Mark Ellaway
Digital Marketing Director
29/10/2024
If the purpose of your website is to get leads, then you’ll need to optimise your website to be a superstar lead generator.
Read on for some of the best, proven lead generation tactics you can use on your website.
A lead from your business website could be several things. Here are some examples.
Start off by identifying all the different ways people can contact you from your website. Think about your typical customer persons and how they like to engage with your company. Some people just like to call, but don’t forget the ones who may want to contact you out of hours.
It’s vital you track how many leads and conversions your website is generating and it’s not difficult to do with the right tools. Here are some popular ones:
Easily the most popular method of tracking website behaviour and leads. GA4 calls these Events and you can set these up for anything from Enquiry forms to Video views. GA4 is free, comprehensive, customisable and you can integrate it with other Google tools such as Google Search Console and Google Ads. The downside is it can be pretty complex for beginners and data may be missing if you're using cookie consent tools.
GA4 isn't your only free option for tracking leads and conversions on your website. Here are some free or low cost options to look at.
Tools like Hubspot and Salesforce can help you track your website leads from many sources. Everything is in one place so it helps you manage leads through the whole sales process. These tools can be very expensive so you need to measure if the return is worth it.
Hotjar and Crazy Egg are useful tools that show you what people are doing on your web pages, especially scrolling and clicking. What they don't show is why people are doing this. If you're using A/B testing the heatmaps are a great tool to help you improve your website's lead gen rate.
Your Content Management System (eg Wordpress or Sliverstripe) can be set up to store leads from website forms. These can then be downloaded as spreadsheets for further conversion analysis.
Your conversion rate is the percentage of your website visitors who convert into a lead. For example, if you have 5,000 website visitors and 60 of them convert into a lead then your conversion rate is (60 ÷ 5000) x 100 = 1.2%.
This depends on your industry; how competitive it is and other factors such as your offer. Unbounce did a study of landing pages and found that a 12% conversion rate is deemed good. Generally, if your website conversion rate is below 1% then you have work to do.
Before you get started on improving your websites lead generation, use GA4 to see what pages currently generate leads. These are typically your product pages, but check other pages like home or contact pages.
Find out which pages are your main landing pages. Landing pages are the first page that someone visits; either directly from typing in your website address, from search, or from a link on another website or social media. It’s normal for the most popular landing page to be your home page, however you might find that product / services pages and possibly your contact page also do well.
These are the pages you need to be optimising for lead generation.
Ok, let’s get started on how to optimise your website to increase those valuable leads.
If your visitors struggle to find the content they want, you’ll lose them.
Your customer research will identify what content visitors want from your website, this needs to be the focus of your website content plan.
The key message is to keep it simple. People don’t like to learn new things so keep navigation and page layouts easy to use for good conversion rates.
Website copy is as important as design and often overlooked. Make sure your copy focuses on the key benefits of your product in a language that your customers will understand. Does your website copy appeal, persuade and convert? If not, then re-write it in a voice that fits your brand and speaks to your customers.
Find out more about how to write good copy for your website.
‘Customers buy holes, not drills’
If you want your website to generate leads effectively, design for your target audience. Your website isn't meant to please the marketing directors brother-in-law or look good on the bosses wall, it’s there to convert your visitors into sales and leads.
First impressions count and if your website has poor images and looks unprofessional it’s unlikely you will get many quality leads from your site.
A call to action (often shortened to CTA) is what you want your website visitors to do, and they are essential for increasing website leads.
Every website needs to have calls to action to guide people. To create good CTAs think about what you want your customers to do and, very importantly, what they want to do.
Remember that everyone is different, some people like to pick up the phone, others prefer a more cautious enquiry form.
Each CTA needs to stand out through size, colour and style – buttons are a great way to present them. They also need to be prominent to attract attention and increase conversions. Link your CTA's to your GA4 account to track their performance so you know what’s working and what isn’t.
Many of your website visitors may not convert into a lead on their first visit. Capturing their data is a good way to stay in touch so you can remind them of your services and products in future through email marketing or direct mail.
Unless your product is highly desirable, just asking for an email address is unlikely to persuade them to part with their precious data. Try tempting your visitors by offering them something for free such as money off vouchers, ebooks, or useful resources.
You can also capture email addresses when people fill in a form on your website. If you do this, remember that under GDPR you must get consent for ongoing marketing by adding an “I agree to….” tick box, and an explanation of how you will use their data.
A potential customer is always asking themselves “Why should I buy from this company?” when they land on your website. They will be looking for signs that you are a professional company who will deliver on service and solve any problems.
If your website is slow, has forms that don’t send, has broken links, or is in some way broken then you're losing leads.
What percentage of your website traffic is from mobile? Chances are, it’s very high. Use GA4 to find out and check your website on smartphones and tablets to see how the customer experience is.
Make sure your website is “responsive” i.e., mobile friendly. For many businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and estate agents, mobile traffic is becoming the biggest source of website visitors.
Does your website work in all the major browsers? Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox are the main browsers people use. Make sure you don’t lose sales because your website doesn't work in a specific browser.
Is your website accessible? Accessibility has a huge crossover with user experience, and a good website is easy to use for everyone.
Make sure your telephone number is visible at the top of every page. If you have more than one number, show a “contact us” call to action instead, and link it to a page with your phone numbers. Many people still prefer calling, even in a digital age. Not showing a telephone number can reduce people’s trust in your company.
All your forms need to be short and only capture essential information you need to follow up the lead. Remember, your aim is to get leads at this stage, not to ask for every possible piece of information, you can find that out later.
Video is a great lead generation tactic if used properly. Use video to answer people’s questions about your product. These may be videos explaining how your product works, testimonial videos from satisfied customers, or a video that shows the benefits of your service. Don’t bore people with long videos about the 500 year history of your company – keep them short and relevant.
Adding live chat to your website is a great way of talking to potential customers. Many people like using live chat to ask questions about your product while they do other things like work, cook, or hoover the dog. It’s not just a good lead generation tool it’s also great for existing customers who want more info or support from you.
Services such as Tawk.to are free and easy to implement. If you don't have the resources to run live chat, then chatbots and managed chat services are also available.
Successfully optimising your website for search traffic will increase relevant visits - and website leads. Start off by identifying what search terms your potential customers might use to find your product. Use tools like Google Search Console or SEMrush to find these keywords. Make sure your relevant content is optimised for each keyword. This article provides you with more detail on how to create SEO friendly content.
Our "Big B2B Disconnect" report identifies slow website loading times as a major frustration for B2B buyers. Slow websites will results in buyers leaving your website and drastically decrease your website leads.
Common causes of slow loading websites include:
You can test how your website loading speed is performing on Webpagetest.org.
Nothing frustrates website visitors more than a lack of pricing on your website. Many B2B companies don't like showing prices as they fear they're competitors will see them. But research shows that pricing is one of the main things customers want to see on your website.
This is straightforward if you have set prices and packages but what if your product is bespoke? The best way to show prices for bespoke products is to outline a range.
For example we design and build B2B websites starting from £10k. This helps the customer quickly know if they have the budget and helps you generate quality leads from your website.
Website lead generation is a constantly evolving task. Your goal is to keep increasing leads, so test everything. Use tools such as GA4 and Heatmaps to see how people are using your website. Try different calls to action, design and copy variations, button colours and wording, see if they make a difference. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can run A/B tests to directly measure these variations. This Quartix case study demonstrates how you can increase your conversion rate using A/B testing.
Check out your competitors’ websites too, do they have any good lead generation tactics that you can learn from?
Bigfork help B2B companies improve the performance of their websites. Our consultancy services can help increase your website leads. Find out what we can do for you in our Website Consultancy download, or feel free to get in touch.
This article was updated on , filed under lead generation, strategy and planning, website content.
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