Make Your Website a Lead Gen Machine

With all of the acronyms floating around the digital marketing world today, it’s easy to confuse which tactics are used to accomplish certain goals for your website. When you constantly hear terms like SEO, PPC, or CRO, it’s easy for the eyes to start glazing over and for your focus to shift to more important issues like, “How have I still not started Chris Thompson on my fantasy team?”

Today we will cut through the acronyms and focus on several tactics for your website that are meant to do one thing and one thing only: get more leads. These strategies focus on building simple processes into your website that will ensure that you are making the most of the hard work you have done to attract visitors to your site. In 2017, it is no longer effective to have a site that is simply a brochure for your business. Websites today must be a company’s best salesperson and serve as one of the most important and often first touchpoints between your business and potential new customers.

Tip #1: Create a Quiz 

Quizzes are a fun and easy way to engage visitors immediately when they hit your site. Quizzes help to educate your visitors as to factors that are important in their search for a new business partner. They also help to prequalify leads by providing you with key information about your site visitors and potential new customers.

Use the quiz to ask questions that will get your visitors thinking about possible gaps in their current strategy and how they can benefit from the services your business provides. My favorite quiz tool is Quiz and Survey Master.

Tip #2: Chat Software 

Chat software can be extremely effective in collecting leads from your website and also in providing key information about incoming leads. Chat should be used as a helpful and proactive tool to answer your visitors’ questions and collect vital information about the problem they are looking to solve.

Chat software is easy to install and manage, however it is crucial to have someone monitoring and responding to incoming questions. Having a non-responsive chat pane can hurt your credibility more than not having chat at all. Never let someone leave a chat conversation without first gathering their email address. In order to do this, have several content offers ready to send based on the problem your visitor is trying to solve. This will help you collect a new lead while also helping your visitors and showing you are interested in helping them and not just selling to them.

A few of my favorite chat softwares are HubSpot Messages, SnapEngage, and LiveChat.  

Tip #3: Include a Call-To-Action Above the Fold

I am always surprised at the number of websites I visit that do not include a call-to-action (CTA) above the fold of the homepage. By above the fold, I mean the content that is visible to the viewer when first landing on the homepage that does not require scrolling down to view. You can think of it like a newspaper’s front page. A call-to-action would be any callout used to inspire the visitor to take action on the page such as “Contact Us” or “Learn More”.

Typically visitors will spend only a few seconds scanning your homepage for information before either leaving your site or clicking through. Having a CTA front and center on your homepage makes it easy for your web visitors to understand where to find answers or how to get in touch with your sales team. A CTA on the homepage will help you generate more leads when paired with a landing page and form.

Heat maps can be used to test where your visitors are clicking

Tip #4: Exit Intent Software

Exit intent software is used to capture lead information from your website visitors before they exit your site. You have most likely seen this in action when you are scrolling towards the exit button on a site and, before you can leave, you are presented with a pop up that asks you to subscribe to something with your email or download a particular offer. These can be annoying when not used properly, but when done well, can generate more leads through your website. 

A few best practices for using exit intent software are:

• Always provide a high value offer in exchange for the visitor’s contact information. Simply asking them to subscribe to a blog or for future updates is not valuable enough.

• Ensure that you only show the exit popup once per visitor.

Tip #5: Bridge Offline Lead Gen Efforts With Online

Your website can play a crucial part in any offline sales and marketing efforts you are exploring. When hosting your next networking event or attending a trade show, think about how you can integrate your digital marketing strategy as well. Create a custom landing page for the event ahead of time in order to promote and gather contacts and RSVP’s. Make sure to include a form on the landing page to capture interested leads.

You can use the custom landing page after the event to upload follow up content and create a post-discussion with your audience and leads.

Tip #5: Test, Test, Test

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet for lead generation for your website. What works well for some companies and industries will not be effective for others. That is why it is crucial that we meticulously test and monitor the above strategies to determine the impact they have on improving performance.

We should be A/B testing:

• Landing Pages
• CTA Language
• Site Copy and Content
• Email Open Rates and Responses

Use these tips to turn your website into a lead generation machine!