Generating leads is a hassle for most companies, but it’s necessary. The easiest method is simply placing a contact page on your website. Unfortunately, this method alone is highly unlikely to get your business many leads.
Businesses need to start thinking in bigger terms. What are the pages that are most visited on the website? Where are people seeing most of the content and staying the longest? These are the pages you want to use as lead generators, not a basic contact page. Here are a few steps your company can take to make sure its website is developed with lead generation in mind.
The first step is to identify the pages on your website that get the most traffic. You’ll probably have a variety of tools at your disposal to help accomplish this goal. The first – and one that most people utilize – is Google Analytics. To check your site’s traffic, all you need to do is sign in and click “Content Optimization.” Then choose “Content Performance” to see your page views, and “Top Content” to look at the top pages and content on your site. If you use a content management tool, you can review your site analytics on that, too.
The next step is to which lead magnets will lead visitors to sign up on your page. Visitors to your Home page might be interested in a fact sheet related to your industry, while people who visit your About Us page might rather see a free eBook that’s relevant to a specific product or service you offer.
Using the same lead magnet on separate pages is not a good idea. You don’t want visitors to click on multiple pages and see the same call to action offer over and over again.
While you don’t want to smother visitors to your page with repeated calls to action, you always want to sure that they understand the value of each page they visit as quickly as possible. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind:
- Pages on your site must load quickly. Web users are impatient and people are likely to bounce away from your page if it takes more than a few seconds to load – or loads improperly.
- Your pages should be optimized for mobile users. This means that it should be easily accessible and readable on a mobile device. Buttons should be large enough that users can click them with accuracy.
- The content on your page should grab readers’ attention. Studies show that people who view content online often do so in an F-shaped pattern. That means that their eyes travel horizontally across the page once or twice and then scan down the left-hand side of the page.
- Strategically place your calls to action. A good spot for the first CTA on a page is on the top right-hand side of the page. That way when a reader first scans across the top of a page it will catch their eye. Using smart tactics like this can help to encourage visitors to fill out your lead form.
When it comes to creating calls to action, you don’t want to be quiet. If your CTA blends into the rest of the page, it won’t be effective. Here are some suggestions to make yours stand out:
- Pick a contrasting color for your CTA. A good rule of thumb is to use a complementary color. (Complementary colors are those that stand opposite one another on a standard color wheel, such as blue/orange, red/green, and yellow/purple.)
- Place your CTA in an isolated area on the page. You can put your CTA in the middle of other content, but if you do, leave some white space around it. You may also want to consider putting a box or circle around it, or placing an arrow on the page that points to it.
- Use strong, inviting language in your CTA, and focus on the benefits that users will get if they download your content and sign up for your list. A lot of sites use affirmative language, such as “Yes, I want to make more money now!”
These tips will help your CTAs draw attention and encourage your audience to take the action you want them to take.
One of the most exciting things about web design is that it allows you to tailor your content to the person visiting your site. In other words, by using cookies, you can ensure that a person who has visited your site before sees a call to action that appeals directly to their interests or previous purchases. Just as personalized emails have a have more chance of getting opened than those that aren’t personalized, the same is true when you target web content.
To be effective when implementing this strategy, you’ll have to come up with different offers that relate to the most likely behavior of people who visit your site. The idea is to make it seem like natural for users to take the next step into your sales funnel.
Smart marketers know that every product or pitch, no matter how perfect, is going to run into customer objections and dissatisfaction. Visitors to your page are likely to be at least a little reluctant to supply you with their email address. The best way to avoid these objections is to show that you can be trusted. For example:
- Post customer testimonials or links to your page on crowd review sites such as Yelp. Reading what other people have to say about your company provides social proof of your merit.
- Include trust marks such as awards and citations on your page. If customers see that you have won industry awards, they are more likely to believe in your business.
When visitors to your site believe what you say, they are far more likely to turn into viable leads.
Lastly, be sure to review your results and test each page on your site until it’s converting at the highest rate possible. You should be split testing every element of your page, including the headlines, colors, fonts, graphics, and calls to action.
Every time you run a test, you should update your page based on the results. By the time you’re done testing, you’ll have a series of high-converting pages that bring leads to you every day.
These seven steps take some time to master, but the work you put in now will pay for itself in new leads, customers, and sales.