One of the top mistakes people make is they view their websites from the perspective of gaining traffic. It’s not your fault, almost every article you can find will always talk about the need to bring traffic to your site. We’ve become obsessed with getting as many people to our sites as possible, and we’ve ended up neglecting one key element of a website: generating leads.
Imagine this, you’ve got exceptional SEO and a great PPC campaign that lets you generate loads of monthly traffic to your site. The figures are exceptional – you have hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month.
Things look fantastic; consider how positive this will be for your business! Yes, having that many people view your website will work wonders for brand recognition.
But, in terms of actual sales, it’s pretty pointless if 99% of these visitors leave your site without doing anything. If you get 100,000 visitors a month, yet only generate 100 leads, are you performing better than a website that gets 10,000 visitors a month but gains 1000 leads?
Realistically…you’re not.
So, why do some websites generate traffic yet struggle to gain leads? Well, it’s all to do with how you go about lead generation on your website. Some of you are doing the right things, while others are making a whole host of mistakes. Today, we look at both the right and wrong ways of generating leads via your website:
Wrong: Irrelevant landing pages
Landing pages are the pages users land on when they click a link to be taken to your site. Naturally, they will click on a link expecting to see something. If your page title on Google says a certain thing, people will expect to see that thing on your site. Adverts are perhaps the most obvious instance where a landing page is important. You advertise a sale, and you should take people to that sale when they click the ad.
Irrelevant landing pages are costing you leads as people click your links and get taken to pages that have absolutely nothing to do with what they just clicked on. You advertised one thing, yet took them to a completely different page. Users are likely to be annoyed or confused by this, leading them to click off your site and costing you a lead.
Right: Relevant and compelling landing pages
As a consequence, the right way to generate leads is through relevant and compelling landing pages. Not only should they relate to whatever you’ve promised the user, but they should also be designed in a way that encourages people to stay on the page for longer. You need to draw them in with a proposition, show them what you can offer.
The best landing pages convince people to stay on your site for much longer, and they also make users perform an action. This is done via a call-to-action on the landing page – something that tells the user what you want them to do. This can be a button they click to place an order or a box where they can put their email address. If your landing pages can convince users to commit the desired action, they’ll help you convert traffic into leads.
Wrong: Instant and frequent pop-ups
Those of you that have been on the web for a long time will know there was a serious pop-up invasion in the early 2000s. Website owners and businesses started triggering pop-ups as soon as people landed on their sites. It was seen as a form of advertising; like having a flyer thrown in your face the moment you enter someone’s store. The idea was to convince people to buy something or fill in a form, in the hope they will become targeted leads.
Needless to say, people hated this. So much so that most web browsers developed pop-up blockers to stop spam. Nowadays, you still see pop-ups, and some businesses are still using them incorrectly. The wrong way to use a pop-up is as soon as someone lands on your site. Additionally, you shouldn’t keep generating pop-ups if they close that one down. You’ll only succeed in annoying your visitors, creating a one-way system for your traffic to filter away without generating any leads.
Right: Clever and more targeted pop-ups
The right way to gain leads via your website is to use clever pop-ups. There are loads of different types of pop-ups out there, some of which are similar to the traditional one that fills someone’s screen. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s all about timing and frequency. Give someone a chance to browse your site for a bit before you hit them with a pop-up.
At the same time, you can install pop-ups on websites that use someone’s browsing data to create an individualized pop-up for them. This way, it’s more relevant to what they’ve been looking at on your site, increasing the chances of someone clicking the pop-up and becoming a lead.
Another very smart pop-up is the text chat pop-up. With this option, you have a text chat installed on your site that pops up and invites the user to have a conversation with an agent. You can set these pop-ups to trigger after a specific amount of time, and this page has more information on how you can do that.
Effectively, text chat pop-ups are excellent because they give users a chance to talk to someone about something. This lets them ask any questions they might have about what you’re selling/offering, and your text chat agent can provide all the answers. As a result, leads can be generated through the customer service agent in the text chat.
Wrong: A call-to-action on specific pages
We spoke about calls-to-action when talking about landing pages, and that can actually lead you down a hole that stops you from generating lots of leads. You see, a website that only has a call-to-action on specific pages will not generate leads as effectively as it should. This basically means that you’re only encouraging web traffic to perform an action on certain pages. What if they bypass your landing page and find a different one? Or, what if they’re just browsing through your site and looking at your services? If you don’t have a call-to-action on these pages, how will you generate leads?
Right: Frequent calls-to-action
Naturally, the correct approach is to have numerous calls to action all over your website. Now, don’t take this as an excuse to go overboard. You don’t want to spam your visitors, and you don’t need to. One simple tip can make your website a lead generation machine: set a call-to-action in the header or footer of your pages.
All of your pages should have at least a header or footer that stays the same. The header will normally have the banner at the top with your logo, along with the menus below. Here, you can simply place your phone number or email address, and it acts as a subtle call-to-action. You could even have a button there for people to click to contact you.
The same goes for your footer, but the benefit of a footer is that it can be a bit bigger. More information can go here, including a form at the bottom of every page for people to fill in if they want to get in touch. This is such a genius idea as it’s really convenient for the user. They don’t have to open their email client or phone to get in touch; they do it via the site and you will contact them. Having this on every page means you have a non-invasive call-to-action.
Of course, if you have a text chat on your website, this also acts as a subtle call-to-action. Even if the user doesn’t engage with the chat when it pops open, they still have a minimized version on their screen. At any moment, they can open it up and type something. The mere presence of this chatbox enables you to gain more leads.
Wrong: A slow website
This one is a short point that should be painfully obvious for everyone. Slow websites don’t generate leads because internet users have limited attention spans. If your site doesn’t load within a few seconds, your traffic will be long gone.
Right: A fast and responsive website
Consequently, the right approach is to have a fast website that responds to everything the user does. Pages load quickly, buttons respond as soon as they’ve been clicked; your site simply functions perfectly. You have a better chance of generating leads when your website runs smoothly and is fast, that’s a fact.
Now, you need to understand that leads don’t necessarily equate to sales. Many of the things you’ve seen in this guide can help you make sales. However, some will only generate leads. As a result, it’s down to you to have a good lead conversion strategy to take your leads and turn them into customers. You won’t make every lead a customer but focus on converting as many of them as possible.