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3 steps to more website leads

Author: Ben Jeffery

There are three stages to get more leads from your marketing website: first impression, qualification, and action. To get more from your website, think of your visitor's experience as a process, and look at how you're helping them along.

1. Improve leads from first impression

Visitors need to instantly know they're in the right place. This could be as simple as a punchy strapline that summarises your specialisms, or images that set the scene. A professional design goes a long way in giving the right impression quickly, and people will respond to a website that has good quality images, a professional logo, and a clear and consistent colour scheme.

Content is the other half of the story, and your home page needs to project your image as a company. It should change often, give some sense of what's different about your organisation, and guide people to further content.

2. Qualify your services to get leads

Visitors need to be convinced that you're good at what you do. For our own website, we know people like to see website examples in our portfolio. For your business, these examples could be case studies, customer testimonials, how your products are made, or how you provide your great service. This is not just about providing details but also the warmer side of your business: your values and your passion.

You should always talk about benefits rather than features, because that's what will convince people they need you. The easiest way to write this kind of content is to keep asking yourself "So what?" until you get to the real benefit. For example:

"All our products are handmade."

So what?

"Well, every product is unique and the quality is much higher."

So what?

"No-one else will own what you have, and it's guaranteed to last longer."

The last statement is much stronger than the first because it's closer to what the customer really cares about.

Make sure your content reads well and doesn't have spelling or typing errors. Try reading it out loud, or ideally get one of your customers to review it.

3. Encourage action to get leads

For most marketing websites, you simply want customers to pick up the phone, and it's important to cover the basics: make sure your contact details are prominent and really easy to find. Use more specific prompts to encourage action, for example, call me back, order a brochure, or get a quote. These could be links within your text or click-able graphics.

We recommend using "soft contact" options like social media or email lists, which are ways for you to stay in touch with potential customers who don't want to buy now. For every lead you get through your website, there are more people who were interested but not ready to contact you. If you can find excuses to stay in touch with them, they'll be more likely to come back later, or mention you to others.

Soft contact options could include social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, or subscriptions to a regular email newsletter. Or encourage people to come back with free resources and changing content, like a blog. By adding social bookmarking links and an RSS feed to your blog, you can reach even more people.

Track your results

Whatever you change with your website, it's important to track the results. Quantify your goals for the new website, whether that's more visitors, higher conversion to enquiry, or just a number of leads, sales or email subscriptions. And when people do get in touch, always ask how they found you. Keep improving things as you learn more about what works.