What is the most valuable selling tool of your business?
You may have come up with several answers, but the truth is that your website is probably the most powerful attractor to visitors that you own, and that means website design and web development are two of the keys to boosting your company’s return on investment. But if the number of visitors to your website has decreased, or you are not converting enough visitors into customers, fear not.
With an honest analysis of your website, you can implement three strategies that can boost your lead generation, and help kickstart a new normal in the number of conversions on your landing pages.
More than 50 percent of Internet users are now accessing their content exclusively on mobile devices.
So businesses that want to follow their customers where they are going, must have a responsive which refers to a website that can shrink and adapt to a mobile device without losing ease of navigation, image quality or download speed.
Google has already weighed in on responsive design, recommending that businesses implement this change to make their sites more likely to rank higher on mobile searches and to decrease the amount of time it takes for a page to load.
That means websites that are optimized for mobile are going to have a much better chance of increasing where they rank on search engine results, especially if Google follows through in the next year and begins using a ‘mobile-first’ indexing, which will favor websites that are responsive.
Responsive design can also increase lead generation by making it easier for prospects that are mobile-only to engage with your business when they are on the move. A web designer or web design company can help you turn your site into one that is responsive.
Landing pages are a key aspect of your website, because when visitors clicks to your site, they want information provided to them in a clear, concise and powerful way.
That means you have to analyze the current state of your landing page features, including:
Your landing page must have a CTA that is easy for visitors to see, and that communicates exactly what a visitor gets if they click the button. One of the ways to catch a visitor’s eyes is to make sure that your CTA buttons have a distinct color that does not blend into the rest of your landing page color scheme. You may need to do A/B testing on your CTAs to see which ones resonate more with your target audience. But in general, you want to focus on delivering value with your CTAs, and answering the question that all visitors have: “What’s in it for me?”
How many landing pages does your site have? Sometimes, business owners forget that a website doesn’t have to be limited to one landing page, and that depending on where a user clicked from, they can create dedicated landing pages that focus specifically on the link the visitor clicked. Studies have found that websites with 30 or more landing pages created more leads than websites with one to five landing pages.
What does your landing page headline tell a visitor? Does it simply provide them with facts and information, or does it entice, encourage, shock or probe a visitor into remaining on the page. For example, a headline that reads, ‘Smart computer software can be yours,’ is not as compelling as, ‘Think smarter, be smarter ,and impress your friends with our patented call-tracing software.’ The second headline provides information about the product or service on the page, but it does so by appealing to the visitor on a personal level that can create a more instant connection.
Memorize this mantra: ‘thou shall keep your form fields short.’ In general, you can obtain a visitor’s information with three fields: name, email address and password. Those form fields should take a visitor less than 30 seconds to fill, and once they click on the CTA, they have now become a lead that you can go to work converting into a long-term customer. And if your form fields can kill two birds with one stone, like automatically creating a free account for a visitor, that’s a bonus.
People love to watch videos because they are quick, visual and much easier to understand than written text.
And they are usually far more entertaining than thick blocks of text that explain everything on a website.
At the very least, you should think about turning your ‘About’ page into a video representation of the team you’ve assembled. Videos that show your employees in action can make visitors feel more connected to the business because they feel as if they are getting a glimpse behind the scenes.
And videos can also express your company’s culture in a way that feels more authentic than trying to write bios that doesn’t have a ‘voice’ visitors can feel.
That also brings up the issue of stock images on a website, which usually elicits a negative reaction from visitors.
Stock images just scream ‘cheap,’ and they dent a site’s credibility on a subconscious level.
Instead, you should sit down with your web development team, web developer or website design company and come up with graphics and images that specifically match the exact products and services that you offer.
Just taking that additional time can pay off, because visitors judge your site within 30 seconds, and any detail that feels ‘fake’ or inauthentic can send them to another website.
Ensuring that your website is a significant lead generator takes constant vigilance, testing, and going back to the drawing board. You should think of your website as a work-in-progress that will always require tweaking, and in doing so, you will gain the objectivity necessary to improve your website. If you are ready to get started on boosting lead generation with your website, download our Website Design Guide for tips and resources that can help you achieve your goal.