5 Tips to Generate more Leads

Posted on July 13, 2009. Filed under: SEO | Tags: leads, marketing, SEM, SEO |

So you’ve started to get respectable numbers of potential customers visiting your website as a result of your search engine positioning strategy. But are you converting them into valuable sales leads for your business? If you are getting less than a handful of sales leads through your website a day, then the answer is no. You are not doing enough to convert browsers into buyers. You are not even converting them into interested prospects, instead, they are leaving your site as they arrived – simply browsing.

1. Only have one link
   Remember that the difference between where a sales lead is won and lost lies in the “landing page”. The landing page is the first place visitors land within your website, after they have entered a particular search term into a search engine. To turn a browser into a sales lead, you need to collect some sort of information (e.g., email address, name, phone number) from them. To encourage people to enter their information, you must make sure you are not distracting them with multiple links. Particularly make sure there are no hotlinks next to the ‘submit’ button. The moment you starting adding links other than the one on the ‘submit’ button, you are driving traffic away from your lead form. And that traffic is unlikely to return.
2. Provide powerful, readable arguments
   The copy or text on the landing page should be persuasive and readable. That means you should have 3-5 paragraphs about the key benefits of your product, in at least 9 point size font. Do not assume that just because someone has landed on your site after doing a search they will automatically give you their details. You will need to convince that browser, through your landing page copy, that you are the best amongst your competitors.
3. Make sure your entire registration form is above the fold
   Don’t make your browsers scroll down to get to the registration form on your landing page. Previous studies have shown, they just won’t do it. By making sure your entire registration form is in the immediately- viewable, top half of your landing page, you are maximising your changes of gaining a sales lead from every visitor to that page.
4. No need to recite the Privacy Act on the landing page
   You should never forget to mention your company’s privacy policy on any page where you are collecting customer information. However, by putting a link on the page to your privacy policy, you again risk losing people through hotlink overload. The best way to overcome this problem is simply to state your privacy policy in 1-2 sentences. For example, you can simply state that any information collected will not be released to third parties. In doing so, you are assuring people of your company’s commitment to privacy, while not detracting from the main purpose of the landing page.
5. Give them the option to call you!
   Your number of sales leads will always increase when you give customers multiple ways to contact you. Once browsers have reached your landing page, there will always be a proportion who prefer to phone you to find out more information about your products or services. By providing these people with an easy-to-find contact phone number on your landing page, you are again minimising the risk of losing them. Ideally, the phone number should be in very large, bright font at the top and bottom of the page.

These are just a small number of ways to turn your browsers into buyers.