Tired of working every day to bring in leads, only to find they're not qualified, or aren't ready to buy? Wish someone would magically drop lists and lists of qualified leads right in your lap? What if we told you that lead generation didn't have to be so hard?
By making a few adjustments, it's possible to design a website that qualifies and converts leads, and delivers them directly to your inbox. Sound too good to be true? Let's talk about what a lead generation website is, and what best practices you can implement to develop a lead generation website that delivers leads right to your inbox 24/7.
What is a Lead Generation Website?
A lead generation website is a website that works to convert site visitors into leads. Unlike a traditional website, which might function as a digital brochure for your company, a lead generation website actively educates your visitors, and offers opportunities for them to learn more about your company, your products, and services. As those people travel through their individual buyer journeys, a lead generation website works to convert those who are qualified leads.
There's a lot to say about what a lead generation website is and isn't, so for the sake of simplicity, I'll boil it down to this:
A lead generation website is a website that is designed and optimized to actively convert visitors into educated, qualified leads.
Why do you want a lead generation website, instead of a digital brochure?
Because when your lead generation website is up and running, it has the potential to deliver qualified leads to your sales team 24/7. There's no lunchtime or out-of-office for your website. It's working for you 100% of the time. If you can turn your website into a lead generation website, your company is looking at serious growth.
10 Lead Generation Website Best Practices for a Website that Delivers Leads 24/7
Let's talk about some of the best practices that make up a successful lead generation website.
- Start with a solid website
- Build trust
- Make contact easy
- Consider your end goal first
- Add quality forms
- Use conversion opportunities that address each stage of the buyer's journey
- Create buyer persona and pillar page-specific content offers
- Consider live chat
- Get creative with CTAs
- Test and optimize
01. Start with a solid website
I'm here to tell you that no one will convert on your site if it looks outdated or isn't functional.
The first step to a lead generation website is a website that actually works. If you've got problems with responsiveness, load time, or just general usability, you're not going to get the amount of traffic you need to be able to convert quality leads.
02. Build trust
Once your website works and looks good, the next step is building trust. This doesn't mean forcing the hard sell. At this point, you're just trying to show visitors to your site (people who are nowhere near making a purchasing decision) that you're a legitimate company with authority in your industry.
This means showing them who your company is, what you're about, and providing them with the information they need to make an educated purchasing decision. The two best ways to build trust are:
- Testimonials
- An A+ About Page
Let other people tell your site visitors how great you are. Then, for the people who want to know who you are, show them with your about page.
Beyond those two things, you might also consider including any relevant business awards, certifications, or partnerships in visible places like your homepage.
03. Make contact easy
Once your site works, and you sound legit, we can actually get down to some best practices for a lead generation website.
One of the most important best practices is to make contact easy. Your site visitors should never have to wonder how to get in touch with you should they have a question. Make sure your contact button, whether it's "contact us" or "we buy houses," is in the top right of your nav bar.
Then, include other "contact us" opportunities throughout your site. Simple CTAs are one way to go, but just having your contact information in the sidebar or footer of your site can go a long way to make sure you never miss a contact opportunity.
04. Consider your end goal first
When you're working to develop a lead generation website, it's easy to just throw CTAs, forms, and landing pages everywhere to see what sticks.
But that's not always going to deliver the leads you want.
Before you jump into some of these next best practices for a lead generation website, take some time to think about what your end goal is.
- What kind of leads do you want?
- How do you want them to contact you — phone, email, schedule a meeting with sales?
- At what point does your sales team actually want to connect directly with a lead?
- Where does your company need the most support from digital leads?
- Do you need more leads in the awareness, consideration, or decision making phase of their buyer's journey?
Answering these questions will help you determine where you need to put the most effort into your lead generation website.
05. Add quality forms
One of the easiest ways to convert qualified leads on your lead generation website is to add forms.
Forms, from a simple contact form to a more complicated request a quote form, give you exactly the information you need to determine whether a lead is qualified and is ready to talk to a salesperson.
Each of these forms help convert leads in different ways. Click on any image to view it in a larger size.
Remember: Good lead generation forms only ask for the information you actually need. If you've got an entry-level contact form, you should only ask for a few things, like a name, email, and company name.
If you're working on a longer form for an end-of-buyer's-journey quote request, you'll have a lot more fields, but it's still important to only require the information you actually need.
Fewer fields = more conversions.
06. Use conversion opportunities that address each stage of the buyer's journey
If you're looking to build a lead generation website that delivers leads 24/7, it's best practice to implement conversion opportunities that capture leads at every stage of the buyer's journey.
For example, let's say you're a home builder. You'll want conversion opportunities for:
- People who are considering a new home (awareness phase)
- People who are deciding between building or buying (consideration phase)
- People who have decided to build and are looking for reputable builders in their desired location (decision-making phase)
If you only have conversion opportunities for people who are ready to build in your area, you'll probably only get very qualified leads, but you won't get very many.
You're missing out on those leads who are very likely to want to build in your area, but who just haven't made the decision yet.
It's a great best practice to ensure your lead generation website presents conversion opportunities to visitors in every stage of their buyer's journey. This ensures your marketing pipeline is always full of qualified leads who are working their way up to a purchasing decision.
07. Create buyer persona and pillar page-specific content offers
When it comes to lead generation, there's no best practice more attractive to a site visitor than a content offer. Guides, ebooks, and downloadable content are irresistible to a qualified lead.
Turn your site into a lead generation website by developing content offers that address the specific needs and pain points of your ideal buyer personas. And, round out your content strategy with content offers that bolster each of your content pillar pages.
For example, if one of your content pillars is kitchen renovations, you should have a downloadable offer that's relevant to that pillar. Something like a "What's Your Kitchen Renovation Style Quiz" is attractive to that potential lead who is already reading other content on your site about kitchen renovations.
08. Consider live chat
If the goal of a lead generation website is to deliver leads 24/7, live chat is one of the tools that will absolutely get you there.
It's available all the time, and makes it easy for anyone who has a question about your products or services to ask that question, the minute they think of it.
They get an answer, and you get a lead, even if it's 2AM on a Saturday.
Learn more about live chat in this blog on Conversational Marketing.
09. Get creative with CTAs
Contact Us CTAs are important, but they're also boring. The average internet user is almost blind to the "contact us" CTA because they see it on every site. While you need to have it, it's a great best practice to also develop more creative CTAs. Check these out:
As we've talked about throughout this blog, the key to a lead generation website is presenting conversion opportunities to anyone who is a qualified lead, at any point of their buyer's journey. Think back to best practice #4: What are your lead generation goals?
If your sales team prefers to get leads via a call or to schedule a connect call on their calendar, develop that CTA!
Something that says, "Schedule time with our sales team" is considerably more compelling than "contact us". It's a lead generation best practice to include varied CTAs, so you provide your site visitors plenty of options, but also so you can see what they respond to most.
10. Test and optimize, always
Our final best practice for a lead generation website is no surprise — test and optimize, always.
If you're looking for a lead generation website, it's important to remember that your website is never finished. You should always review your data, test new CTAs, and implement new tactics to see how you can improve those conversion rates.
If one content offer or CTA isn't working, try something new. A successful lead generation website is always changing and optimizing to meet visitors' wants and needs.
Remember: Your Lead Generation Website Can Only Deliver the Leads
Before you go, I want to leave you with one important piece of information when it comes to building a lead generation website.
Your lead generation website can only deliver the leads.
It doesn't matter how many leads that website generates if your marketing and sales teams aren't equipped to handle those leads.
Make sure you have the marketing and sales enablement strategies in place to ensure your team can nurture and sell these leads your website is generating. Otherwise, you're generating leads no one will follow-up with, which means you're not growing.
Have a plan in place to handle inbound leads coming from your website, and your team will see significant results.
Just not sure where to start when it comes to things like CTAs, contact forms, content offers, and other lead generation best practices? The Evenbound team is here to help. Get in touch. We'd love to help walk you through any of these best practices to building a lead generation website.
