Turn Your Website Into A Lead Generation & Sales Machine In 3 Steps

A good number of businesses today recognise the importance of owning a website, but the sad truth is, a lot of business websites are nothing short of an online brochure.

So, this is often the result of that… Design = 100%, Strategy = 0%

Business owners are failing to keep up with the rapid changes around the digital media space, and while they are busy praising how “well designed” their website is, their competition is busy taking all the leads for themselves.

I have a lot to say about that, but I’ll hold my peace on this one… let’s focus on the 3 steps:

Step #1: Have A Defined Call To Action

When people visit to your website, they are not there to admire the design, they are there to find answers (information). Most business owners get caught up in the “traffic mindset” and forget to do their “housekeeping.”

Traffic will come, but won’t stay if there is no visible evidence of a solution, or in some cases, your visitors find things confusing on your website. 

[bctt tweet=”You will attract the right audience when you position your website to solve problems.”]

As it is commonly said, you don’t invite a visitor into your home and leave them to figure things out by themselves. You have to play the “good host” and guide them through.

What do you want people to do as soon as they land on your website? Whatever that action is, put it up there with a well crafted headline and an end goal for them in mind (Note: rotating sliders will drive away your visitors; use a static banner with good fonts).

Come up with at least 5 headlines that carry valuable information, and can trigger the type of action you want your visitors to take.

Tip: Stop talking about how amazing you are or how many years you have been in operation, and start focusing on how you can help your clients/customers. Let that reflect on your website.

Also, apply this principle on the core pages of your website (more on this in Step #3)!

Step #2: Have An Irresistible Offer

A good number of websites, especially within the service industry, often carry one particular offer, which usually lacks essence based on how it is presented, and it hardly attracts the right clientele.

That offer is “Free Consultation”!

So, what’s wrong with that? Well for starters, everyone is saying the same thing, and most of the time, the visitor feels less compelled to take the offer because there is no specific end goal defined for him/her.

Everything boils down to how you say things. To get cold traffic into your database, you have to offer an incentive that they can immediately see the benefit of.

You have to first of all give, before you ask. If you must offer a free consultation, then you have to craft it in a manner that appeals to the visitor, rather than have the same bland approach like everyone else.

Preferably, create a “Lead Magnet” from your best information, and give it out for free. This is nothing new, really, but most business owners do not know how to properly set one up.

Your Lead Magnet must solve an immediate problem, and it should be easy to access (i.e. downloaded from your website) and easy to consume or use. A few examples: A template or cheat sheet, a mindmap, a free report, etc.

Your “free consultation” can come through the back of that initial offer (i.e. the Lead Magnet). When they consume the content you provided for free, and love it (make it value packed), they will come for more.

You can then setup a consultation session to dig deeper into their needs and position yourself to close the sale. It’ll be a lot easier because you have already demonstrated that you are a problem solver!

Tip: your call to action should go in line with your lead magnet, and make sure it is well positioned on your website (either on the homepage’s banner section or a stand alone landing page) where it can be easily seen and/or accessed. Be sure to track every activity around it and make adjustments where necessary.

Step #3: Create Effective Systems Within Your Website

I’ve visited business websites that only had a contact form on their contact page as their main source of lead capture. Some have phone numbers, while some have both.

In order for your website to work really hard for you, you have to integrate the right tools for lead generation and automation. This is a very important aspect of a successful website. 

Treat every page on your website as landing page by integrating some sort of call to action, directing people to a landing page with a Lead Magnet on offer.

Your website should be full of activity with fully automated lead generation and sales funnels, working tirelessly on the back-end for you.

It’s even easier to setup landing pages today than it was a decades ago, thanks to all the new marketing intelligence tools available at our disposal.

Your blogs, apart from carrying valuable content, should always have calls to action. A simple thing as telling people to share your content on social media can go a long way.

Tip: The more awareness you create, the more traffic you will drive to your website. To speed things up, you need to use paid advertising. Setup your funnels, integrate your Lead Magnet(s), create your Call(s) to Action and use Ads to drive people to your website.

Note: Organic traffic is not completely ruled out here; the major issue is that it is very slow.

Conclusion

In order to have a website that is fully functional and not lying there dormant, you need to create a concrete plan of execution.

Find out what you can offer to your visitors, and start creating it. You can start by putting out a few surveys to find out what people need and then take it from there.

There are other steps involved, but these 3 are set to get you going for now.

Your turn… how are you currently using your website to grow your business? Share on the comment section below.

Thanks for reading.

Cover Image Credit: PSD Graphics