Hello, this is John Locke, and today I'd like to talk with you about things you
should troubleshoot when you're not getting leads from your website anymore.
Before we take it any further, let's define what we mean by "leads". Usually,
these will be people coming in through a contact form on your website. Maybe
you're sending them to a specific landing page. Maybe there is a specific
contact form for each product. Let's say that you were getting one [lead] per day or you
were getting 10 per week, and all of a sudden, it drops down to zero. What do you
look for? The first first place you should go to is your Google Analytics account, if
you have that set up on your website -- hopefully you do. But look at Google
Analytics, and see if there's been a drop off in your traffic. You can drill
down and see if people are going to your contact page, your contact form, your
Request for Quotes form. Make sure that you haven't lost any web traffic in
Google. Okay so the second thing to do is -- if you're running paid ads, this will apply
to you. if you're not running pay-per-click. If you're not running
Adwords, then this won't apply to you and you can ignore it.
But the second thing you should look at is your AdWords. Make sure that you're
getting clicks each day. If people are still going to your site, if they're
still going to your landing page, then you know that that's not the problem. We
basically want to make sure that your ads are being seen, and that people are
still clicking through. You can definitely do some more adjustment on
your AdWords account, and optimize it. If you go to your AdWords page, you can
click on a tab called "Recommendations" in your AdWords account.
It'll give you suggestions of how you can improve your ads. That's
something that if you're invested in AdWords, you should definitely check out.
But let's say that everything with your web traffic seems normal.
Then the culprit is most likely something with your contact form. Your
contact form might not be sending to your email. Now, I see this happen quite
often with WordPress sites. Usually it's something that happens if you're using Contact
Form 7, or WP Forms, or other free plugins, which do not save your
contact form entries to the database. This is bad, bad news.
This means that any contact forms that have been submitted from your site have
probably just disappeared into the ether. So if you are going to use Contact Form
7, you want to install another plugin called Contact Form 7 Database. This
will save your contact form entries to the database. There will be
another tab in the admin, so you can see the entries of the people who have
filled out your contact form, and it doesn't just disappear into nothingness.
What I do on my sites that are running WordPress -- the WordPress sites
that I build for other people -- I use a plugin called Gravity Forms. This [plugin]
automatically saves any contact form entries to the database, meaning you
haven't lost that information. You can always log into your site, and you can
see the contact forms that people have submitted. One takeaway I want you to
take from this is, if you are running a WordPress site, and if you are using a
free plugin for your contact form, you want to test it periodically to make
sure that it's still sending. Do not use any contact form that does not save
those entries to the database, because you do not want them disappearing
into the ether. If you're running a WordPress site, the most common problem
with the email not delivering is, you need to send those emails via SMTP. This
is a fancy way of saying that you're connecting directly to your email
server. Whether you have email setup through GoDaddy or
Microsoft 365, [or GSuite], there will be a email setup section there. You'll need another
plugin to send those emails via SMTP. The one I usually use, it used to be
called Postman SMTP. I think it's called Post SMTP now. You could also use [a plugin called]
Easy SMTP. These hook directly into your email server. Your website is
actually using that email server to send email. Now a lot of people don't know
this but -- now this is going to get a little bit technical for a few seconds. So you
can tune this out, or skip ahead if this stuff doesn't interest you -- but WordPress
by default, uses the wp_mail function [so send email] -- it uses a basic PHP function to
send email. In a lot of cases, this can work for a
long time, and then all of a sudden stop working. So you want to test this from
time to time. So [to set up SMTP on your website] you'd go into your Email Setup Center, plug in
the values [into the SMTP plugins in your website admin], then send yourself a test email [to make sure it works]. Like I said, I use the the former Postman
SMTP -- I think it's Post SMTP now. I will put a link in the show notes of a couple of
plugins that you can use. Okay, so let's say that you've gone through all those
things and it's not the contact form. Let's say you've fixed your Adwords and
what's really happening is you have a drop off of search traffic. So if you have a
drop off of traffic, and that is the reason why you're not getting leads
anymore, you need to check all the sources of traffic that your website
normally gets. Go back in Google Analytics. Look at the history. The main
thing that I would be looking for is, if there's a drop-off in organic search traffic.
That's a normally where you show up in Google search naturally, not through
AdWords. That would be through PPC (pay-per-click) or Adwords. Referral is
also a channel. That's anything any site that's linking to you. So if you had a
temporary boost from another site linking to you, and that site isn't
sending traffic anymore, that might cause a traffic drop off. Check all that stuff out. If
you do have an organic traffic drop off, and your rankings have dropped -- if your SEO has
dropped, then you probably have some work to do. You need to diagnose what you
need to do for your SEO. (We can help.) To sum up, the three things that might cause you to not
be getting leads anymore are: one of your sources of traffic has dried up. Whether
that's through Google search or something else [another channel]. Second, your AdWords is not
working correctly, and you aren't getting the clicks because you aren't showing up.
In most cases, if you increase your bid, and if you increase the quality of your ads,
following all the recommendations that are in AdWords -- and the helper there -- you'll usually
start getting clicks again. And the third thing is, your contact form isn't working.
That's definitely something that you should check out. Make sure that your
contact form works from time to time. My name is John Locke. My business is
Lockedown Design and SEO. We help industrial and manufacturing firms with their SEO,
helping them get more traffic through Google and Bing.
As a result, they get more Requests For Quotes. If you have an SEO question
that you'd like to see us answer, go ahead and drop it in the comments below.
We will answer it out in a future video for you. If you're getting value from this
channel, the one thing I would ask you to do is, subscribe. Because we are
publishing videos once a week. That's our brand promise to you. That's it for now,
and until next time, peace.
[Outtakes: There's an old saying that we used to have when I used to work in the retail
bakery. And that was, "Inspect what you expect." It's good from time to time to
just go through the process yourself. Fill out the form, make sure everything
works correctly.]