Your website only makes sense if it helps your business.
For most us that mean more leads, prospects, sales, and customers. I want to show you what it takes to turn your website into a lead gen machine that keeps on giving.
The following is a collection of proven actionable lead gen tactics:
Where are you now?
Step #1 is to figure out where you are now. It is your baseline. This is important, so you know where you were and where you are going. Take inventory of your current lead gen efforts.
Answer questions like:
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- How many leads do we get in a month, 6-months, and 1-year.
- Where do these leads come from?
- What percentage of our leads convert to sales?
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Have a loud call to action.
The keyword here is “loud”. When visitors view your website one of the first things they see should be your call to action. Take a few steps back from your monitor. Can you still clearly see your call to action? If yes, you are on the right track.
No website is complete without call to action.
Here are some sample calls to action:
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- “Call us today for a free consultation!” – this is actionable because “call” is a verb that can be carried out by a person.
- “Visit our website!”
- “Call now” – “now” creates more urgency.
- “Order today and save $200!”
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Make your “About” page awesome.
Your about page is an important part of your marketing. The “About” page is one of the most visited page of any website. Most of them are short and boring. Your “About” page helps you differentiate your business from your competition.
Here are the components of a great “About” page:
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- Don’t use corporate language. The voice of the page should be how people talk to each other. Keep it human. You are not a machine and you are not talking to machines.
- Tell the story of your business. Why are you in business? What is important to you? What is important to your customers? What makes you unique? In what ways are you better?
- Show photos of your team, office, location. People want to see real photos. Avoid stock photos.
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Contact us now to get help with your website.
Develop strategic partnerships.
Identify companies who serve the market as your business and build strategic partnerships with them. For best results look for companies that are larger than yours. Strategic partnerships take time to develop, but could expose your business to new audiences faster.
Keep it simple.
Many people, incorrectly, want to squeeze as much content into a page as possible. The result? Lower conversion. When you give people too many choice they are less likely to chose anything. The simpler it is the higher conversion rate you will have.
Use a pop-up.
You can’t be subtle and expect people to subscribe to your email list. You have to be loud and clear.
Can email subscription pop-ups be annoying? Yes. Do they work? Yes, they work very well, so use them.
Blog frequently.
Most businesses don’t blog. A very few business blog a few times, then stop.
[message type=”simple” bg_color=”#EEEEEE” color=”#333333″]Websites that blog frequently generate most leads online. [/message]
The best way to make sure that you blog frequently is to have a content calendar. That way you know exactly what you publish on what date. Without an active content calendar you will not do it.
Create appropriate call to action within your blog posts such as the one below:
The easiest way to add frequent blog posts to your website is to hire a firm like Webene to help you with content creation.
Make great videos.
[message type=”simple” bg_color=”#EEEEEE” color=”#333333″]Youtube gets about 1 billion unique visitors per month.[/message]
Video is becoming so popular that in five years you might be watching this instead of reading. Video has been taking content marketing by storm since the early days of the internet. It is more effective and more doable today than ever. Yes, anyone, even you can come up with videos that help you get more leads.
Avoid boring at all cost.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to come up with Oscar material. The fact is that you have to keep it interesting.
[message type=”simple” bg_color=”#EEEEEE” color=”#333333″]According to Cisco, by 2017 69% of all consumer traffic will be video. [/message]
Start your own podcast.
Podcast can expose you to new audiences. You can talk about industry trends, interview experts, provide training, or give advice through your podcast. You can list your podcast in iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcast directories for maximum exposure.
Require subscription for premium content.
Add email opt-in to your premium content. You could use this tactic for videos, audios, images, or any kind of premier content.
Contact us now to get help with your website.
Create evergreen content.
Evergreen content is important to your website’s lead gen efforts. Let me give you an example of evergreen content. Instead of focusing on trends focus on topics that remain relevant forever. For example, as a web design firm, we write about topics that have been relevant ten years ago and will remain relevant in the future.
Here some ideas for you to create relevant content for your website:
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- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – Questions your customers ask you now will be relevant in the future. There is no better evergreen content.
- Industry definitions – List and explain common industry definitions and you will have content relevant for the long-term.
- How-tos – You can write them, then present them visually as an image or video.
- Tutorials – Showing how to do something step-by-step will remain popular for a long time.
- Lists – You can create resource lists or “top” or “best of” lists.
- Fundamentals or basic knowledge.
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Periodically, even evergreen content must be updated.
Network with influencers.
There are influencers in every niche. Find the ones in yours, then start networking with them. Mention them in your blog posts. Then, connect with them on social networks. Keep engaging with them.
Upload presentations to Slideshare.
Create slideshows of your most popular content and upload them to Slideshare. Slideshare had 60 million monthly visitors and it can send a lot of referral traffic to your website.
Offer PDF downloads.
Convert your most popular content into PDF files and offer them in exchange for email subscription. It will help to grow your email list.
Avoid the word “Spam”.
Believe it or not, you scare people when you tell them that you are not a spammer. When you ask people to subscribe to your email list don’t use the word “spam” because it will hurt your conversion.
If you have a double-opt-in policy you are not going to spam people.
Give away your book.
Books are great gifts to establish you as the authority in your field. You could edit your 15-20 most popular blog posts and turn them into a book you give away in exchange for an email subscription.
Publish on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has over 300 million users. It is a huge audience. Take advantage of the opportunity to publish articles on LinkedIn.
Answer questions on Quora.
Quora is a question and answer website. If you can dream up a question it has been asked on Quora. Since millions use the site answering questions is a great way to generate more traffic for your website.
Listen on Twitter.
Search twitter for keywords relevant to your niche, then refer back to your own related content. For example, if you are a web designer, you could search Twitter for “website updates” or “website optimization“. You can, then engage in a conversation to see how you can be helpful.
Become a speaker.
Public speaking is a great way to position you as an authority. The important thing here is to speak at the right events. Getting involved with events is also a great way to build your professional network.
Spruce up your email signature.
Email signatures are among the most overlooked marketing tools.
Your email signature should include the following:
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- Call to action.
- Website URL.
- Twitter page link.
- Facebook page link.
- Phone number.
- Address.
- Your title.
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Try Adwords.
Adwords offers you a quick way to drive traffic to your website. To be honest, Adwords used to be much more affordable. It is still a great tool if you have a fairly large monthly marketing budget. Adwords is also a great tool to test taglines and product names fast.
Nurture your leads.
Not all leads are created equal. In our web design business some leads are converted into sales immediately while others could take months or over a year to convert into a sale. It is key to nurture your leads. The best way to do this is through a combination of monthly email communication. It helps if you also use some kind of a CRM system to manage all this.
Run your own webinar.
You can offer webinars, record them, then offer them over-and-over on your website. Webinars are a great way to grow your email subscriber list.