10 Simple Ways to Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation

If your website isn't generating a steady stream of new leads, it's not doing its job effectively.

While it's true that web pages can serve primarily to educate, it's a waste to not use that great content to convert users into paying customers. However, optimizing your site for lead generation is going to require synergy in your marketing strategies to get the best possible results.

Below, we'll teach you how to set up a lead generation site that delivers results. Here are our top ten recommended strategies that show how to build a lead generation website the right way.

1. Optimize Your UX (Desktop and Mobile)

Our list starts with a focus on the user experience. We can debate over which website elements are most important, but users will not have the patience to deal with a slow, clunky, and/or ugly website. They can always find a competitor website with better UX in a matter of seconds.

But, what exactly is the user experience?

The user experience refers to any aspects of the website that serve to make the user's visit and attempts to interact more enjoyable. Factors that contribute to the UX include page design, content quality, content presentation, loading speeds, ease of navigation, and interactivity.

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Take loading speed for example. It's a fairly well-known fact that longer loading times drastically increase bounce rate. According to Pingdom, the average load time you should aim for is roughly two seconds. As the time increases from two to five seconds, your bounce rate can increase by nearly 40%.

Other factors can and will cause users to leave. If a user has difficulty discerning how to get sections of the site, if the text is illegible due to design choices, or if videos and images fail to load, you undermine all of the hard work that went into building your site.

The user has zero obligation to stick around, and you certainly won't generate a lead if your website's UX isn't worth experiencing. A bad UX will likely make any of these upcoming strategies irrelevant in your lead gen efforts.

2. Learn the Best SEO Practices

Like your UX, optimizing your new lead generation website with best SEO practices is the best way to build a strong foundation.

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, refers to any actions taken on the website's front or back end to boost discoverability in search engine results pages. Incorporating SEO in your marketing strategy is essential for ensuring that new users visit your website regularly outside of clicks from paid ad campaigns.

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Before we think about how we can encourage new visitors to become leads, we need to get people in the door. While search ads with Google or social media ads on Facebook can land you website clicks, investing in SEO will help you build organic visits with time, ultimately lowering your total advertising costs.

Having quality website SEO also helps Google match your website content to more qualified users. While traffic gains are admirable, they can often account for little more than vanity. When a website's SEO is just so-so, you can often get clicks from users that ultimately are not a good match when your goal is lead generation.

The more optimized your SEO, the better Google's search crawler can understand the purpose of your page's content. When Google can do its job well, you get the benefit of receiving visits from the type of users you want to focus on converting.

SEO can be a complex topic and covers a wide breadth of areas. You'll want to learn improved keyword targeting strategies, how to check keyword rankings, image and video optimization, script compression, meta tags, and content marketing, for starters. All of these will help your website run faster and rank higher for a variety of search terms.

3. Add a Strong CTA to Your Home Page

This is where direct lead generation optimizations begin.

If you want a user to convert, you need to provide an incentive for them to do so. We often refer to these as "call-to-actions," or "CTAs." These are direct calls to the reader that motivate them to perform a specific action that you've designated as a goal.

When it comes to lead generation, this commonly applies to filling out a form. The user will provide their name and contact details, thus becoming a new lead in your marketing campaign efforts.

However, no one is going to fill out a form simply because you asked nicely. While no money is being exchanged yet, this is still a business transaction. As such, you need to provide a relevant, worthwhile incentive to the user in exchange for their lead information. It doesn't need to be an expensive or outrageous offer, but something small can be enough to win them over.

Examples of strong CTAs might include free consultations, free quotes, a first-timer's discount, or even a complimentary eBook. You want to tailor that incentive to be directly relevant to why the user arrived at your home page in the first place.

As an example, let's consider a roofing company. They can offer prospective customers a free inspection and report in exchange for basic details like a phone number and email. Chances are, someone arriving at your site is already looking for something like this, and providing that CTA immediately creates a high chance for a conversion.

A CTA like this has power as it offers something of value to the customer for free. They also have the motivation to sign up even if they're not quite at the buying stage of the buyer's journey.

Craft a strong CTA that you want to live on your home page and make sure it's one of the first things in the visitor's viewport when they arrive.

4. Add Forms to Other High-Traffic Website Areas

High-traffic website pages are also prime real estate for CTAs and forms.

Many website owners make the mistake of simply adding a 'Contact Us' page to their site and calling it a day. However, you're going to virtually zero direct clicks to that page. That means that a visitor has to go through an additional step and fill out a form to contact you.

Instead, you should consider which pages users are clicking to make their entry into your domain. Specific types of pages, such as a service description page, serve as a better location to implement additional forms.

Consider a user that is specifically searching for a home plumbing service. They click on a company's residential service page to inquire more about the service and prices. This is arguably an even better opportunity to claim a lead conversion than on your home page.

This is because you already know where the visitor's interest lies. With this information, you can curate a highly-specific CTA with your form to encourage even more lead conversions. You don't necessarily need the user to stay on the website longer or click on additional pages.

Use your website's Google Analytics to identify where new visitors are coming from and which web pages they are accessing. Then, make sure to tighten the copy on that page to encourage users to sign up for free estimates, consultations, etc. based upon the topic of the page.

5. Create and Optimize Landing Pages

This strategy piggy-backs off of the previous tip and effectively serves as the bread and butter of any lead-generation website.

While your base website pages can benefit from submission forms, there are limitations to what you can do. Those core pages can help to drive conversions, but their primary purpose is generally to educate visitors about the business and the services offered on an everyday basis.

Making too many changes to these pages and dressing the copy up with flagrant advertising will ultimately hurt your SEO and page rankings.

Instead, we can use the proven strategy of creating and optimizing landing pages with a highly-specific offer in mind. This new page exists for the sole purpose of lead generation and allows you to gain all of the benefits without the potential drawbacks.

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You can sweeten the offer on your landing pages by offering something of immediate value to the visitor. These can include discounts, eBook downloads, exclusive content, or promotional vouchers.

Finally, you can utilize Google Analytics and/or your CMS of choice to A/B test various versions of your landing page. This will guide you to make the necessary adjustments for the best lead-gen results.

6. Don't Overlook the “Thank You” Page

The companion to the landing page is the “Thank You” page. This is where you redirect users after completing their form signup to confirm their submission.

However, most companies tend to leave this page barebones.

What you should be doing is using this page as an opportunity to drive additional engagement. Many users will not even see your “thank you” page, but the ones who do have expressed interest that you should capitalize on with additional CTAs.

For starters, you should make every effort to provide the user with their signup incentive immediately. Instead of entering, “We’ll send your free eBook soon,” you should simply provide a button or link for immediate download. The longer you can keep the user engaged, the more they're thinking about your brand.

Similar upgrades to your second page could include:

• Links to schedule appointments/calls on your Google Calendar/Calendly
• Link to your main website or a relevant product/service page
• Links to follow your company on social media
• Links/downloads to any additional resources relevant to the offer

7. Develop a Blog for Your Website

Blogging is a staple of SEO and is essential for lead generation website best practices.

When creating content for a page, you target specific keywords that demonstrate a strong search volume from your target audience. Because your page is SEO-optimized for that keyword, there's a strong chance that it will rank high in SERPs, providing a gateway for users to access your site.

Blogs exist, in part, for this purpose.

Every new blog article you publish creates a brand-new page on your website. This page targets new keywords, and, therefore, creates new methods for visitors to discover your website.

A well-developed blog continues to provide results over time. When your articles are well-researched, trustworthy, and receive notable traffic, the authority of your entire domain improves. This makes Google more likely to rank your pages, which means more opportunities to convert new leads.

Blogs particularly help lead-generation strategies as the content is highly-targeted. While your base website covers a wider subject (your industry), blog articles bring in users searching for that specific topic. There's a greater likelihood that new visitors clicking on your blog are highly interested, which presents a greater opportunity for conversion.

The blog itself creates an incentive to convert. Visitors that like your content can sign up to receive notifications when new content is published. Therefore, you've already boosted your number of leads just by helping your website's SEO.

You can further boost your blogging efforts by suggesting products or services whenever relevant within the context of the topic. Just be sure to stay true to the purpose of the article and avoid being intrusive with self-advertisement.

8. Nurture with an Email Marketing List

We briefly touched on email lists above as blogs can be one incentive for users to sign up.

However, there are various things you can do with your email marketing lists such as sending out exclusive offers, discounts, or alternative content that can't be found on your website. All of these provide visitors with an ongoing incentive to subscribe as opposed to a one-time offer.

Furthermore, the email marketing list works for you beyond the initial lead conversion. Equally important is nurturing those leads for the long-term so that you gain more value per acquired lead.

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A commonly repeated idea in business is that it costs as much as five times more to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing ones. This means that to build a truly exceptional lead-generation website, you need to implement strategies that nurture your leads after they sign up to maximize your potential profits and keep expenses low.

9. Put the Call Out for Follows on Social Media

Social media often gets overlooked as it typically does not provide the initial, endorphin-pumping ROIs that a paid ad campaign would, for example.

There are two problems with this.

The first is a misunderstanding of what your company's social media accounts should be used for when it comes to digital marketing. Similar to blogs, your objective is to regularly send out engaging, relevant content to your followers.

Unfortunately, most brands put in the bare minimum effort and deliver cold, lifeless posts that do not motivate them to engage.

The second issue is that it does not acknowledge the visitor's mindset, which is crucial for acquiring new leads.

The truth is that many would-be interested leads simply don't care about the content brands post on their website. These users spend most of their online time on social media. If that demographic happens to align with your target buyer persona, then you must meet your audience where they spend their time.

Regarding your lead-generation website, you can help your social media by simply providing CTAs to follow your brand on other accounts. Make it easy for visitors to consume the type of content they want to see rather than limiting your offerings to what's on the page.

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Staying active on social media can help you quickly reach new audiences and provide unique platforms for you to share your offers and content. You can also link back to content on your website to increase your traffic and further drive your lead conversions.

10. Build a Chatbot

Finally, you can help drive engagement on your website by creating a customized chatbot. These automated helpers can speak to users about the content they are reading and help them find solutions faster. This massively improves your UX, which is key to lead generation.

Chatbots can provide users with a sense of self-dependence. While you're actively helping them find information, they feel like they are in control of making educated decisions as a consumer. When a visitor feels good about their experience, they're much more agreeable to signing up, subscribing, or even making a purchase.

You can easily build your very own chatbot by using platforms such as ManyChat or Chatbot. Not only can it improve your lead-gen website, but it can also help cut down on the number of support requests your customer service team receives.

Set Up Your Lead Generation Website the Right Way

Every business needs to make a profit, but it all starts with a steady stream of qualified leads. While some strategies might bring quicker results than others, it takes synergy among multiple digital marketing channels to get the best possible results.

Ensure that your website is worth visiting. Make sure that it runs well, provides attractive offers, and educates the visitor with high-quality content that establishes you as an industry authority.

Take advantage of the free tools available to you such as Google Analytics to test your content and develop landing pages that convert.

Finally, provide alternative options for visitors to engage with your brand such as chatbots, social media feeds, and email marketing lists. The more personalized your messages, the more likely you are to improve your conversion rate.