How To Get More Leads From Your Website
Getting traffic to your website is the first step for growing your business.
Even so, you want to make sure your site generates the right amount of leads and sales.
In other words, how to get more leads from your website.
If you’re a local business owner, website traffic gives you the perfect opportunity for business growth through lead generation.
You’ve spent tons of time and money getting the traffic, but now it’s time to make sure you’re getting the best return on that investment.
In this guide, we’ll cover eight ways to generate more leads from your website traffic.
Follow a content strategy that speaks to your audience and shows up on search engines.
While there are several important components to building a lead-generating website, the content is the most important. The right wording will:
- Rank your website on search engines
- Engage visitors and encourage them to learn more about your business offerings
- Eventually persuade prospects to take action.
You can generate more leads by creating a website that answers visitors’ needs through effective content marketing.
If you aren’t sure whether your content is generating business or losing business, ask your friends and family for their input. The less they know about your business, industry, or product, the better. Ask them to navigate your site with fresh eyes.
- Can they tell you what your business offers in a clear and simple way?
- Do they know why your business is the best and only choice?
- Do they know how to take the first step?
Feedback like this can be a powerful game-changer for your lead generation efforts. Take their feedback to build more effective landing pages that get leads interested in your solutions.
Want to do a deep dive into your content? Check out out guide on How to Write Content That Ranks and Coverts.
Use design that matches your brand.
While it’s the content that converts, the design can attract or repel visitors within seconds.
Web design covers all of the visual aspects of your website, including:
- Logo
- Colors
- Spacing
- Images
- Font and typography
When all of these things are put together in a meaningful way, it sends a visual signal to your visitors that your business is professional and trustworthy.
When a business has an unprofessional website, it creates uncertainty with prospects and reduces your chances of getting leads and sales. When in doubt, optimize these aspects of your site to become more trustworthy in your customers’ eyes.
Logo
If you’re wondering how to generate leads, it often comes down to building a brand image that’s primed for marketing opportunities. That starts with your logo.
Your logo is like a signal; it’s sending out a message 24/7. While it can’t and won’t be perfect, there should be some thought behind it. Setting aside a logo budget will pay off in the long term.
Brand Style Guide
A style guide is a set of design rules for your brand.
It governs how and where to display your logo, how close your logo should be to other elements, and what kinds of colors, fonts, and typography should be used. When a business follows a style guide, it supports consistent branding, which, in turn, projects an image of professionalism.
Your brand style guide can also cover your content strategy and marketing, too. Create quick guidelines for marketing generation rules, including tone of voice, promotions, and approved calls to action.
Site Design
With a logo and style guide in hand, it’s much easier to come up with a website that reflects your business the right way.
There is a wide range of options available for designing your website. The best long-term option is working with a competent web design agency that fits within your budget.
Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Web Design Costs
Generate more leads with effective landing pages and navigation.
Confusion destroys leads. Since every future customer is on a journey to buy something, blocking their path with overly complicated menus or hard-to-find pages will drive them away.
When something blocks us, we usually change direction, and on the Internet, that means clicking away to another site, so we can find what we’re looking for. The easier it is for your visitors to find answers on your website, the happier they will be and the more they will learn to know, like, and trust you.
Follow these tips to create a clear website that supports lead generation.
Easy-To-Use Menu Links and Internal Links
Visitors are happiest when the navigation menu is easy to find and understand. Follow these quick best practices to create a clear journey on your website:
- For desktop users, place the menu at the top of your website.
- Only use one to two words to describe each link.
- Use simple terminology. If they don’t understand what a link means, they won’t click it. Using terminology your audience instantly understands will work best.
- Don’t display more than five links, tops.
Use One Landing Page per Topic
Imagine clicking a menu link for ‘dog socks,’ but it takes you to a ‘cat socks’ page that only briefly mentions ‘dog socks.’ Mixing topics like this will confuse your leads and increase the odds that they’ll leave your website.
Squeezing multiple topics into a few pages will lead to visitor confusion, and confused prospects won’t buy.
Organize your landing page topics thoughtfully to encourage lead generation. We talk more about how best to organize your website here.
Lead People To Increase Action With Clear Calls-To-Action (CTAs)
What is a call-to-action (CTA)? It’s the action you want visitors to take once they’ve checked out your site.
The CTA can vary, but for most local businesses, it’s usually one of these three things:
- Call Us
- Email Us
- Buy Now
If you’re selling a service, the CTAs may be something like:
- Schedule Appointment
- Schedule Consultation
- Book Meeting
- Call Us Now
If you’re selling a product, it could be:
- Shop Now
- Buy Now
- Add to Cart
Once you’ve settled on a clear next step, place the CTAs strategically throughout the website.
For a marketing boost, try to use a button color that stands out so it’s easy to find.
Add social proof and authority badges.
Generally speaking, most people are afraid of making the wrong choice, so knowing what others have done in their situation helps them make a decision. There are three ways to do this on your website, but it’s best to combine all three.
Collect Client Reviews
Few things are as powerful as past client reviews.
Prospects need to know what other customers think of a business before they buy. The more detailed and specific a review, the better. Use these as part of your content strategy. Add them not only to your Google profile but also to your website and social media.
Find Authority Badges
Has your business won awards?
Has your leadership been interviewed or featured in a publication of any kind?
Third-party organizations that recognize your expertise or contributions will place your business in a position of authority in your industry.
Usually, they will provide badges, graphics, or links that you can place on your website and social media. This is marketing gold, so be sure to add them to your online presence for an authority boost.
Case Studies
Most local businesses use client reviews and authority badges, but few seem to use case studies.
While client reviews and authority badges come from outside of your business, case studies are internal. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your ability to deliver results.
Building a case study can be a lot of work, but it can really pay off. How detailed you want to get will depend on your industry and how proprietary your process is.
Try to have at least three case studies on your website to encourage lead generation. If you have quantifiable data that proves your quality work, be sure to include that in the case studies.
Add an online chat tool
Even if you answer tons of questions with FAQ pages and blog content, visitors will still have more questions. That’s a good thing! Asking questions is a buying signal.
Rather than letting a visitor lose interest and leave your website, make chat available. This gives visitors the opportunity to connect with you and ask questions right away.
There are several options for adding chat to your website, so find one that suits your business needs.
If you’re a little nervous about adding chat, try it for 30 to 60 days and see if it yields results. If it doesn’t, you can always turn it off.
Build your email list and begin lead nurturing with free offers and website forms.
‘Free’ will never go out of style.
Can you offer something for free to your prospective clients? This is a key way to earn their trust over time and, hopefully, get business from them in the future.
Offering a freebie is all about nudging on-the-fence prospects to take that first step so you can get your opportunity to earn their business. You can do this by offering:
- Free downloadable guides or checklists
- Buy one get one free (BOGO) deals
- Free shipping
- Free analysis
- Free check-up
- Free consultation
- Free first visit
- Children eat free
Free downloadable content is a great way to collect emails and build your list, especially if you’re a B2B company. Over time, you can nurture future customers through educational emails and blog posts.
This strategy is built around using your blog to generate more interest and eventually generate new leads, phone calls, and sales. It’s also a great way to send emails announcing events, openings, and new products or services.
Write educational blog posts.
This is an educational blog post. It’s also known as content marketing, which is part of monthly search engine optimization.
Blog posts are great for answering questions that require longer explanations. Publishing regular, quality content to your blog can help with ranking all of your website pages on search engines so you get more traffic and leads.
Each page you add to your website makes it more of an authority in your industry and city. Google will reward that over time.
Create pillar pages to share in-depth information with your customers and prospects. From the pillar pages, you can link out to more specific guides—just like we’ve done in this blog post.
The best approach here is to write long-form posts that answer your prospect’s questions in detail. This increases lead generation by positioning your business as an expert. They might not be ready to buy now, but they’re more likely to consider you when they’re ready to buy at a later date.
The advanced option: install heat maps and run A/B tests
Not every website is ready for this, but if you have over 1,000 new visitors to your website a month, you can improve lead generation efforts with heat maps and A/B testing.
What Is a Heat Map?
It’s a program that runs on your website and collects visitor behavior data to see what people are hovering over and clicking on.
All your visitors are anonymous, so their privacy is kept intact. The upside is that the heat map will tell you what is and isn’t working with your website.
For example, that awesome video on the homepage may not be getting a single click, so adding another video may be a waste of time.
What Is A/B Testing?
A/B testing (also known as split testing) is when you test out two different elements on your website for a period of time to see which one works best. This practice is a type of conversion rate optimization (CRO) technique. The ultimate goal is to boost engagement with your site visitors by tweaking certain elements of a webpage.
For example, you can test two different button colors against each other for 30 days to see which one gets more clicks.
During that time, 50% of your visitors will see one color and the other 50% will see the second color. At the end of the 30 days, you can see which one got better engagement. Then you can either keep or change the color based on the results.
It can take some time, but testing different elements every month will pay off in the long term.
Follow a holistic content strategy for high quality leads.
Optimizing your website in these areas will have a compounding positive effect on your small business. Increase sales, increase your return on marketing, and lower the cost to acquire (CAQ) your customers with these eight proven strategies.