Your website is one of your best vehicles for generating leads. Though this requires a strategic approach that goes much deeper than your SEO best efforts and a flashy graphic saying “Click Here to Learn More.”
Effectively generating leads from your website design draws on several important factors that lead to things like primary calls to action (CTA) secondary CTAs, landing pages with sign-up options, special offers, and marketing integration techniques.
Understanding how to optimize your website for lead generation starts with asking and answering some important questions.
Is Lead Generation Important?
Lead generation helps narrow down the field of potential new customers by connecting you with interested parties. This can help you position your products and services in a way that they’re more likely to invest in, or it might give your sales staff an invitation to connect with them. Without effective lead generation, you are essentially throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something sticks long enough to convert into a one-time sale.
Can Website Lead Generation Improve ROI?
Using your website for lead generation is more than just collecting names and giving your sales staff a target. Effective lead generation also needs to produce qualified leads. Optimizing your website to entice qualified, interested parties to engage thus boosts your chances of those leads converting into not just one-time sales, but long-term loyal customers!
Of course, it always costs less in time, man-hours, and marketing to retain loyal customers who make returning purchases, over having to hunt down new one-time customers over and over again. When you use your website for qualified lead generation you tend to increase the number of loyal customers, which helps boost the return on investment from your marketing dollars.
Important Elements To Optimize Your Website’s Lead Generation
If you’re looking to take the lead-generating power of your website to the next level, you should consider implementing some of the following features and marketing strategies.
Make the Most Out of Landing Pages
Landing pages have evolved into one of the most effective tools for lead generation. You need to position them with the right keywords and SEO strategies to draw in interested users. Then place sign-ups to “Subscribe to our Newsletter,” “Learn More” or “Get Access to Exclusive Deals.” When they sign up, you get a lead, and you get permission to add them to other digital marketing opportunities like e-mail marketing.
Use Short Sign-Up Forms
People love to sign up for exclusive offers, in-depth information, and deep dives into important information before making major purchases. Sign-up forms strategically placed throughout your website and on product pages are a great way to harvest these leads.
However, you want the form to be cut down to just include pertinent information. Just like when you go to the gas station and the pump asks you a million annoying questions, users don’t want to enter a complete biography of their life with a dozen different forms of contact information.
Keeping the form short, by only asking for pertinent information like name, and email address reduces the risk of them getting annoyed and bouncing before the form is fully submitted.
Include Calls-To-Action
Some users will come to your site fully intending to sign up, buy or sign on the dotted line. For those who do, you want to include clear calls to action. These might be buttons that tell them where they can “Buy Now” or “Check the Price.”
Some users want to “Learn More” or “Sign up for Exclusive Deals.” This further helps you generate leads to interested customers who are aching for the opportunity to convert into loyal customers.
Your website should also judiciously include secondary calls to action. This can include things like “Subscribing to our Newsletter” or signing up for a timed promotion so they “Don’t Miss Out.”
Be Consistent with Your Brand Image
Your website is one of the most powerful representations of your brand. Your colors, graphics, wording, and even your typeface all need to match the established brand image that users are accustomed to seeing from you.
If you divert from these key brand motifs it often creates unease in the user. They start to subconsciously wonder what other things you’re inconsistent with. Has your product quality declined? Are you struggling to stay afloat? Will you be able to provide the same products in the future?
This simple degree of uncertainty can be the difference between then clicking to sign up or buying now and bouncing off to see what your competitor has to offer.
Design with an Intuitive Interface
An easy-to-use interface with things like intuitive search tools and easy navigation on all your pages gives users a sense of ease and encourages them to stay on your site. It also makes it easier for them to click on calls-to-action or special signups.
This can include things like links that flow naturally without any dead links or dead ends in site navigation. Scrolling features that make it easy to move through the page quickly and anchor links that let them jump to the information that is most important to them.
Incorporating a search feature on every page or at the top of the page also helps them find pertinent information that makes them more likely to sign-up or convert. You can also use the search feature to help them more easily find your strategically placed CTAs.
Use Relevant Content That Takes Users on a Journey
Users want to be taken on a journey through what you have to offer. The best websites that produce the most qualified leads offer users a robust experience. This tends to happen in phases.
Top of Funnel
In the TOFU stage, the user is aware of their need and/or problem and they are actively looking for a solution. When they come across your website they want to feel like they can trust you to provide that solution. This is where you start building a relationship by providing interesting and helpful articles, videos, and other content.
Middle of Funnel
When the user reaches the MOFU stage they are already familiar with your brand and are actively interested in your product or services. Yet they might not yet be ready to buy. This is the point where they are still evaluating their options and they might be shopping you against your competitors.
At this point in the relationship, you need to support your potential customer by providing them with the information they need to make an informed opinion. This starts with offering them unbiased information, and only closing with a sales pitch or call to action.
You want them to feel like the information you’re offering is honest, without pushing them. Then at the end, you offer them the opportunity to engage with your products or have one of your sales staff contact them. needs by providing resources that help them compare their options.
Bottom of the Funnel
The final “BOFU” stage is the point where your qualified and cultivated leads are converted into loyal customers. This is often the point of sale, where they still need a little nudge. Though you might also use persuasive techniques that make it easier for them to convert.
This might include things like a timed special offer that creates a sense of urgency or noting that you have a limited supply of the solution they need.
Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
These days a lot of users are coming to websites via their mobile devices. Making sure that your site is mobile-friendly and all the pages are easy to navigate will not only decrease your bounce rate, but it will also make it easy for users to answer your call-to-action to sign up as a new lead.
