The Beginner's Guide to Increasing Your Website Leads

Last updated: May 01, 2019
min read
The Beginner's Guide to Increasing Your Website Leads

Websites are flippin’ awesome things when you think about it. By bringing together a mix of images, interaction, and copy, they’re a fantastic way to spread awareness about your brand and attract new business, and they’re available to anyone across the globe, at any time.

However, websites also exist in a tricky, demanding ecosystem, and without the proper design can send leads bouncing back to a page of search results in a matter of seconds.  And that’s not what you’re paying to have a website for.

If your website isn’t performing up to snuff, try implementing these 5 easy lead generation and conversion marketing techniques to increase your inbound website leads virtually overnight.

Lead Generation Tactic 1: Add an Alert Bar

Most of us, instinctively, start reading from the top, and so the first thing we see is your business’s logo and your navigation bar.  Now, that’s great and all, but why not put your best offer there, too?

One effective way to pull this off is with an alert bar (also known as a hello bar or notification bar).  You’ve probably seen these pop up sometimes to to talk about a site’s cookie policy, but they can also be used to promote an offer.  Businesses frequently use these banners to bring attention to a promotion, piece of new content, or lead magnet to encourage a visitor to venture further into their site or to take a desired action, like making a purchase or providing their contact information.

Since visibility is high by default, the only job here is to provide enough value or intrigue to convince your visitors to abandon their intended browsing pattern and click through. “Browse The 30% Off Mother’s Day Sale” could work well, but “Click here to read our mission statement” would not. Experiment to see what offers work best for your business.

An easy way to add an alert bar to any website (among a plethora of other helpful conversion tools) is by using Leadpages alert bars.

Lead Generation Tactic 2: Craft Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)

One common cause of website underperformance is that it just takes too darn long to figure out where your visitors need to go.  And we’re not talking, “Lemme buckle down and work on this for fifteen minutes” too-long, we’re talking seven seconds and then they’ve given up and moved on to your competitor. Using clear calls to action on your home page can fix that.

A call to action, or CTA, is, practically, just a button or text link with some energy and intent behind it, like “Learn More,” or “Get Your Free Quote,” and you can use them liberally to help funnel traffic to more relevant pages.

Lead Generation Tactic 3: Use Testimonials as Social Proof

We’ve written about the importance of testimonials before — and even without that, you probably have an instinctive appreciation for how good word-of-mouth helps your business.  A good quote from a past client can be the glue that keeps a visitor from clicking away.

If you’ve read that previous, awesomely informative blog post, you’ve already mined some testimonials from your past clients, so the only question is presentation.  We find displaying a few words on your home page, not too far down, is effective, since the visitors who weren’t immediately siphoned away by your calls to action are probably the ones who need additional trust-building.  Having a CTA right after a testimonials section to push visitors in the right direction is a good idea, too.

Lead Generation Tactic 4: Offer Visitors a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a free offer your visitors can grab in exchange for their contact information. They can be how-tos, guides, informative articles, interactive demos, or even product samples.

They’re good value for your visitors, of course, but can also help you target their interests. If you, for example, were to download the lead magnet in this post of “The Ultimate Homepage Checklist,” we would know that website performance is one of your pain points, and we could follow-up with appropriate email marketing. Pinky promise that it’ll be the best stuff that lands in your inbox ;)

Common ways to offer lead magnets are with a short blurb in your website footer or with a popup (which you can also easily add to any website using Leadpages).

Lead Generation Tactic 5: Make Your Contact Information Readily Accessible

This is obvious, but bears repeating.

For example, let’s say that you’re considering buying from two competing companies. Which one will you contact first: the one whose phone number you’ve already found, or the one you haven’t?  And, depending on how that first call plays out, you may never make it to the second.

Even beyond that, making sure your contact information easy to find is a quality-of-life improvement that leaves your visitors with a positive impression of your site and, ultimately, your business. The footer of your website is the most accessible place to put this information.  Include phone, email, and social media channels.

Have a project in mind?

Fill out our new project form and we'll get right back to you.
Get Started