Get more leads from your website

Most businesses waste money on paid traffic for their website. In this article you’ll learn why most paid traffic is a waste of money. You’ll also learn how to stop wasting money on paid traffic that doesn’t result in sales. After reading this you’ll have a clearer idea of why past online advertising attempts have failed. And learn steps you can take to improve your return on investment when it comes to online traffic.

Your website is supposed to generate leads and get you new customers. Only it doesn’t, not really. So you spend a bunch of money on Google Adwords, Facebook Ads or you even hire a ‘search marketing specialist’. Now you are getting plenty of traffic to your site but still no new leads. You spend a few thousand dollars and end up stopping the ad campaigns because you aren’t getting the expected results.

This scenario is familiar to anyone who has dabbled in Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing.

The accepted logic is that the person who clicked on your ad will come to your website. Then they’ll read all about you and decide you are a great company. Then they will find how to contact you and send you an email or call. You have them on the hook now. PROFIT!

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. And it’s getting harder to connect with people online. The shear amount of advertising, articles and information people are subject to today make it difficult to connect with them. Let alone sell them something.

Work the other way round

Set up your site for sales and lead capture.

What you need to do first is optimise your website to turn visitors into sales leads first. Get your website ready for the traffic. Decide what action you want people to perform once they get to your website.

A great way to do this is with a landing page. A landing page is a page that is designed for people to take one action when they click through to it. For example you might want people to enter details to receive a quote. Or sign up to your email list. Or buy a product. Decide on an action and then build your lead page around it. the more specific the action more successful your landing page will be.

Ways to get people to act on your site:

Conversion optimisation. Use landing pages to encourage users to take an action.

Large buttons and bold forms. Make any sign up or contact buttons stand out

Cut down on options. Most landing pages have one action the visitor can perform. They ofter don’t have any navigation or links to other pages.

Convince them. Use good copy to convince the visitor to take action. If you can’t write well, hire a copywriter.

If you are building an email list you’ll need to create email sign up forms and link them to your email service. Once you’ve got someones email address you can continue to market to them via email courses or newsletters. Most email services will allow you to set up simple auto responders. When people sign up send them an email thanking them for doing so. you can use emails to deliver links to more information about your service or product or send them download links for lead magnets.

To get more sales you’ll need more leads

Now you’ll need a plan to engage with people. To get people to take action on your website you need to show them how you can solve a problem they have. Offer a potential lead some valuable content that helps them in some way.

Some ways of attracting leads to your website are:

Blogging. Writing helpful blog posts that give the reader value. You can educate them about your product is a way that is informative and not too salesy.

Videos. Online education is a great way to engage with people.

Lead Magnet. Offer a small gift in exchange for a visitors email address. e.g. Sign up to receive our free download. Make the lead magnet something of value.

Small products. If you have a high priced product try selling a small add-on type product to get your foot in the door

To capture more leads you’ll need more traffic.

Once your site is set up for sales and you have a way to capture leads you can turn your attention to getting traffic to your site. If you have created informative content in the form of blog posts, videos or slideshows then you can promote that content. You can also try sending traffic straight to your lead page. There is no hard and fast rules to what works and what doesn’t. The form of advertising you use will depend on your service or product and the way you engage with visitors.

Ways to get traffic:

Social. If you have a lot of engaging content then social media can work well. If your content is useful enough people will share it and promote it for you. You’ll need your content to be really great though.

SEO. The same applies for organic search. For your content to be found in search engines by potential leads you’ll need well written content. Content that contains keywords that you want to rank well in search results. This is usually a long term approach to getting traffic to your site.

PPC Facebook Ads. Facebook ads are the darling of online marketers at the moment. They are a great and fairly cheap way to get your content seen. They work best for high value blog posts and videos. People on Facebook aren’t looking for an answer to their problems. You need to offer value to get them to click on your ad and read your post.

PPC Google Adwords. Google Adwords can be quite expensive depending on your keywords. But people searching for keywords associated with your service or product are already looking for answers. This means you can direct them to more sales oriented pages on your website.

Don’t waste that hard earned traffic

Before starting make sure your site is set up to handle the incoming visitors. Get them to do something. Read a blog post, sign up for an email course or newsletter or book into a webinar. This will depend on your service or product and whether you are connecting with a lead for the first time of the fourth.

Don’t expect the visitor to you site to ‘figure things out for themselves’. Have a clear course of action.

Turn traffic into leads. Offer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address. People don’t give up their email address easily. Give them something of value in return.

Don’t be too pushy, Having annoying popups on every page will drive visitors away.

Choose the right form of advertising for your service or product. A cheap product might work well with Facebook ads or Google Adwords that lead straight to a ‘buy now’ page. If you are selling a big ticket item you’ll need to connect with the lead multiple times. Try offering valuable content or a small ‘foot in the door’ product first. Promote your blog posts. You might need to experiment with different types of paid traffic.

Don’t just direct paid traffic to the home page on your website. Does the message of your advert match the message of your landing page?

Next Steps

Take a look at your website and ask yourself if you where a visitor would you know what to do. How can you create a page that gets a visitor to take an action that will result in a sale or enquiry?

To turn traffic into leads think of what value you are offering visitors to your site or blog. Why should they give you their email address or book that sales call? Why should they choose you?

Think about what type of traffic will suit your sales and lead capture set up. Where is the best place to connect with people?

If you need help setting up a sales and lead generation plan email me. I can give you some free pointers to get you on your way to getting more leads from your website.