So often a business is focused on increasing traffic through to the site, pumping a fortune into SEO & PPC campaigns, however there is a comparatively small amount of effort focused on conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
Transforming these visitors into inbound leads and customers, as well as leaving them with a positive experience and creating brand advocates should be the main focus for any website owner. Below I have included some killer tips on how to generate more inbound leads from your site.
Incentivise With Creativity
I have dealt with a number of clients where a single email push can result in thousands of sales, however the focus on increasing the subscriber list can often seem indolent. Now I’m not recommending offering an i-Pad or a mobile as a potential prize to people who sign up, as this will gain the wrong kind of subscribers, the type that will report the email as spam.
I believe creating something which you audience would find useful can often be a potential gem. For example, I might create an e-book on digital marketing tips and offer it to people who sign up to my email newsletter list. This offers a joint incentive, as they gain a high quality piece of content while you gain a new potential customer. This method has also shown other benefits such as trust building and brand loyalty.
Work On Your Call To Action
This might sound like an odd one, but simple changes to the call to action used throughout the site, as well as the location and style of button or banner can make a huge effect on the number of leads. For example, I have found sites before where I have clicked on a product details, however the page that is presented hasn’t included a ‘call to action’ button, meaning I would have to go back to the page previously to make the purchase.
I have also spoken with clients who have increased their leads by making simple changes to the words used, such as one that changed from ‘book now’ to ‘enquire now’, as the button wasn’t for a purchase, it was for further details and many people were put off as they hadn’t been provided with enough details. By getting the potential customer to enquire, you can gather their phone number and email address and discuss the purchase with them further.
Gated Content
You might have seen this on a number of online magazines and newspapers, while an ever increasing amount of content creators are putting this in place so as to build value to the content they have created. Some sites will charge a monthly fee, however many others now just require something as simple as an email address or your phone number. Once again, this offers a joint incentive, as they get to look at a large amount of content and all they have to trade for this is their personal email address, of which they can unsubscribe to any emails you send out if they wish.
Do remember this concept comes with a caveat as many new visitors will bounce back from the site if they can’t instantly find what they were looking for, especially on mobile devices, while Google bots also won’t be able to crawl the page if it is hidden behind a ‘gate’.
Keep Those Forms Simple
I can’t explain the amount of online purchases I have backed out from due to the number of ‘required forms’. We know you want to gain customer information for marketing purposes, but maybe make some of those choices optional, as including too many can cause havoc on your lead generation.
There are also other little changes you might want to experiment with. If you require a large amount of details, try some A/B testing with a one page form vs page splits on the different required questions. This way, if they leave on one of the later pages without completion, you can track these customers on the exact product they were interested in, while also learning what put them off.
Test, Test, Test
If you’re not testing on your site then it will never improve. There are a huge amount of tools you could consider to help you work out what to improve, such as Inspectlet. This tool allows you to watch exactly how a visitor navigates once on your site, including how they move the mouse across the screen. This will allow you to see where they are looking and clicking, as well as spotting any issues they face and visibly witnessing the point they leave your site.
I would recommend experimenting with a tool such as VWO for A/B testing on the site. From big changes to simple ones such as the colour of the background and the text used in buttons, you can run them side by side and once there is a clear winner, you can run with it permanently.
Add Testimonials
Your online brand reputation is becoming ever more important, with almost any purchase being examined for a considerable period of time, with the website scrutinised and the product searched for on multiple sites.
You need to prove to your visitors that you are a trusted brand with happy customers and the best way to do this is to have your real customers talk for you. Include a testimonial page if this is relevant to your business, or include product reviews on product pages. This will also help your site with its rankings due to User Generated Content (UGC).
View our Infographic on 10 reasons why you should have a responsive website?
