Website’s don’t generate leads for a variety of reasons – and usually you’d have to take a hard look at the data & analytics behind the site. 

There’s two main culprits when it comes to lack of lead generation through the web – and the two both end in the word ‘optimization’ – one is SEO or Search Engine Optimization, and the other is CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization. So, conversion percentage & web traffic overall. So, if you’re unhappy with the amount of leads, two things you need to look at.

First Things First to Lead to Leads – Consider Analytics and Traffic

First, look at conversions real quick, if 20% or more of visitors are signing up, contacting, going through the sales process – That means your conversion rate is very high, but you’re getting a lower amount of volume. That’s actually great – it means your website is well designed and you have great content, but you need to rank higher and get more web traffic for particular keywords, to increase volume. 

If you rank well, and get a lot of traffic, but don’t see a lot of leads, that means there’s something wrong with your website design, or website copy. 

Now, usually not getting leads from your website is a mix of both not ranking well, and having poor design. So, I’m going to briefly go over both aspects, and give you a quick crash course on simple things you can do to change the trajectory of your online campaigns. 

It’s important to understand that generating leads is a multifaceted approach – involving web traffic numbers, types of web traffic, as well as monitoring conversion analytics. So this section is for those who are having trouble with that first stage, which is getting web traffic. 

Types of Website Traffic

So I’m going to let you in on an SEO secret here – a really unknown feature of website traffic, is there’s actually 4 different types of web traffic. Informational, Commercial, Transactional, and Branded. 

Now, branded traffic is essentially work done through brand awareness outside of the internet – people are searching up your company because they saw you on a billboard, a podcast ad, something not through organic means, usually paid, or sometimes referral based. They already know your brand name, and are searching for that. Now if you’re getting traffic through this means, but no conversions, that’s where conversion rate optimization will be the aspect you’re going to want to focus on, and I get into that in just a moment.

Now for the other 3 types of traffic – 

Types of Website Traffic that Lead to Leads

Commercial & Transactional are both similar, transactional is more for products or SaaS, where a customer is already ready to buy that particular product or service, commercial is at the end phase of discovery for a certain product or service, and they’re in the market – so they could be looking up “best digital marketing companies near me” for instance – and that’s something you’re going to want to rank for in your industry.

And so if you’re not getting those numbers, you’re going to want to optimize for those set keywords, which are a lot more specific to your industry. So for my video production arm, for instance, I rank really high for ‘video production company boston,’ and ‘video production nyc’ – usually for me, both page 1 results. You’re going to want to rank high for those set keywords, usually with a location attached, as consumers like local products. And If you’re ranking high, meaning you’re showing up first, second, third, but not getting traffic or leads from these pages, then I have 2 more suggestions – one related to conversions, and one main one, and very important, related to brand positioning.

And so that leads us to 1 suggestion, which is going for informational traffic. Informational traffic  can really help boost your company & sell your product at the same time.

And to describe it best – you need to think about your product from a consumer perspective.

See, if I’m a customer, and I’m upset with the results of my website campaign, and I maybe want to switch providers, or want to know what’s going wrong – I’m not necessarily always looking up ‘Solvis Media’ or ‘digital marketing company near me’ – I may be looking for answers to my questions or problems, such as ‘Why is my website not generating leads.’ 

This is where problem/solution based content comes into play, and we use this a lot in our organic methodology. Oftentimes consumers don’t really know the answer to their problem, which is where your company (which most likely solves the problem) comes into fold. You need content on your website (namely videos) outlining your company as a solution to an issue a customer could be looking for. 

So if you’re not getting traffic or website leads, even though your company may come up page 1 for commercial or transactional keywords, you may have to re-evaluate your positioning online, as more of an informational company, to get more volume. Now, if you’re getting a lot of traffic from all 4 of those, but still not seeing leads, this is where CRO comes into play.

Conversion Rate Optimization – Successful Lead Generation Online

My most important point is conversion rate optimization. So now you’re getting traffic, but not getting leads from your website. There’s a couple of different things you can do here – one is analysis, another is more intuitive – we use a mix of both for our in-house methodology for CRO. First, you want to look at hot points on your site – where are people clicking, where are people clicking off, when are they falling off in terms of time spent on your site. Once you analyze these things, it’s much easier to find an intuitive solution to these issues. 

My first point is going to be a completely different article – Website design philosophy – is your website easy to navigate, is there not enough/too much going on? There’s so much to unpack there, that I’ll have to do so in a future post. It’s important to ask those questions.

Calls to Action – Buttons, Hyperlinking, and more

So, for analytics, if web visitors are spending a lot of time on your site, but not hitting ‘contact us’ or signing up on a form, that means the form and buttons aren’t readily available, and your content might be super informative, but too passive. Call to actions are really important, and I like to have my phone number & a quick and easy link to ‘contact us’ embedded within a paragraph of text. So, for instance, in this very long blog post, and you’re looking for a company that can help you market your product, service, or company effectively & efficiently online, contact us for a free quote and consultation. 

Simple as that – it’s a nice transition into a call to action. Usually at the end of a post or page. You want to have a big button, make it easy for customers to see it. 

Another problem is time spent on site. Do you have the right kind of content? Does your content evoke an emotional response? Does it build trust with potential customers?

Getting the ‘Contact us’ page right

Another problem is, they’re clicking contact us, but not contacting ‘us’. You need to give multiple methods for them to reach you. If it’s just a bland form – not good enough. Need phone #, email, maybe even a calendly to set a meeting, if you’re looking for an appointment setting option. And, if your form is too long, that’s where hot point analysis can help too, as some people may just see how daunting and time-consuming a form is, and click off. 

And I know this is information overload, but you also want to set expectations on the contact us page – what’s going to happen when you submit info? 

On my ‘contact us page’ it’s very simple: 

Let’s get in touch. 

Send us a brief message, and we’ll match you with a creative director to talk more about your project. We give free insight on strategy, costs, timeline, expected results, and more.

You want to give your customer ease of access, information on what’s going to happen, and make it easier for them to contact you. 

These are all some of the things you can do to increase your chances of success with lead generation online. If you found this content helpful, subscribe to our channel, and if you’re looking to get started on a new digital marketing campaign, reach out to us on our contact us page – www.solvismedia.com/contact/ 

By the way, did you know that saying the website name out-loud in a video increases the percentage of visitors from that video by 20%? 

Liam