Having an online presence is not a choice anymore… it’s critical that every business has a website. A website has almost become the face of a business in today’s digital age. But then there are zillions of them out there on the web. So, what will make your website stand out so that your target audience will be compelled into initiating an inquiry or filling the form or clicking on that Submit button? It is here that a website needs to be optimized for better lead generation.
After all, all successful business deals or sales originated as leads. Generating leads could manifest in any form. Someone may respond to your Facebook post; some may reply to your video on YouTube. Others may leave an inquiry on your mailing form, or it may just be the newsletter that someone may have subscribed to!! In whatever form should it materialize, responding to leads always results in building a brand for your business and forming a brand image in the eyes of your customers.
So how to build a website that is optimized for lead generation? We’ve answered that for you. By following the steps given below, you will ensure that whoever comes on your website stays and gets interested, just enough that they will respond to your website in positive ways. So here goes:
Optimize website content
Website content is the first thing that a viewer sees on your website. Content can be in any form, YouTube videos, banners, images, podcasts, social media posts, email, blog posts, newsletters, website copy, et al. A persuasive web copy is what would prompt the viewer to initiate a definite action on their part. Content should be SEO-friendly and should incorporate keywords that will make the webpages shows up in the search results. Content should be user-friendly and relevant to what your business has to offer.
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Optimize landing pages
They are not just any other page on your website but serve as a stepping stone to acquiring a visitor’s info when he visits your website. Optimizing landing pages ensures that anyone who has visited your site will end up taking an offer or deal. A landing page is designed specifically for online marketing campaigns and has advertisements in the form of offers, discounts, or deals. It may also happen that the user may be prompted to download an e-book, fill up a form, click a button, enter their email, answer an online questionnaire, download a free trial, etc. Designing landing pages for lead generation is a great tool that every business should consider utilizing.
Optimize CTA (Call to Action) elements
Call-to-action is just as effective lead generation tool in designing lead generation websites. Contrasting colors, design elements, persuasive words, images, buttons, placement, all go a great deal in creating an impact on the viewer to take positive action. They make landing pages more effective in capturing the attention of the viewer to the prime purpose of a website, and that is of selling and advertising its business.
Making mobile-friendly website
People use smartphones increasingly for web surfing. And this is the reason why lead generating websites are optimized to be mobile-friendly. Making websites that load faster on smartphones, making text readable, designing forms that can be filled easily are the things that are usually given more importance when designing mobile-friendly websites. Videos, product images, website copy all are optimized to suit mobile readability. Making a smartphone-friendly website is one of the trending lead generation methods used today.
Optimized Forms
A form, and that too, an optimized form, makes a great impact on visitors. It is a great lead generation tool used by digital marketers to optimize the website for lead generation. The number of fields should be relevant to the user’s needs. Strategically placing the form on those pages which have maximum traffic will make forms very effective. Making downloadable content, offering free freebies, are things that will entice the visitor in filing the form.
Live Chat feature
Live chat is a major lead generation technique that makes a website more approachable and customer-friendly at the same time. It is like a window into the intent of the visitor. It also helps in securing the contact info of the visitor. Live chat always assists the visitors in giving more info about the products and services being marketed by the website. This feature can be put on pages that have maximum traffic. The use of artificial intelligence tools or customer service representatives can be ensured that conversations happen round the clock.
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Performing A/B Testing of website
You’ve done all the hard work into developing a website that’s optimized for search engines, planned out content strategies, and made it SEO-friendly. But still not getting enough CTR (Click-through rate) and ROI (Return on Investment). It’s here that A/B testing comes into play. A/B testing is a powerful digital marketing tool that’s so critical for your business to stay one step ahead of the growing competition. A/B testing simply means developing two variants of any website element and testing it among the different audiences.
“You may change the color of a button, write two separate email header copy, change the placing of the ad, or simply redesign your header. It results in finding a winning combination that will perform better to give you the desired results.” – as explained by Bogdan Glushko, the founder of MightyForms, in one of his recent articles.
Optimizing website for social media platforms
Running lead generation strategies on social media platforms greatly impacts a website’s success in converting leads into loyal customers. It builds a brand image of the website, increases sales revenue, and results in more followers on social media. You can run ads on Facebook and Instagram offer discount codes and freebies, conduct polls, and surveys, perform live sessions, run a contest, webinars, quizzes, chat sessions, blog posting and a number of social media marketing strategies to bring in visitors to your website and make them participate actively in making your brand presence known.
Implementing SEO strategies on the website
Designing an effective website without implementing SEO strategies is just like walking on the unknown territory without a guide!! The website will get lost in the tons of search results and it may so happen that you may have to go through scores of pages before you see your page. Who would want to face such a dreadful scenario? To make your page reflect on the first page in search engines, making the website SEO-friendly is the best way forward. Optimizing meta tags, images, website content, doing keyword research, improving social media posts, blogging actively, will make your website visible to web search engines like Bing, Google, etc. It will make the website generate leads to an active customer base.
Offers and Giveaways
Most would not want to consider too much when it comes to giving free offers to visitors when making lead generating websites. But for visitors, it means so much when they get a free offer which they can use. Then can then come to know of the real value of the products and services that the website has to offer. It then makes tremendous sense to consider offers as an effective lead generation technique for website development. You may want to offer trial software, a free demo, free courses, downloadable eBooks, email subscriptions, free templates, white papers, slideshow presentations, and many others.
Lead Generation Tools
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools help in organizing leads and keep track of customers. Investing in one good CRM system may help you in noticing the trends in customer response, keep track of sales, and leads, engagement with clients, analyses data in an efficient manner. You may then form effective lead nurturing techniques, launch marketing campaigns on the basis of CRM predictions. It streamlines every effort made to design a website that’s optimized for lead generation. You get greater awareness about customers and an insight into their behavior and thinking.
Testimonials
Your past successes may be of help if you want to develop a website for lead generation. Testimonials from customers, current, and past, help the credibility of your website as it also impacts your search engine rankings. Graphs, charts, figures, are visual tools that reflect your growth over the years. It sends a powerful message across so that prospective clients believe in your business and grows your customer base.
Use Google Analytics
For any website, particularly lead generating websites, data about customers, and interpretation of that data is so important. This data, in turn, can result in valuable leads that could prove beneficial in the long run to the business. That’s when Google Analytics comes into play. It does not just keep track of visitors to the website but goes deeper into tracking them. You get to know so much about visitors and their behavior when they reach your website; i.e. on which page they spend more time, which page has high bounce rates, the gender-wise breakup of visitors, which ads on Google get the maximum clicks, browser preferences, etc. You can then redesign your website, restructure your content, so as to generate better leads.
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The Bottom Line
The above steps show that there isn’t just one, but multiple approaches for optimizing a website for better lead generation. These steps do not necessarily have to be taken in their order in which they appear, but they can be taken randomly to optimize a website. They will eventually reflect different facets of visitors and their varied responses in regards to your website. It makes your website just like an online point where they come, go to pages, browse through them, leave a message, and exit. It then makes it so important that you optimize your website for lead generation.
