In the world of digital marketing, traffic gets a lot of attention. Small business owners understand that without visitors to your site, it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to grow or sustain their businesses.
I’d argue that the focus on traffic isn’t helpful unless it’s paired with a focus on conversion. After all, you might be able to attract thousands of visitors a month – but if none of those people are buying from you, what’s the point? You’re paying for traffic without getting any real return on your investment.
With that in mind, here are some of the most useful tools I know to help you boost your conversion rate and turn your traffic into revenue.
Content Research Tools
A high conversion rate starts with great content. If you’re not sure what content gets the most traction, then these tools can help you find out.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of the best tools I know for figuring out what kind of content to post. You can entire a keyword and get a display with links to the most linked and shared content related to your search term. You can then dig in to explore what makes the content shareable.
You can get a free trial. After that, the plans start at $99 per month. That might seem like a lot, but there’s no minimum subscription period.
Similar Web
Which sites are most like yours – and where is their traffic coming from? If you want to know the answers to both questions, you should try Similar Web.
Similar Web will tell you which of your keywords is generating the most traffic and give you ideas about where to post and share your content online to increase conversions. They offer a free plan and a paid plan, which is based on volume. You can contact them for pricing.
Land-Book
One of the keys to a high conversion rate is a great landing page – but how do you know if your landing page is getting the job done? I recommend Land-Book.
Land-Book is a free collection of some of the web’s most successful and effective landing pages. It’s a great resource if you’re not sure where to start with your landing page.
Really Good Emails
Do you want to improve the conversion rate of your emails? Really Good Emails does for marketing emails what Land-Book does for landing pages.
Browse their huge, free collection of effective marketing emails and use them for inspiration. This is an especially helpful resource if you’re new to writing emails and want to up your game.
Tools to Capture Leads
The next category is a series of tools that will help you capture leads once you’ve enticed 
a visitor to your website.
HubSpot is a free lead-capturing tool. Its primary feature is an exit intent popup, which is proven to be one of the best-known ways to capture leads.
What I really like about HubSpot is that it combines lead capturing with detailed metrics to help you understand the user experience on your website – which can, in turn, help you to increase conversions.
Sumo is a suite of tools that you can use to create action-triggered popups that include a Welcome Mat popup, a scroll-triggered popup, and a Smart Bar to help you attract more email subscribers.
Their free version is probably enough for most small businesses, but if you want even more analytical tools, you should consider their premium option, which comes in at $49 per month.
HelloBar is another tool you can use to capture leads. They have a free plan with limited options that you can use to display a popup opt-in form to every 10th visitor on your site.
Their paid plans range from $29 to $49 per month and offer an array of additional features that can help you transform your website into a lead-generating machine.
Heat Mapping & Mouse Tracking Tools
A visitor’s behavior on your site can provide a lot of information about why your conversion rate isn’t as high as you want it to be. Here are some tools that can give you the data you need.
Clicky offers free and paid plans that will give you detailed information about how long visitors stay on your site and what they do while they’re there.
I like that this tool offers real-time data that includes heat mapping. It’s a good starter tool if you’re new to this kind of conversion optimization.
Crazy Egg is a highly respected tool that offers a full suite of tools that include heat mapping and click isolation.
There’s no free plan with Crazy Egg, but their premium plans start at only $24 per month, making it a worthwhile investment if you want to learn about your site visitors.
Analytics Tools
Reviewing your analytics is a must if you want to optimize your conversion rate. These tools will help you get down and dirty with the numbers.
Google Analytics is a tool I use every day – and one I’ve mentioned a lot. It’s free to anyone with a Google account and offers a ton of detailed metrics you can use to up your conversion rate.
If you want even more information, you can contact Google for pricing on their premium accounts.
Kissmetrics is the gold standard of premium analytics tools. It’s best suited for optimizing email conversion and includes built-in A/B testing and data sets.
They don’t publish prices for their plans, so you’ll need to contact them if you’re interested.
Visitor Feedback Tools
There are few things more valuable than direct feedback from your site visitors and customers. Here are some of my favorites.
User testing can be expensive, but Five Second Test offers an affordable option that allows testers to download an app-based version of your website and rate their experience.
Prices start at $50 per month. You can choose from a variety of testing methods, including basic UX, heat maps, and surveys.
Intercom offers you the opportunity to chat in real time with your site visitors. You can also use it to track leads and share chats with the other members of your team.
Intercom’s prices start at $87 per month.
Testing Tools
Finally, you’ll need to test every aspect of your marketing to improve your conversion rate. Here are some tools that I recommend.
Optimizely is the best-known testing site. In addition to traditional A/B testing, they also offer multivariate testing options and detailed analytics.
Pricing is based on your needs, so you’ll need to contact them for more information.
Effective Experiments is a tool that makes it easy to track your testing and content experiments. It’s useful to have a place to keep everything organized instead of trying to juggle multiple spreadsheets.
Pricing is based on your company’s needs and you can contact them for a quote.
Conversion optimization should be an ongoing effort because there’s always room for improvement. The tools I’ve listed here will help you fine-tune your content and marketing, so that you can grow your business.