We’ve talked a lot about gaining new leads through your website.
It’s ultra-important to making sure your business continues to grow.
You realize, as a modern business owner, how important it is, too.
And, clearly, you’re interested in making it happen with your website.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be paying attention to this.
Today, I’m going to walk you through what it takes to earn leads through your website.
A Website Is A Tool For Earning Leads
Websites can have a huge impact on a small business’ ability to earn leads.
They’re constantly on, allowing your work to return results after you’ve packed it up for the night.
It’s like a 24-hour salesperson for your brand.
However, websites aren’t a set-it-and-forget-it tool.
You’ll need to actively use yours if you want it to do its job.
That means keeping it up to date, adding regular content, and continually optimizing it for search.
If you launch your site and expect the leads to pour in automatically, you’ve misunderstood what a website does.
To Earn Leads Through Your Website You Need To Set It Up Right
You can’t expect your car to win a race if it’s not built to go fast.
In the same way, a website has to be built to earn leads if you want it to be successful.
But what does that entail?
There are a lot of important components you’ll need.
However, as a small business owner, you probably don’t know what those are.
That’s why I’m going to guide you through them and explain them in a way you’ll understand.
These seven ideas will help you assure that your website is built to earn leads.
Make Sure Your Website Is Professionally Developed
Believe it or not, the way your website looks can have a big effect on the leads you get from it.
Your site visitors are making their first judgment of your brand within a second of visiting.
Plus, if your user experience stinks, people are going to leave before you’ve had the chance to convert them.
That’s all solved by a professional website developer.
The right website developer can transform your website into the online embodiment of your brand.
Creating something that’s both fascinating and engaging, the developer will help you assure that your website creates the right impression.
When they’re done, your site should be optimized for excellent user experience.
While it might be tempting to use a website builder like Wix, your site won’t get the full attention it deserves.
They don’t tell you how to make your site better at converting leads.
Missing crucial knowledge like that can cause long-term damage to your efforts.
It’s best to hire a pro who can get the job done the right way the first time.
Your Website Needs To Work On Any Device
Despite responsive design becoming a critical part of search in 2012, many small business owners don’t believe their site needs to work anywhere but a desktop or laptop.
But think about how foolish that idea is.
You’re likely reading this on your mobile device right now.
And if you aren’t, there are a ton of other sites that you do visit from your phone or tablet.
At this point, we can’t call it a trend anymore.
Mobile devices have been more popular in search than desktop for years.
Somewhere around 60% of all Google searches come from a mobile device.
It’s about time your website caught up.
Responsive design, as it’s been known for years, is about more than just the layout of your website.
The philosophy is that the website adapts to the device it’s being presented on, responding with different layouts, functions, features, and content as necessary.
Hence the term “responsive design”.
If your site doesn’t fit the bill, you’re being penalized by Google and abandoned by many leads.
Most people leave a website within 3 seconds if it isn’t optimized for mobile and loads slow as a result.
It’s time to fix your website and keep more of your visitors long enough to convert them.
It Should Be Really Easy To Get In Touch With You
You’re looking for leads from your website, correct?
I assume that’s true because you’re reading this article, which is about getting leads through your website.
Explain to me how you’re going to make that happen if people can’t find a way to contact you.
And yet, though it seems obvious, tons of websites make it difficult to contact the company or leave no contact information at all.
Seems like a big mistake to me.
Your website ought to at least have a contact section somewhere on the site.
It can be effective to display basic contact information on the header, footer, or sidebar of every page, or simply add a contact page to your site.
Include a form that allows a quick email to be sent to your company, a phone number, and the address of your physical location (if you have one).
Millennials prefer to connect other ways, too, and you should be ready for that.
One of the biggest expectations people have of a business is the ability to communicate with them through social media.
Obviously, that means you need to link to yours on your site.
Share buttons should also be added, allowing visitors to share pages from your site instantly and with ease.
To speed up communication further, consider adding live chat to your site.
This powerful tool can even be automated, allowing many of your site visitor’s questions to be answered before they’re even asked.
All these features can help you collect leads as a natural course, as well, which adds a benefit to their use.
You Need To Know Where The Leads Are Coming From
Lead tracking is everything.
You need all the data you can on your leads, but the most important piece of information is their source.
Knowing where a lead comes from allows you to better understand what marketing is working.
Those channels you identify as most beneficial can be amplified through boosted posts or sponsored partnerships.
They’re clearly worth the budget line.
The source data will also tell you what you need to improve.
Channels providing the fewest leads need their efforts changed.
Switch up what you’re doing and experiment with new angles to see what works best.
Second to that is the route they take through your site.
Your visitors need to travel from whatever brought them in (landing page or blog article) through any of a few of paths through your site and eventually become a lead.
If they’re not becoming a lead, you need to know where they’re falling off.
By examining the spots on your site where you lose most of your leads, you can improve the content on that page.
With solid A/B testing you can determine what gets people to move to the next step from there.
But how do you track your site visitors?
Many 3rd party software providers can help you monitor what visitors do on your site.
You can also set up Google Analytics to track things like links clicked and forms filled out.
Watch the data those collect to find out what’s working well so you can do more of it and what’s not working so you can fix it.
The key to earning leads through your website is through constant improvement.
Use A Call-To-Action On Every Page
Once your visitors get to your site, what should they do next?
Should they be looking for a product quote, signing up for a free trial, or buying a product in your e-commerce store?
Without a call-to-action, they won’t know either.
Every page should have the next step for your site visitors.
Depending on what brought them to your site and what phase of the buyer’s journey they’re on, that call could be for a myriad of things.
Start by setting an end goal for every site visitor.
What is it you want them to do in the long run?
Once you know that, you can work backward through all the paths that might take them there, deciding what you need them to do next at each step.
That’s going to help you list out the calls-to-action you’ll need to create.
As you create your calls-to-action, make sure they’re something that encourages your audience to click without feeling like a sales pitch.
You’re not trying to get every person to buy on their first visit.
After all, on average over 97% of people won’t anyways.
The most important thing is that you get a way to contact the ones who don’t.
This will provide you a chance to nurture them into leads, getting them to return time and time again for more of the value you bring to the table.
Build Trust Through Partnerships
Trust is the foundation for everything in small business.
As fixtures of the community, small business owners need to do everything in their power to build as much trust as possible.
A great way to do that is through the partnerships you have with well-respected companies in your industry.
If you’re a partner with a major company that builds trust, like an IT company might be Cisco or Microsoft certified, display that partnership on your website.
Awards help too.
When you’ve won an award from an industry organization or a local publication, promote that on your site.
The more you can demonstrate how great your brand is without it simply being your words, the more effective your site becomes.
Let Visitors Know What Your Customers Think
People expect you to say your brand is amazing.
You have a vested interest in impressing them.
If you can, you win them as clients and make money.
That truth makes them skeptical of everything you say about your brand.
Because of that, it becomes difficult to get through to them.
You need a way to bring down their defenses and show them that your brand is amazing.
Thankfully, that’s relatively easy to do.
Simply share testimonials, reviews, and case studies from existing customers.
These are powerful tools that give your brand credibility and reinforce the decision to work with you.
Your clients, for whom you’ve worked so hard to make happy, become the best salespeople for your services.
Their lack of vested interest in whether you make a sale makes their words far more believable.
Client stories also reinforce the idea that your site visitor is making the right decision to work with you.
When others have done it with success, they’re reassured in their choice.
In sharing case studies, include as much concrete evidence as possible.
Share all the details that demonstrate how you improved your client’s situation.
That’s going to connect with your audience and show them your brand is the one they need to work with.
You Know What You Need To Do To Earn Leads Through Your Website
I’ve walked you through the features your website needs.
You understand why you need them and how they work.
The only thing left is to make sure your website is ready to do the work.
Evaluate your website for its ability to do the things I went over.
Find out what you have and what you still need.
Then make the changes necessary to start earning the leads.
When your website does its job, your brand grows.
