In the eternal struggle for eyeballs online, getting people to visit your website is only half the battle, the other half is getting them to do what you want once they’re there.

For companies which rely heavily on lead generation, having a website (or, as we’ll see, several websites) which can generate follow up details such as names, numbers, email addresses and information about the customer’s needs is crucial.

Your website might be amazing to look at and have 5 times the level of traffic of your nearest competitor’s site, but if it doesn’t create any actual business for you, it’s useless.

Here are 3 ways of approaching your web strategy to help generate quality leads which could result in increased levels of business:

1. Multiple sites targeted for different keywords

The world of keywords and search engines is a competitive place. One way of trying to maximise the potential for your business to appear closer to the top of search engine results is to create different websites based around specific keywords and phrases.

You do this by identifying those words and/or combination of words that you feel are most important to your business and then build an individual website based around each. The address, coding, meta-data, content and page descriptions of each individual site are honed to reflect that one word, or set of words, rather than multiple keywords and phrases. This increases each site’s search engine ‘score’, as it’s seen to be more uniquely associated with those terms than your regular business site might be.

For example, a travel company may want to create individual sites for each of the following keyword groups: ‘Diving holidays in Mauritius’, ‘Holiday cottages in the Lake District’ and ‘Gorgeous Tuscan villas. Search engines would then see that each individual site only dealt with one specific holiday area and score it higher because of this.

The sites created don’t have to be complicated, and it can be a cost-effective way of reaching a greater audience as each sub-site can sit under the umbrella of your main site.

2. Highly targeted page forms

Using search engine optimisation techniques, social media marketing and pay per click advertising, the idea is that you drive extremely targeted traffic to pages on your site which are essentially simple data capture forms.

This may be for a special deal, such as ‘Half price kitchen units’ or ‘2 for 1 pizza deals in Hull’, or a request to find the ‘Best local plumber BS3’. Whatever the reason, if the individual lands on a page which is tailored to that specific need, it could result in a very high-quality lead.

The form pages should be simply and clearly laid out as page layout is crucial when using such a lead generating method. Never underestimate the need to make key buttons such as ‘Submit’, and key input fields such as those where the customer provides email and contact numbers, as clear as possible.

3. Simple improvements, big gains

In our experience, there are an amazing number of small business websites which are missing easy ways of gaining valuable leads. Incredibly, we see sites for businesses which rely on physical premises failing to show addresses or location maps. On others, key contact numbers or email addresses might not be showing, or easily found.

A landing page we looked at for a garden centre, for example, showed plenty of products, but had no way of requesting a catalogue (even though one was available) or in fact any kind of input field where the visitor could request more information.

A few tips would include

- Think about adding a data capture form to your landing page. Keep it simple though; work out the least number of questions you need to ask to get the information that would qualify as a lead to you. Offer some sort of incentive for completing and sending the form, such as a discount on a future purchase, or a free gift.

- Strip landing pages down to the elements of your business that you want visitors to understand and know about. And make your contact details and key information, such as freephone numbers and email addresses, completely obvious and easy to spot.

- You want people to recommend your company, so ensure you place lots of social media options for sharing your content, offers and services.

We can help you think smarter online

The web can be great for generating high quality leads to help you develop your business and make better profits and we understand that. We also understand that many smaller businesses have very small marketing budgets, which is why we offer options for creating smarter landing pages, forms and other lead generating sites for relatively low budgets.

If you are interested in learning more about how microsites could be used for your business, please get in touch for an informal chat about how we can help.

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