Website Lead Generation

Not getting any leads from your website? Wondering why that is? In this article, we will go over in checklist fashion some key things that might be holding your website back from turning website visitors into leads.

People are not finding what they are looking for

Here’s how I think of a website. There is a person who is trying to solve a problem, and they are looking for something. So they go online looking to solve that problem. When they come to your site, they are quickly trying to identify whether or not their problem can be solved by your company. If they can’t find specific mention of their problem, they will often click away to another site.

The website is about you not them

Sticking with this idea that a website is made for a person trying to solve a problem. When this person is searching online, they are very selfish. All they are thinking about is themselves and their problem. They don’t care about you, your company or your reputation. Many businesses make the mistake of making their website about themselves. They mention how many years they have been in business or what services they offer. The hero of the website is them. Instead, the hero of the website should be your customer and their specific wants and needs.

There is no clear next step to take

To turn a visitor into a lead, you have to take that person down a clear path. There has to be a clear next step for them to take. Hopefully, one that will directly lead to solving that person’s problem. The key is to think through the visitor’s need. Find out what they are thinking. And then give them a clear next step that solves their immediate problem.

The website is trying to get them to do more than one thing at a time

As the Confucius saying goes: “Man who chases two rabbits catches none.”

Your website should have one main primary action you want visitors to take and should not confuse the visitor with too many requests. In the book The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz talks about a study that was done where free samples of jam were given out at a grocery store. Four types of jam were available, and 22% of samplers ended up buying a jar of jam. In the second sample, 12 types of jam were available, and only 8% of samplers ended up buying a jar of jam. When too many choices are given, the safest choice becomes doing nothing.

The benefit is not clear to them

There’s an old marketing saying that goes, ‘People don’t want to buy drills. They want to buy quarter inch holes.’

In many ways, your product or service is an obstacle to the thing your visitor wants. They don’t want construction services. What they really want is a new building. They don’t want a financial advisor they want to sleep easy at night knowing their money safe.

If people who visit your website aren’t turning into leads, then perhaps the benefit they would receive from you is not clear enough.

You lack a strong, compelling offer

Have you ever run into a friend you haven’t seen in awhile and said something like ‘hey we should hang out sometime’? And what ends up happening? Nothing, right? That’s because saying ‘hey we should hang out sometime’ isn’t a strong, compelling offer.

What if instead when you saw your friend who you haven’t seen in awhile, you said ‘hey I’m glad I ran into you. I have an extra ticket to the Giants game this weekend, do you want to join me?’ Now, this might not always work either. Maybe the other person has plans or doesn’t like baseball. But I bet the closing rate of you hanging out with your friend would be much higher if you gave a strong, compelling offer, rather than a weak and vague one like the ‘let’s hang out sometime’ offer.

Are you making this same type of mistake with your website? Do you have a clear, strong, benefit driven offer on your site? I can tell you from experience how powerful it is to have one.

Back in the day, we used to offer a ‘Free Quote’ for your website project. But guess what? Everyone offers that. And if everyone is offering the same thing, then it’s not much of an offer.

As soon as I came up with the ‘Free Custom Mockup’ offer our business doubled overnight.

The visitor doesn’t trust you

Maybe you do have a compelling offer, but you still aren’t getting leads from your website. What gives? It might be that visitors don’t trust you. Perhaps the offer is too good to be true, and they think it’s a scam. Or maybe your website doesn’t seem professional or authoritative enough to lend credibility to your offer. Poor design causes mistrust in visitors. Having a professionally designed website can instantly make your business, and your offer seems more credible and increases visitor conversions into leads.

You don’t have a secondary offer (not ready to buy right now)

Of all the visitors coming to your website about only 20% of them are ready to make a buying decision right now. That leaves 80% of visitors who will not be responsive to your primary offer, which is usually a call to take action now. So, what to do? This is when it pays to have a secondary offer. You’ve probably seen these all over the place. Have you ever signed up for an email newsletter? Or given your email to receive a free white paper or pdf download? Those are all secondary offers. The idea is you give something of value to visitors who are still in ‘information gathering’ mode in exchange for a way to stay in touch with them and nurture that relationship over time.

‘Wait a minute!’ you say. What about the paragraph above where you said that one of the mistakes is to ask a visitor to do more than one thing at a time? Yup. You got me. It is a contradiction. That’s how it is sometimes with marketing. There are competing interests, and they don’t always mesh perfectly together.

The trick I’ve found is to make the primary offer primary. Meaning, make it the first offer that the visitor sees and the most compelling one. And make the secondary offer less prominent, typically towards the footer of your site so that the visitor sees it. But not so prominent that it takes away from your main offer.

The visitor doesn’t understand the process

As P.T. Barnum once said: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

Not that people are stupid. They’re just busy.

Because of this, you want to layout the process of what it is you do as simply and specifically as possible.

You know how when you go to visit a doctor they talk you through everything they are about to do and then reiterate each step as they’re going through the procedure? This is meant to reassure the patient and make the process as stress-free as possible.

That’s what you want to do with your website. You want to lay out exactly what the process is. What’s the first step and the second step, etc.. Never leave your visitor in doubt. As Patrick Swayze says in the excellent movie Point Break: “Fear causes hesitation. Hesitation causes your greatest fears to come true.”

Conclusion

So there you have it. If your website isn’t bringing you leads, run through the checklist and see if you can improve in any of these areas. And if you’re looking to hire a professional to help you with your website project, please contact us. We don’t just design pretty looking websites; we build websites that convert visitors into leads which generate new business for our clients.

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