Generate solid leads from your website

By Chris Denny

\,ZOU can get more qualified sales leads from your webI site's current traffic than you are getting right now. Doing so will make all of your future efforts to increase site traffic much more effective and decrease your cost per lead.

To get an idea of how you are doing now, measure the lead generation rate of your current website by dividing the total number of leads you receive from the site (add phone, fax, email, contact forms, etc.) by the total number of unique visitors. Ata5Vo lead generation rate, your website will produce 50 leads per day from 1000 unique visitors' If you lead optimize your site, the lead generation rate will increase to l07o and your 1,000 unique visitors will yield 100 leads. Your site is now twice as effective, and each incremental increase in traffic volume will be twice as effective as well.

To maximize the number of sales your site generates, you need these three components on every page: valuable content, benefits to the reader, and contact opportunities.

Valuable Gontent

Content is king. This has become a search engine optimization mantra, but it applies to lead optimization as well. The fact is, without quality content on each page of your website, your site visitors will leave before they even look for your contact information. Even if they do reach it, who wants to call someone who has nothing to say? The con- tent on your site should be:

. Valuable (saves or makes them money)

Professional (but not robotic or overly scholastic)

Concise (informative but to the point)

'Up-to-date

Correct (check facts, spelling, and grammar)

You are the expert on the products you sell and your site should reflect that fact. Define and understand your target customers and write your content to serve their needs. Do they need technical specifications, how-to knowledge, or safety regulations? The content of your website should supply your customers with information that is pertinent to what they are doing. Content is king!

Benefits to the Reader

Your page copy should display the benefits of your products or services. Copy too often lists only features. For instance, American Pole & Timber, Houston, Tx.' offers poles and timbers coated with 2l POLY, a protective polymer coating engineered for wood. That is a great feature, but it is not very interesting and does not speak to the needs of most contractors or users. However, when site visitors read that pilings coated with 2l POLY come with a 25-year waffanty against rot and decay from fungus and marine borers (a benefit), they become more interested and start calling.

Always be mindful of why visitors come to your website. Put yourself in their shoes. Understand what they want, what they are doing with your products or services, and how they feel about them. Identify with your visitors by displaying the benefits your products offer them. Display the benefits clearly and simply. Only get as technical as your target visitors need and don't be too sales oriented. Speak to them about their needs and offer solutions for their problems. Once you have clearly displayed your benefits, make sure the opportunity to contact you is close at hand.

Gontact Oppodunities

This seems obvious, but every time I mention the importance of contact information to a site owner, I hear, "But my phone number is displayed, and I have a 'contact us' page." A great exercise is to count how many times your contact information is displayed on each page of your site. Now, refine your attitude about contact information. Begin thinking in terms of contact opportunities.

Give your visitors opportunities to contact you in at least three places on each page of your website. In each place, give two or more methods by which visitors can contact you, such as your phone number and a link to your "contact us" page. Some customers prefer to pick up the phone and call; others prefer the flexibility of email or contact forms.

American Pole & Timber does this effectively by displaying the "Project Information and Assistance" button on the left side of every page of its website. In addition, "Contact us online" and "call us at" links are placed throughout the website. Efforts to lead optimize www.poleandtimber.com have resulted in a lead generation rate of about 107o. That is expected to increase with further lead optimization efforts.

Site visitors are looking for information and solutions, so give them what they are looking for, with plenty of opportunities to contact you-and the leads will start coming in. The rest is up to you and your salespeople.

- Chris Denny is online marketing and sales manager at American Pole & Timber. He also created and runs a website to help business owners maximize qualified sales leads from their sites. Reach him at (832) 628-0987 or c hris@ leadoptimize.com.

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