One of the most essential things you do as a business owner is attracting new customers. Generating leads is important for people with online businesses, due to the fact that they don’t have the benefit of a brick-and-mortar store where they can decorate windows, hang signs, and find other ways to bring in foot traffic. To acquire leads, you have to find a way to make your company stick out from the other competitors in your industry and niche, and a lead generation website is one of the best tools to do that.
The key to building an effective and efficient lead generation website is to understand all the ways that such a website can work to assist in bringing you qualified leads. This article will look at the key elements of a lead generation website so you can use that information to attract leads and grow your business.
The first thing you need to consider is a lead generation form. A form can be a static item on the side or at the bottom of a webpage, or even a pop-up window that encourages visitors to your site to subscribe to your list or fill out a form for a free meeting or consultation.
The most effective forms are those that have only a few fields for a lead to fill out. A 2010 examination of online behavior found that adding unnecessary forms to a lead generation form resulted in an increased bounce rate. Request the minimum amount of information you need to progress and nurture your lead – and get rid everything else.
Other things to think about for your lead generation form include:
- Putting your form inside a frame to call attention to it
- Placing your form above the old to ensure that visitors to your site don’t miss it
- Including your privacy statement on the form to alleviate concerns that you will sell information
- Making your value proposition easy to comprehend
If you adhere to these guidelines, then you will most likely see an improvement in both the number and quality of your leads.
The next thing you need to get the most out of your lead generation website is a form scraping tool. These tools work by collecting information from your lead generation form and exporting them to a spreadsheet where you can review the information and use it to cater to your leads.
One tool that does an outstanding job that also happens to be free is the HubSpot Collected Forms tool. Once you have collected the information from the completed forms, you can use it in a variety of ways to connect with leads and convert them into paying customers.
If you want to attract high-quality, qualified leads with your website, you cannot ignore the significance of crafting strong calls to action for each page on your site.
The call to action is what informs visitors to your site what you want them to do – and what you’re willing to give them in return. Your ultimate goal is to acquire their email address and other contact information so you can nurture them and get them to buy for you. Their goal is not to release that information unless they feel confident that they’ll be getting something worthy in return.
The solution is having both a primary and a secondary call to action on each page of your website. The primary CTA should appear above the fold and it should showcase the number one thing you want customers to do when they reach your page. It should include strong, inviting language such as “Sign up free” or “Try it now” – language that encourages people to take action immediately.
The secondary call to action should be below the fold. It can still have the same goal as the primary CTA, but it should look unique. Use slightly different language and different formatting to ensure that your site doesn’t look repetitive or dull.
Sometimes it is essential to offer potential leads something tangible in exchange for their contact information. One of the most time-honored ways to do that is to use a lead magnet – a free piece of content that’s relevant to your customers. The only way for them to acquire the content is to fill out your form and subscribe to your list.
Some types of gated content include:
- Tip sheets
- Templates
- Short eBooks and reports
- White papers
- Videos
- Infographics
You can use anything you prefer as a lead magnet, but it is imperative that it be both valuable and relevant to your customers. If you create the right lead magnet, it can boost your lead generation into overdrive.
While it’s certainly understandable that people aren’t interested in pop-up forms, the fact remains that they can be extremely effective when it comes to drawing attention to important information and offers.
The key with using a pop-up form is to ensure that they are:
- Relevant to the page on which they appear
- Timed to coincide with visitors’ actions to make them as unobtrusive as possible
- Easy to respond to
- Compelling, with strong language and visuals elements
If you utilize them properly, pop-up windows can help you increase your conversion rate and generate new leads.
The design of your website has a lot to do with your bounce rate and lead generation success. If your site is poorly designed or doesn’t flow from one page to the next, the chances are strong that people will leave, or bounce, to another site.
On the other hand, a site that flows and is easy to navigate – one that has strategic CTA placement that appeals directly to customers at the time when they are most willing to convert – will generate leads on a consistent basis.
Blogging remains one of the smartest ways to generate leads. The reason is that a well-crafted and relevant blog provides you with an instant way to give value to your site’s visitors. Every blog entry represents an opportunity for you to connect with a potential lead and exhibit what you can do for them.
Each blog entry you write should include a targeted call to action at the end. That way, if a potential lead reads a blog post and wants to learn more about you and your company, they don’t have to go searching for a way to get in touch with you.
The final element of a well-designed lead generation page is social proof. More than 80% of all online shoppers rely on customer reviews and testimonials to assess products and companies.
Some of the things you may want to include on your lead generation page are:
- Customer testimonials
- Links to crowd review sites such as Yelp
- Information about industry awards you have won
- Social buttons that display how many followers you have
All of these items can help to demonstrate your trustworthiness and value. The subtle message is that if you have a large follower base, new leads can trust that you have something valuable to offer.
A lead generation page that includes all of these items can really improve e your chances at generating qualified leads – the kind of leads that are most likely to convert into increased sales and profits.
