How Your Website Can Easily Become a Lead Generation Magnet
(Ad) More leads mean more potential customers, which in turn means more potential revenue. That’s why generating leads should be a top priority for any business.
Source: Startupbonsai
61% of marketers feel that generating leads is their biggest challenge!
The best lead generation websites focus on the content and the leads that follow. Many things go into making a lead generation magnet, but the number one thing is creating high-quality content. Once you have that sorted, you can start exploring the other facets of what makes a great B2B lead generation website.
Source: Startupbonsai
And as you can see from the graphic above, many companies are allocating a substantial amount of their budgets to lead generation. Around 53% of marketers spend half their budget on finding high-quality leads!
Now, given that lead generation is challenging and resource-intensive, there are many effective strategies to implement. Your biggest asset is your website, and learning how to convert it into a lead generation machine can help you manage your costs and get more revenue!
Let’s discuss 10 ways you can do this.
10 Tips to Make Your Website A Lead Generation Powerhouse
Tip #1: Leverage Live Chat Services On your website
To get ahead of your competition, instant communication is imperative. Live chat is an effective and convenient way to communicate with website visitors.
Implementing a chatbot on your website signals visitors that you are instantly available to solve any queries that might arise then and there. A simple greeting via a chatbot is an excellent way to signal your availability.
You can even create a visual menu within the chat window to help with navigation to the most frequently asked questions.
Source: Mobile Monkey
You can request a visitor’s contact information via the chatbot and even have them opt-in for SMS, messenger, or email updates.
Last but not least, you can use the captured bot analytics to identify product opportunities, traffic insights, and more!
Tip #2: Increase your credibility by adding testimonials
The ultimate social proof is customer testimonials. And potential customers, more often than not, look up reviews before making a purchase.
88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. A starting point for gathering testimonials is to allow customers to post reviews on your Google business page. You can also –
- Email satisfied customers asking for a review
- Have your account managers ask for testimonials
- Have a form on your website where customers can leave testimonials
- Float a survey among your customers to gather their feedback
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Share your testimonials on social media for added social proof
Tip #3: Offer a Free Tool or Trial
For B2B companies, one of the best lead generation strategies is to offer a free tool. By offering free a tool or trial, you are allowing your leads to test a product before they purchase and by giving them an awesome incentive to seamlessly opt-in to your sales funnel.
Tip #4: Optimize your website for SEO
SEO is a fantastic B2B lead generation tool. It refines web pages to improve their ranking on search engine results pages, thereby leading to more clicks and potentially more leads.
Source: Keap
Doing an SEO audit of your website and identifying gaps is a good starting point. An audit can reveal that you need more SEO-optimized content around a particular topic.
You can address this gap by creating a blog and inserting the most relevant keywords upon proper keyword research. Formatting the blog with headers and subheaders will provide great SEO and make the content easy to digest.
You can also use SEO to create an internal and external linking strategy and increase your website speed.
Tip #5: Offer downloadable content on your blog and other aspects of your website
Source: Keap
Blog posts are a great way to generate traffic to your website, especially if coupled with SEO. Blogs are also a great way to generate leads from your website if you offer visitors downloadable content such as eBooks, whitepapers, and infographics in exchange for the visitor’s contact information. The intent is to provide value.
Depending on the content, you can strategically place a form towards the end of the blog that prompts the reader to learn more about the topic by downloading the collateral.
You can also place call-to-action buttons across multiple web pages to encourage downloads through landing pages.
Tip #6: Optimize each step of the lead generation process
Leads go through a natural progression through the marketing funnel – top, middle, and bottom.
Each stage of the funnel needs a different lead generation strategy driven by high-quality content.
Source: Outbrain
Top of the funnel content is usually broad, and this can be in the form of brochures or general overview content on your website.
The middle of the funnel will include more detailed information like whitepapers.
And the bottom of the funnel will have case studies and other proof points.
80% of your content across each stage should aim to inform, entertain and educate, whereas the other 20% should be used to promote your business.
Tip #7: Create a great looking website
While this is a no-brainer, creating a great website with excellent UI/UX and easy navigation can boost your lead generation plans.
The internet is flooded with standardized website templates. Avoid using templates and think through a visual format that better suits the content and services you offer.
Use dynamic messaging on the home page that changes every time someone visits, have clear CTAs, and last but not least, provide an effortless way to fill a form.
Tip #8: Use CTAs smartly!
CTA or call-to-action buttons are a great way to entice visitors toward a particular action. Using CTA buttons on the homepage (for example, on the top carousel of your website) is a great way to capture leads.
However, this needs to be done smartly. Use contrasting colors to differentiate the CTAs from the rest of the surrounding content.
These can be very simple CTAs such as:
– Subscribe to updates
– Try for free
This gives visitors a chance to subscribe to updates if they are not willing to make a purchase immediately. Or even try out the product!
But as a golden rule, ensure that every CTA has a valuable offer backing it up!
Tip #9: Look after your buyer personas
Creating a buyer persona is a great way to build a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. Buyer personas can also guide you on the content you need to create to nurture them.
Each buyer persona requires a slightly different lead generation strategy. Measure and track the digital behavior of each of your personas to get a better understanding of the kind of content they respond to. You’ll find insights such as their most used social media platforms, the websites they trust, and even the pain points they are trying to address.
Segmenting buyer personas is also a good strategy to nurture them with custom content that they find relevant and would be willing to leave their contact information.
Redirecting each buyer persona via a content offer to a specific pillar page can also lead to a better ROI on your lead generation efforts.
Tip #10: Consider your end goal first
Define what a lead means to you. Is it anyone who fills a form or someone looking to be contacted by someone in sales?
Your definition will define your metrics, which will further dictate how you measure the success of your lead generation efforts.
If your end goal is to have a paying customer, work towards driving your audience through your content funnel, build a relationship with them, build trust and then have them contact you when they are ready.
Key Takeaways: Making Your B2B Website A Lead Generation Machine
Having a website optimized for generating leads can help you increase revenue, get more customers, and reduce your cost per lead. A lot goes into making a great website as it is, and even more so when you are optimizing it for lead generation. Let’s review what we learned today in this article.
- SEO is a must-do when it comes to lead generation. It guides your website design strategy (navigation & structure) and content strategy (keyword research, audit gap analysis).
- Create content relevant to your buyer personas. Guide them through the funnel by leveraging different pieces of content at each stage. Finally, create a CTA with a valuable offer.
- Blogs are a versatile way to create long-form content and offer downloadables via a CTA.
- Define what a lead means to you and what your end goal is. Always track your metrics and use analytics to optimize your lead generation campaigns.
If you need help designing your website, generating leads for your business, or struggle to get in front of your target audience, contact Hearst Bay Area to learn how we can help you.
