Lead: Opportunities for sales as a result of contact with a potential customer.
How do I get people to see my website? More importantly, how do I generate business from my website? They’re important questions, and issues that effect countless businesses. For small business owners specifically, finding leads online can be an especially tough situation.
For business owners without a website, building a website should be looked at as an investment – a way to generate leads online. A website can be a powerful tool when it comes to business and should be looked at as a digital salesperson. In fact, if your website isn’t working as a 24/7 salesperson, you’re missing out on opportunities.
But for those with websites, and wanting to learn more about being successful online, here are three ways you can make your website relevant to the consumer and begin generating more useful leads.
Call To Action (CTA)
What are you hoping people coming to your website will do? What will they see?
A great way to increase leads is by making the visit interactive. You’ve brought them to your website, now take it one step further. A call to action on your site gives visitors the chance to make a move, providing them with information to act on.
Not sure where to begin? Maybe place a call to action for email capture so you can start a newsletter. Or consider placing a downloadable coupon on your website in exchange for an address so you can alert them about upcoming promotions. Or you can simply have a banner than reads “book your free consultation now”.
It important to note where a CTA should be placed. Studies have shown that CTA’s above the fold perform much better than those that are not. This means a CTA at the top half of a page proves to be far more successful than when placed at the bottom. You want to make sure your CTA is obvious to the visitor and easily seen. Not doing this could have real consequences in converting leads.
Whatever your objective or choice in a running a call to action, using one gets the individual involved and can benefit you in the long run. Check out websites like Opt-In Monster and Thrive Ultimatum to help in creating easy to use opt-in’s you can plug into your website.
Blogging
Do you own a restaurant? Are you a small retail company? If so, chances are there’s some topics you’re an expert on. Why not write about it? Blogging is just one way to provide continuously updated content to your site that also keeps your visitors informed.
The key to attracting visitors is creating an incentive for them to visit, and blogging does exactly that.
According to Hubspot, companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website through search results.
In addition, Hubspot states that marketers who blog generate 67% more leads than those who don’t. Providing content to your website will engage the viewer long term, and a website that isn’t updated can easily become outdated and useless. Oh, and the best thing about blogging? It’s free.
Analytics and Optimization
Analytics tell a story. And those stories can help you determine how to best run your website. Every interaction on a site can me measured. Visits, pages views, etc. What this ultimately lets you do is cater better content to your audience. Which posts get more viewers than others? Which call to actions work better than the rest? By measuring the interaction of your current users you set yourself up for producing relevant content.
When you know what you’re readers are doing, or better yet, what they’re not doing, you can make the necessary adjustments on your website to cater to your future visitors.
But don’t forget mobile! With more content being consumed on mobile than ever before, optimizing your site for mobile is just as important as your site itself. Not being optimized for mobile shows a lack of commitment to potential customers and could have a negative impact in how your business is viewed. If you want to take website leads seriously, you can’t neglect the positive benefits of being mobile.
