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By Ryan Boog
Is your online lead generation struggling? Getting leads from your website is increasingly important as online sales data has been rising year to year. Online lead generation is all about attracting people to your sites and converting them into leads that your company can close on. This article will give you some steps and ideas on how to increase your online lead generation.
If people are on your website but almost nobody calls or fills out the form, the problem is usually one of two things.
Are these even your homeowners? Look at where your visitors come from. If most of them live outside your service area, or they found you by searching for something you don't do, more traffic will not help. You need the right people, not more people.
If they are the right people, what stops them? Open your site on your phone and pretend you need the job done today. Can you find the phone number in two seconds? Can you tap it to call? Is the estimate form short? Do the photos show your real crew and your real work? If any of those answers is no, start there.
The rest of this guide walks through both.
Your website can reach potential customers anywhere at any time. It represents your business and does the talking for you when you’re not there. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Therefore, it should be able to generate leads by itself. Make the potential customer fall in love with your product or service right off the bat. Impress them with your site's look and content. Include a lot of personalized photos and tell the story of what your company is all about. Then, follow them through the sales process so that they know how to get even more information.
Online lead generation is a crucial part of your website's success. Nothing is better than sitting back and letting the leads come in and we are here to help you do this.
Website - Your tool to showcase your service and capitalize on online leads.
Content Creation - Can cover a variety of topics with blogs or news that bring users to your site and takes longer than PPC.
Social media - Create brand awareness, interact with users, and get traffic back to your site.
Pay per click (PPC) - Quick way to drive potential customers to your site.
Before you start on your lead generation journey, look at how your site has been performing. Then dissect what may be causing lead generation issues.
In Google Analytics, open Reports, then Engagement, then Pages and screens. Look for the pages that get lots of visits but few calls or form fills.
Check where your visitors come from in Reports, then Acquisition. If a lot of them are from outside your service area, that is a targeting problem, not a website problem.
Try to pinpoint when your online leads and/or when traffic decreases.
Check your site’s performance and mobile-friendliness using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Is your site at top speed? Is it easy for Google to crawl?
Make a list of your results from these bullet points and see if you find a trend or reason for the drop in leads. This could be due to seasonal business, lower rankings, poor site performance, outdated content, confusing pages, broken forms, etc.
Most companies need to increase traffic in order to increase their online leads. More traffic = more potential leads Here are some ways to help you get more traffic to your site.
Quick results can be achieved if you’re willing to pay.
Paid ads work extremely well for companies that need to generate leads quickly and have the budget to do so. BUT, only if the ads are perfectly executed. Letting some random person at your company experiment with paid ads is a great way to lose money. Hire an experienced professional to manage your PPC. It is the best way to protect and grow your PPC investment.
When was the last time you audited the SEO on your website?
Check to see that your site is optimized for online searches. Ranking well for keywords related to your services will bring users to your site. If Google doesn’t understand your site, users won’t find you.
You need to be creating new content for your site.
Even if you don’t think your site should have a blog, you need to create some sort of regular content. Creating helpful and interesting content will:
* Help users
* Increase traffic
* Increase organic keywords
* Leads
* Some speculate it even causes Google to crawl your site more frequently than a site with no new content
For example:
Think of your website as one fishing net in a lake. The net can grab a good amount of fish on its own (if the fish happen to swim into it). Then, think of each piece of additional content on your site as a fishing pole in the lake. Each piece of content (or fishing pole) increases your chances of ranking well and reaching more users.
Success in generating leads through social media is a bit tricky, but it is possible.
Social media is a way to create a relationship with your customers. You should talk to users on your social media platforms like a friend or recurring customer. Don’t be too “salesy” and don’t post too much (once or twice a week is recommended).
Post your recent content on your social media and reward your followers with offers to drive leads to your site. Paid social ads can help you create a large following if you don’t already have one.
Some sites have decent traffic, but their users aren’t converting.
This usually means there is some friction on your site that is not letting your users flow through the sales funnel. You need to have a superb website design and a persuasive punch to have a flawless sales funnel.
Users have a short attention span so give them the info that they need right away (services, phone number, location, etc.)
Does your call to action stick out? On a home service site that usually means two things: a phone number people can tap to call, and a "Get an Estimate" button in a color nothing else on the page uses. Put both at the top of every page, not just the contact page.
Make your users fall in love with your brand with every word and picture on the website. But don't make this all about you. Make it all about what you can do for your customers.
For example:
If you run a tree company and want homeowners to trust you near their house, show it. Use a photo of your crew taking down a big tree next to a home, then say something like, "Big trees, tight yards, no damage. That's the job we're known for." Put a real review right under it.
Get rid of long paragraphs. Pictures still say more than words. Show big, beautiful pictures of your services/products. Stay away from stock photos!
Is it easy to move through your site?
Crazy Egg can provide you with a heat map to see where users click on your site. This can show you if they are clicking on things that aren’t meant to be clicked on. Internal links can also help users navigate through your site. They allow you to link to other services and content when appropriate.
Sometimes you aren’t getting leads because of the form itself.
Are your forms easy to locate? Are they easy to fill out? Do you have content above the form to help persuade the user?
Keep estimate forms short: name, phone, town, and what they need done. You can ask for the details when you call them back. Every extra box is one more reason to leave. Always keep user experience and persuasion front and center on your form page.
Keep track of everything so you have proof that your changes are generating leads.
You may be hoping for results right away, but that is not always realistic. Tracking your conversions is great to show that things are headed in the right direction, even if the leads are not flying in yet. Track your calls, traffic, bounce rate, certain pages, form fill outs, etc. to get the best results.
Don’t waste time spinning your wheels.
If you:
- Don’t see any sort of positive change in 3 months
- Don’t have the time to do this
- Don’t have the experience to do this
- Feel you are spending too much money for the results you are getting, or
- Notice customers complaining about their experience
You should get some professional help. There are professional agencies available to help with lead generation and conversion optimization (like this one). They can offer amazing advice and help with website design, content, SEO strategies, and social media marketing.
Please let us know if you have any questions or need help with increasing your company's online leads. We’d love to help!