Is your website optimized for engagement and lead generation? Your website offers a prime opportunity to captivate your visitors and acquire leads crucial for any growth-oriented business. Tailoring your B2B web design for lead generation involves a strategic approach that directs visitors on how to interact with your business and convert them into leads.
The lead generation process typically starts when a website visitor engages with a call-to-action (CTA). CTAs can be placed on a website page, a blog article, an advertisement, or a social media post. That CTA leads your visitor to a landing page with a form to collect that visitor’s contact information. After completing the form, the visitor is led to a thank-you page and you have a lead.
Simple, right? Here are seven ideas for optimizing your website and generating more leads.
1. Pages with the Highest Traffic
Look at your web analytics and determine which pages are getting the most traffic. You might be surprised by what you find here. Be sure to practice good search engine optimization for your entire website to help build more qualified traffic. Place offers and forms on these high-traffic pages to capture visitor information. Start with a review of your traffic sources such as email marketing, social media, chat channels, and blog posts. On the pages that are most visited from these sources, add longer-form content—or “premium content” that visitors can access through forms.
2. Measure Performance
Test and compare how each of your lead generators is performing. If you’re using landing page marketing software like Hubspot or Unbounce, be sure to monitor and measure your pages’ performance with their built-in analytics tools. Pay attention to:
- Average time on page
- Bounce rate
- Conversion rate
- Traffic source
Take a lesson from your higher-performing pages and improve your lesser-performing ones. Also, run internal reports and evaluate your offers. Don’t forget to review your landing page visits, CTA clicks, and thank-you page shares. Lastly, refer to the higher-performing offers and use those as inspiration to follow.
3. Optimize Every Step
There are four basic steps to a common lead generation process workflow: calls-to-action, landing pages, thank-you pages, and email follow-up.
Calls-to-Action: Make sure your CTAs are easy to see and stand out. Use contrasting colors to help. Experiment with different types of CTAs, both static and animated sliders.
Landing Pages: According to a Hubspot survey, companies with 30+ landing pages generated 7X more leads than those with 1 to 5 landing pages. Make sure your landing pages promote offers that are easy to understand. Landing pages should have some variation of a headline, a short description with key benefits and what to expect in the offer, at least one image, and a form. The best practice for landing pages is to remove any navigation menu so that visitors can focus on the task at hand. See an example of how we implemented a strategic content offer via a landing page for one of our clients.
Thank-You Pages: The thank-you page follows the landing page form submission. Don’t overlook this step of the lead generation process. In addition to a thank-you message, include a download or access link for the offer if appropriate. Also, include social sharing buttons and consider this real estate for another related offer.
Confirmation “Kickback” Emails: When a visitor becomes a lead and their information enters your database, it’s a good idea to follow up with a kickback email. This email would have a thank you message in it and possibly a link to the offer itself. Studies have shown that kickback emails have double the engagement rates of standard marketing emails. These are a good place to include a specific CTA and encourage social media sharing.
Related Read: Is Your Email Marketing Delivering Results? »
4. Add a CTA to your Home Page
Your home page should be one of the most trafficked pages of your website. The design should catch your visitors’ attention and a CTA is what focuses their action. Your home page feeds the top of the marketing funnel, so your offer should be contextual to that stage of the buyer’s journey. Typical suggestions for these CTAs would be “subscribe to updates” or “free trial (or demo)”. You may also consider promoting an offer further down the marketing funnel like an ebook or white paper to establish credibility.
5. Onsite Live Chat or Chat Bot
Many people prefer using chat to contact a company. It’s quick and you don’t have to talk on the phone (ugh!). These can be valuable tools for generating leads and promoting customer service. We have found quick positive results when adding this feature to our clients’ websites. You can use live chat, chatbots, or a combination of the two. Optimize your chat to be relevant to the content, page, stage of the buyer’s journey, etc. Integrate chat with your sales and customer service teams to route inquiries and for optimal user experience.
6. Test and Improve
Building a lead generation strategy is only the first part. Testing and optimizing it is where how you achieve greater results. Try A/B testing to increase clickthrough rates. Start with relevant follow-up emails that feature useful content, then continue to tailor that content to your prospect.
7. Nurture Leads to Customers
Leads are great, but customers are what you want. Nurture your customers with workflows to help bring them along in their journey. Make sure they don’t forget you and provide them with valuable content that matches their interest. Emails can link to blog articles, white papers, ebooks, and any other offers you provide.
A business depends on leads to close sales and grow. By optimizing your website for lead generation, you can build on every opportunity to grow leads and provide a better user experience for your prospects.
Summary
Effective lead generation requires a multi-faceted approach that leverages various digital marketing tools and strategies. By optimizing every step of the lead generation process, from eye-catching CTAs to engaging landing pages and diligent follow-up via emails, businesses can significantly increase their lead conversion rates. Implementing interactive options like onsite live chat further enhances customer engagement and service. Remember, continual testing and improvement are key to staying ahead of the curve and ensuring your strategies remain effective. With a comprehensive, well-executed lead generation strategy, your business can not only capture more leads but also nurture them into loyal customers, ultimately driving growth and success.
