Optimizing your website to generate leads is not that hard. However, it is not as simple as throwing a “click here” button on your website and just watch the leads come in. 

Marketers and developers need to take a more strategic approach on this. In this article, we listed down effective ways to optimize your website for lead generation.

To be able to understand how to optimize your website, we first need to have basic knowledge about the lead generation process. What parts are at play when a visitor turns into a lead? 

The process of lead generation usually begins once a visitor clicks on a call-to-action(CTA) that is located on one of your web pages or blog posts. That CTA will lead them to a landing page, which includes a form that is used to collect some information about the visitor. When the visitor fills out and submits the form, they will be directed to a thank-you page. 

Now that we have some knowledge about the basics of lead generation, we can get down to the dirty details. 

Here are 9 simple ways to optimize your website for lead generation:

1.Add forms to pages that get the most traffic

It’s important to benchmark your current state of lead generation before you start so that you’ll be able to track your success and know the areas that need improvement. Some of your web pages might be an excellent lead generators and you don’t even know.

First, you need to conduct an audit of where most of your online traffic comes from. Here are some places where a business might get visitors:

• Email Marketing: Traffic might come from users who click through to your website from one of your emails.
• Social Media: Traffic might come from users who engage in a campaign through one of your social media profiles.
• Live Chat: Traffic might come in the form of users who reach out to your customer service team through a live chat window on your website.
• Blog Posts: Traffic might come from your highest-performing blog posts.

After identifying where your leads are coming from, you may want to make sure the web pages they are landing on are doing everything they can to nurture a visitor’s interest.

For instance, if you realize that most of your potential leads comes from your Facebook page, you next step is to update the pages with content that might catch their attention or interest. On your most visited web pages, put a longer form content that visitors can access through forms that will collect their contact information. 

2. Measure each Lead Generator’s performance

Measure how each of your lead generators is contributing to your business. 

You can compare landing pages that are doing well with those who don't. For example, let's say that you get 1,000 visits to Landing Page A, and 10 of those people filled out the form and converted into leads. For Landing Page A, you would have a 1% conversion rate. Let's say you have another landing page, Landing Page B, that gets 50 visitors to convert into leads for every 1,000 visits. That would be a 5% conversion rate -- which is great! Your next steps could be to see how Landing Page A differs from Landing Page B, and optimize Landing Page A accordingly.

Lastly, you could also try running internal reports. Start evaluating landing page visits, CTA clicks and thank you page shares to know which are performing the best and then start creating more of those offers.

3. Optimize each step of the Lead Generation process

If a user searched “lawn care tips” and ended up on an article you posted, you better not link that post to an unrelated page. Make sure your offers are relative to the page they are on so you can catch the visitor’s attention in a particular subject.

Once a visitor lands on your website, you can begin learning about their conversion path. This path starts once a visitor visits your website and fills out a form that made them as a lead.

In some cases, where a visitor’s path doesn’t end with the desired objective, you can optimize their conversion path.

4. Start with a basic CTA on your homepage

If the design of your homepage is what catches your visitor’s attention, the CTa is what keeps it. But don’t bombard your visitors with invitations to see the longest content you have.

Your homepages sits at the top of the marketing funnel, and therefore must offer free trial or subscription to your current campaign like newsletter.  

‘Subscribe to Updates’

Customers want their browsing experience to be as non-invasive as their buying experience. Most of the time, they are not ready to make a purchase when they first browse your website.

To teach them about your business without effort on their part, try inviting them to subscribe to an email that will notify them of the industry trends and product updates. Personally follow up with those who stay on this mailing list to get their attention and eventually turn them into marketing qualified leads(MQLs).

‘Try us for Free’

Free trials and demos are company’s bread and butter. They help you to generate demand in your business and make a contact list of leads who are piloting your product.

Have your product available to try for free for a limited time with the use of CTA and form where you can get your visitor’s name and email address. After the demo or free trial, follow up with the user to know their thoughts about it.

5. Offer Ebooks for download on Specific blog posts

Another way to generate interest in your business is to start posting blog that promotes an ebook or whitepaper, where your website visitors can learn more about the same topic they just read on your blog.

This is where lead generation meets Search Engine Optimization(SEO).

Blog content a way of developing your page authority needed to rank your website on search engines like Google. Visitors who came from Google or other search engines are often more intent on finding solutions to problems you can solve -- making this form of lead generation valuable.

First, conduct keyword research on a topic that is related to your business or industry, and start writing articles about this topic. Then, draft a report that digs much deeper into this topic. Save this report into a file that your readers can download using their name, company and email address.

By using the three-part conversion path that was described in tip #2 above, email each person their downloaded resources, following up with them through a kickback email that retains each lead’s interest or attention in the content you have provided them.

6. Develop a live chat service for your website

Live chat services are increasing not just in their sophistication, but in how many people depends on them when learning about the vendors they want to buy from. If your website doesn’t offer live chat services, you might be missing out on a major lead generator.

To generate leads through live chat, audit your website to know which pages your visitors spend most of their time on. With the right development resources, you can install a live chat tool on those pages. This helps you collect and log insight on their product needs while answering their questions.

Depending on who started the conversation and what questions your visitors have, you can even integrate your customer service team with your live chat features. This enables you to address the needs of all your visitors, no matter what their questions are.

7. Personalize you Calls-to-Action

Dynamic content lets you cater the experience of visiting your website to all of your visitors. Users who land on your website will see images, buttons and product options that are specifically tailored to their interests, pages they viewed or items they have purchased before.

8. Test, test, test

Testing can do wonders for your clickthrough rates.

For example, when friendbuy tried a simple A/B test on their calls-to-action, they found a 211% improvement in click throughs on those calls-to-action. Something as simple as testing out the wording of your CTA, the layout of your landing page, or the images you're using can have a huge impact, like the one friendbuy saw. 

9. Nurture your leads

Remember: No lead can automatically turn into a customer. Leads are only as good as your nurturing efforts. 

Once a lead fill out a form on your landing page, place them into a workflow so that they won’t forget you. Deliver them valuable content that may catch their attention. Lead nurturing should begin with follow up emails that is relevant and has great content. As you nurture them, know as much as you can about them -- and then customize all your future emails.

You rely on leads to close sales and grow your business. With the use of the ways we have listed down, you can take advantage of every opportunity without letting unsatisfied visitors slip away.