there is no magic formula that says, “If you do this, you will get a raise,” or “If you do that, you will get a lot of inquiries.

We hope you understand that first.

Nevertheless, I wish to inform you about the first step.

If your website is not doing well, the first thing I would like you to check is whether or not you understand from the customer’s perspective, “What is the process of getting inquiries from a website in the first place?

First, look at the easy-to-understand flow of natural search via (SEO)

Keep in mind the steps leading up to the inquiry

If you are vague enough to say, “They search for us, find our website, look around, call us or fill out a form…,” it is difficult to see the specific problem.

So, first of all, we recommend that you visualize the following diagram, which we also use in the method.

This is a simplified version of the flow through search engines (SEO), so it will differ depending on the method and media used, such as advertisements and SNS.

If your website is currently being accessed, the first “search” stage is considered to be somewhat successful.

However, since access analysis can only tell you numbers, please keep the following in mind

1. You never know if that access is really “potential customer” access.
2. Even with access, it is difficult to get a response if there is too little

Regarding number 1, there are many patterns, but the most common are

• For example, people who are doing some kind of research are just here, not customers.
• The company’s internal access is only accounted for in a large number of cases (no settings have been made to exclude it).

The first point to keep in mind is the “value” of the number of accesses. The “value” of the same 1,000 hits will vary depending on whether they are hits from potential customers or hits from people who arrived at the site through some other route and cannot become customers.

There are many ways to determine how to make this determination by analogy, but I will not go into them here. What we would like you to keep in mind is that not everyone who comes is a customer.

Number 2 can be a blip if the company is large and if the website content is used for proposals or customer information. You can cope with this by setting up the system to suppress access from internal company PCs.

For the “vetting” and “comparison” stages, you may want to consider comparing your website with your competitors’ websites.

The next steps are “examination” and “comparison”. Today’s customers are “comparing and contrasting” without exception.

Therefore, if we do not become the chosen one in that comparison, no inquiries will come.

Therefore, the first step is to try the following

• Pick up competitors on the web (from live customers as much as possible, don’t just think about it in your head)
• Look at each website and compare it to your own and pick out the areas where you are superior and where you are not in the same layer.
• Compare the business itself and find at least 5 strengths and 5 weaknesses from each competitor.
• Then, think about whether customers will really choose your company after comparing the current situation among these.

Now you say, “It should come!” then this step is probably not a problem. However, if you think, “Hmmm…” then this is where you need to improve.

Again, I won’t go into details here, but there are many factors involved, including product and service mix. Please forgive us for not being able to say it all in a nutshell.

By the way, you can tell to some extent whether this step is working or not by “how many accesses are coming to the page with the inquiry form.

If the number of accesses to the inquiry form, excluding blogs and other updated content, is almost none, or less than 0.3% of the total, it is considered not worth considering, and this step needs to be improved. (The numbers are only a guideline.)

Reassurance and encouragement are important for “contact” and “purchase.

If the inquiries are coming in, it may be that potential customers are coming in and have some interest, and there is no decisive content, or that the barriers to inquiry are high.

For example, “there are many items to fill in on the form (even the number of employees and annual sales are asked from the beginning),” “it is difficult to use on a smartphone,” “it looks like you will get a sales call right away or people will come running in,” “the service is attractive, but you don’t know what kind of person will respond to you, so you are hesitant to inquire,” etc. It is not uncommon for people to not make inquiries due to a variety of concerns, such as “I don’t know what kind of person will respond to my inquiry,” or “The service is attractive, but I don’t know what kind of person will respond to my inquiry, so I am hesitant.

We recommend that you consider why they are not taking the final action and what is missing to address this issue.

For a figure not limited to via natural search, please click here.

Please see the following diagram of the marketing funnel in general, not just in terms of natural search. The terminology is slightly different, but the general flow is the same.

Above is what it looked like before 2020, below is what it looked like after Corona after the 2020s, when it was overloaded with too much information.

This content is too deep to go into further depth. However, improving this area is what HP improvement is all about in many cases. It’s not enough to just renew it, but we need to improve the marketing steps inside and the competitiveness of our services and products.

I have put a lot of effort into conveying this information in my e-learning program, which is packed with my know-how, so please consider it if you would like to learn more.

Practical Web Marketing and Web Application Online Course “Roundup Web Method”
https://roundup-inc.co.jp/service/method-detail/

A brief summary of the contents is also available on our official YouTube channel. Please take a look if you like.