How to Create a Sales Funnel in WordPress (Easy Way) 

Want to know how to create a sales funnel in WordPress for your small business?

A sales funnel helps you guide website visitors down a path that turns them into paying customers. Optimizing it can result in more leads and higher conversions.

Some of our readers have told us they get stuck with this process. So, we laid out a step-by-step guide to create and optimize an effective sales funnel in WordPress.

In This Guide

Here’s some information about each stage of the sales funnel:

• Awareness Stage: This is the top of the funnel, where potential customers become aware of your brand or products. It’s about grabbing attention, getting on people’s radar, and starting a relationship.
• Interest Stage: During the middle of the funnel, customers have learned about your brand and want to learn more. Position yourself as a solution to their problem.
• Decision Stage: Customers are ready to purchase at this point. It’s about nurturing that interest into a decision to pick your brand over the competition.
• Action Stage: This is the bottom of the funnel where leads convert into customers making a purchase.

A sales funnel helps you understand where users are losing interest so you can make changes to convert them into customers. It can also help boost sales by encouraging customers to buy more (upselling) or related products (cross-selling). 

Moreover, a sales funnel helps you deliver the right message at the right time based on where users are in their buying journey. This improves customer experience and makes them more susceptible to future marketing efforts.

Elements to Include in a WordPress Sales Funnel

A solid and efficient sales funnel includes several must-have elements. Let’s take a closer look at what you can’t afford to miss:

• Lead Generation Form: The entry point of your sales funnel should be a form to capture visitors’ information.
• Landing Page: After capturing leads, you need a well-designed landing page to present your offers and convert leads into sales.
• Opt-In Forms: These are reminders or incentives for those still on the fence. They’re proven to help boost conversions.
• Upselling Tactics: Upselling can increase the value of a sale by offering additional relevant products or services to customers.
• Checkout Page: A seamless checkout process improves the user experience and increases the chance of a sale.
• Thank You Page: The crucial last step is building trust by thanking customers for their purchase and encouraging them to engage.

How to Create a Sales Funnel That Converts

With the essentials in place, let’s look at the steps to create a sales funnel that turns casual visitors into committed buyers. Let’s jump right in.

Create a Landing Page or Sales Page

Most sales funnels begin with users visiting a landing page on your website. Imagine this as the entrance to your sales process, catching attention like a store’s display window.

According to Trellis, 68% of businesses use landing pages to generate new sales leads for future conversions. With a clear interface, targeted message, and no distractions, landing pages are an ideal way to get potential customers into your funnel.

We recommend using a reliable WordPress page builder like SeedProd to create one.

It’s user-friendly with a drag-and-drop interface, so no coding skills are needed.

SeedProd has hundreds of pre-made templates that are already optimized to increase conversions. Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize any page to meet your needs.

You can easily add elements, including countdown timers, opt-in forms, call-to-action buttons, and testimonials by pointing and clicking.

For help getting started, you can see our tutorial on how to create a landing page in WordPress.

Expert Tip

When building your page, focus on your headline. Visitors see this first, so use it to pique their interest, making them want to learn more. Also, make your copy easy to read using bullet points or short sections that address users’ pain points.

You can also use social proof through case studies and reviews to help your target audience trust you more.

After warming your leads, use a clear and brief call to action (CTA). Keep it simple and catchy, inspiring visitors to take action straight away.

Build a Lead Generation Form

One thing to consider adding to your landing page is a lead generation form. Since many people will leave your site before purchasing, adding one lets you capture their contact details.

Once you have a prospect’s email address or telephone number, your sales team can follow up with targeted email campaigns and offers that persuade them to buy when they feel ready.

One of the easiest ways to add a lead gen form to WordPress is with a form builder plugin. Our favorite plugin is WPForms because it’s beginner-friendly and takes minutes to set up.

With WPForms, you can use its drag-and-drop form builder to create virtually any form in WordPress. It works seamlessly with popular email marketing tools to connect your email list and has many templates to get you up and running.

WPForms even has its own SeedProd block, so you can easily add any form to your landing page with a few clicks.

Expert Tip

It’s tempting to glean every bit of data from your prospect. However, longer forms can deter potential leads. Ask for just the bare minimum – typically their name and email address.

It’s also good to assure visitors that you’ll keep their information private. People are more likely to submit a form when they know their data is safe.

Add Opt-in Popups to Boost Conversions

Your landing page and lead generation form are great for generating sales. However, some users may follow a path that leads them away from your sales funnel.

This is where opt-in forms, especially popups, can help. They help re-capture users’ attention and focus them back on your funnel with an attractive incentive, such as a free download, coupon code, discount, or another offer.

Creating opt-in forms in WordPress is a breeze with OptinMonster. It’s one of the best lead generation tools and one we use here on our own website.

OptinMonster helps you convert site visitors into paying customers with eye-catching lightbox popups, sticky banners, countdown timers, and more. With pre-made templates and an easy drag-and-drop editor, you can build opt-in campaigns without writing code.

What we particularly love are its targeting rules. They let you personalize your opt-ins and show them at the right time in a buyer’s journey.

For example, you could show users an opt-in form with free shipping in a specific location.

Or, if someone is about to leave your site without purchasing, you can show an exit popup with a discount for checking out.

Expert Tip

Opt-in forms are a great way to offer and deliver lead magnets – a freebie in exchange for an email address. This could be anything from a free ebook or cheat sheet to templates and checklists.

They offer value to visitors, making them more likely to take further actions later in your sales funnel. They’re also invaluable for customer retention for the same reason.

Upsell Your WooCommerce Products

Now, let’s talk about upselling, a sales technique that encourages customers to buy more expensive items, upgrades, or add-ons.

Some examples of this could be prompting shoppers to get the premium version of a product, an extension on their warranty, or a luxury add-on for an item they’re purchasing.

The idea is to increase the value of a customer’s purchase, boosting sales while also providing additional value.

When users add items to their cart, they typically see a screen like this:

But a good sales funnel will upsell products before shoppers even reach that page. For example, with SeedProd’s Upsell block, you can upsell right on the WooCommerce product page.

You can also use a sales funnel builder like FunnelKit. With this tool, you can build complete sales funnels or add additional steps to an existing funnel.

With its One-click Upsells feature, users can add products to their shopping cart on their way to the checkout page. It even allows for one-click order bumps in the checkout to increase conversions.

Make a User-Friendly Checkout Page

Once users are warmed up and ready to purchase, you’ll need a checkout page that makes closing the sale effortless. If the checkout process is too confusing or has too many steps, users may abandon their carts and never return.

In research from the Baymard Institute, 18% of customers abandoned their carts because the checkout process was too long or complicated. A further 25% were put off because the site wanted them to create an account.

To avoid this, remove any possible stumbling blocks or distractions. Make the process seamless by including clear pricing, multiple payment methods, and straightforward terms and conditions.

You can even allow users to checkout as a guest to avoid having to register for an account.

The good news is that you can build a custom checkout page using the same software as your landing page: SeedProd. With its WooCommerce integration, creating a seamless checkout process without writing code takes minutes.

You can add eCommerce elements like product grids, sale products, add-to-cart buttons, and more.

You’re also not limited to WooCommerce as an eCommerce platform. With direct Easy Digital Downloads integration, you can tailor your checkout page to selling digital goods and services.

Build a Thank You Page

Let’s move to a crucial part of your sales funnel – the thank you page. This is where you thank customers for buying or signing up for your service. It’s an essential part of the customer journey and critical for building relationships and increasing lifetime value.

A well-designed thank you page can add a personal touch and leave a positive impression on new customers. You can use this page to show your appreciation and even suggest related products or offers.

SeedProd has several high-quality templates you can use for your thank you page. The ‘eCommerce thank you page,’ is an excellent choice for its recommended products section.

Or you can build a thank you page from scratch, which is what we did in this example:

We included the following elements on our page:

• Thank you message telling users to check their email for a confirmation
• Cross-sell suggesting an additional product
• Countdown timer for sale products that are ending soon
• Popular products that other shoppers are buying

You can follow our guide on how to make a custom WooCommerce thank you page to make one just like it.

Expert Tip

Make sure the message on your thank you page is genuine and sincere so customers feel valued. For any issues and queries, you can also include order details, delivery estimates, and customer service details.

Track Your Sales Funnel Results

After building your sales funnel and optimizing it for the best results, you’ll want to keep tabs on its performance.

How are users interacting with your funnel? Are there any key places where they abandon your site without making a purchase?

To answer these questions, ensure you have analytics set up correctly on your WordPress site. Google Analytics is the most popular option because it’s free and has a wealth of data.

However, you can make understanding this data even easier with MonsterInsights, one of the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress.

It takes complex analytics data from Google and displays it in your WordPress dashboard in easy-to-understand reports.

You can use MonsterInsights to track conversions across your site and its eCommerce addon to understand conversion rates, transactions, revenue, and average order values.

For help with this, you can see our guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

FAQs on Creating a Sales Funnel in WordPress

Start Building a High Converting Sales Funnel

We hope this guide has helped you learn how to create a sales funnel in WordPress that drives leads, conversions, and sales.

You might also find our other guides helpful for growing your business:

• Landing Page vs Sales Page: Which One Is Right for You?
• Top eCommerce Landing Page Examples to Drive Sales
• How to Create a Coupon Code Landing Page to Drive More Sales
• Best CRM Software to Boost Business Sales

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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Stacey Corrin Writer

Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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