If the purpose of your website is to generate leads, then you’ll need to design your website to be a superstar lead generator.
Read on for some of the best, proven lead generation tactics you can use on your website.
A lead from your website could be several things. Here are some examples.
Start off by identifying all the different ways people can contact you from your website. Think about your typical customers and how they like to engage with your company. Some people just like to call, but don’t forget the ones who may want to contact you out of hours.
It’s essential you track how many leads your website is generating and it’s not difficult to do with a tool like Google Analytics.
In Google Analytics you can set up ‘conversions’. Each conversion would be a type of lead, such as an enquiry form submission. You can then measure how many leads you are generating, what the best lead generation channels are, and your websites conversion rate. Examples of lead generation channels are organic search, paid ads and social media.
Your conversion rate is the percentage of your website visitors who convert into a lead. For example, if you have 5,000 website visitors and 60 of them convert into a lead then your conversion rate is (60 ÷ 5000) x 100 = 1.2%.
This depends on your industry; how competitive it is and other factors such as your offer. Unbounce did a study of landing pages and found that a 12% conversion rate is deemed good. Generally, if your website conversion rate is below 1% then you have work to do.
Before you get started on improving your websites lead generation, use Google Analytics to see what pages are currently producing leads. These are typically your product pages, but check other pages like home or contact pages.
Find out which pages are your main landing pages. Landing pages are the first page that someone visits; either directly from typing in your website address, from search, or from a link on another website or social media. It’s normal for the most popular landing page to be your home page, however you might find that product / services pages and possibly your contact page also do well.
These are the pages you need to be optimising for lead generation.
Ok, let’s get started on how to improve your website to get those valuable leads in.
Design is not just what it looks like. Design is how it works.
– Steve Jobs
If your customers struggle to find the content they want, you’ll lose them.
Your customer research will identify what content visitors want from your website, this needs to be the focus of your website content plan.
The key message is to keep it simple. People don’t like to learn new things so keep navigation and page layouts easy to use for good conversion rates.
User-friendly navigation is essential for lead generation.
Website copy is as important as design and often overlooked. Make sure your copy focuses on the key benefits of your product in a language that your customers will understand. Does your website copy appeal, persuade and convert? If not, then re-write it in a voice that fits your brand and speaks to your customers.
Find out more about how to write good copy for your website.
Customers buy holes, not drills
– Theodore Levitt
If you want your website to be effective, design for your target audience. Your website isn't meant to please the marketing directors brother-in-law or look good on the bosses wall, it’s there to convert your visitors into sales and leads.
First impressions count and if your website has poor images and looks unprofessional its unlikely you will get many quality leads from your site.
A call to action (often shortened to CTA) is what you want your website visitors to do.
Every website needs to have calls to action to guide people. To create good CTAs think about what you want your customers to do and, very importantly, what they want to do.
Remember that everyone is different, some people like to pick up the phone, others prefer a more cautious enquiry form.
Each CTA needs to stand out through size, colour and style – buttons are a great way to present them. They also need to be prominent to attract attention and increase conversions. Link your CTA's to your Google Analytics to track their performance so you know what’s working and what isn’t.
Many of your website visitors may not convert on their first visit. Capturing their data is a good way to stay in touch so you can remind them of your services and products in future through email marketing or direct mail.
Unless your product is highly desirable, just asking for an email address is unlikely to persuade them to part with their precious data. Try tempting your visitors by offering them something for free such as money off vouchers, ebooks, or useful resources.
You can also capture email addresses when people fill in a form on your website. If you do this, remember that under GDPR you must get consent for ongoing marketing by adding an “I agree to….” tick box, and an explanation of how you will use their data.
A potential customer is always asking themselves “Why should I buy from this company?” when they land on your website. They will be looking for signs that you are a professional company who will deliver on service and solve any problems.
If your website doesn’t is slow, has forms that don’t send, has broken links, or is in some way broken then you're losing conversions.
What percentage of your website traffic is from mobile? Chances are, it’s very high. Use Google Analytics to find out and check your website on smartphones and tablets to see how the customer experience is.
Make sure your website is “responsive” i.e., mobile friendly. For many businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and estate agents, mobile traffic is becoming the biggest source of website visitors.
Does your website work in all the major browsers? Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox are the main browsers people use. Make sure you don’t lose sales because your website doesn't work in a specific browser.
Is your website accessible? Accessibility has a huge crossover with user experience, and a good website is easy to use for everyone.
Make sure your telephone number is visible at the top of every page. If you have more than one number, show a “contact us” call to action instead, and link it to a page with your phone numbers. Many people still prefer calling, even in a digital age. Not showing a telephone number can reduce people’s trust in your company.
All your forms need to be short and only capture essential information you need to follow up the lead. Remember, your aim is to get leads at this stage, not to ask for every possible piece of information, you can find that out later.
Shorter forms = higher conversion rate.
Video is a great lead generation tactic if used properly. Use video to answer people’s questions about your product. These may be videos explaining how your product works, testimonial videos from satisfied customers, or a video that shows the benefits of your service. Don’t bore people with long videos about the 500 year history of your company – keep them short and relevant.
Adding live chat to your website is a great way of talking to potential customers. Many people like using live chat to ask questions about your product while they do other things like work, cook, or hoover the dog. It’s not just a good lead generation tool it’s also great for existing customers who want more info or support from you.
Services such as Tawk.to are free and easy to implement. If you don't have the resources to run live chat, then chatbots and managed chat services are also avaiable.
Lead generation is a constantly evolving task. Your goal is to keep increasing leads, so test everything. Use tools such as Analytics and Heatmaps to how people are using your website. Try different calls to action, design and copy variations, button colours and wording, see if they make a difference. If you’re feeling fancy, you can run A/B tests to directly measure these variations.
Check out your competitors’ websites too, do they have any good lead generation tactics that you can learn from?