How to Build and Design a Lead Generation Website that Converts?
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No matter how you spin it, websites are in continuous competition with each other. Every site is vying for the strongest online presence, the highest number of leads, and the best conversion rates.
However, there is a factor that makes or breaks each site: its ability to draw in interested visitors.
Great web builds and designs lead to better website lead generation – and set the top websites apart from others. Ultimately, your number one website goal should be to foster brand awareness and pull in new leads, which then turn into conversions.
That’s what we want to talk to you about today. What contributes to the excellent website lead generation? What do you need to prioritize to draw in tons of awesome visitors (and buyers)?
What Is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process through which an interested consumer learns about your products and services. When you create leads, you create potential buyers who sign up for email lists, newsletters, updates, and more. Always verify the email addresses to maintain the authenticity of your leads and avoid sending unintentional spam.
These leads are then pumped into a sales pipeline where your team can access them and convert them into paying clients (ideally).
It’s important to note that lead generation and demand generation aren’t the same thing, but even experienced marketers switch these phrases up from time to time. Consider reviewing this “Demand and Lead Generation Compared” article to learn the fundamental differences between these tactics, as you’ll need both to build brand awareness.
Why Does It Matter?
Without proper lead generation, your business’s website will struggle to garner enough traffic to create real conversions. Fewer conversions lead to lower profits – and therefore struggles with long-term success.
On your landing page, you need to focus on driving traffic to your website so people can learn more about your brand, products, and services. If your site isn’t driving any leads, then your sales team will struggle to find potential customers to interact with.
The Three Pillars of Lead Generation Website
According to Chris Goward, the author of You Should Test That, every lead nurturing tactic boils down to three key pillars:
| Value | Relevancy | Urgency |
|---|---|---|
| What is the overall perceived benefit in your customer’s mind? | How closely does the content on your page match what your visitors are expecting to see? | Why should your visitors take action now – not tomorrow or next year? |
| Are you conveying that to shoppers and website visitors? | Do they care? If not, how can you make them care? |
How Landing Pages Generate Leads
A strong landing page immediately provides enough valuable information to entice visitors. The headlines are simple but effective. The images are attention-grabbing, but also relevant to your brand and its message.
Your landing page must have a call-to-action (CTA) to encourage customers to take the next step in your sales process. We’ll talk later in this post about how to create the best CTA button with engaging text and colors.
All in all, landing pages generate leads by sparking interest. They contain the correct information to draw readers in and the easy steps to become an interested customer.
10 Tips for Creating a Landing Page That Converts
The first and arguably most important part of building a lead generation website is crafting a site that’s user-friendly and well-designed.
That’s a whole lot easier said than done. Many aspects contribute to your website’s overall design. Let’s look at some of the most vital tips and tricks.
1. Incorporate Live Chats and Scheduling Options
Our first tip is to offer 24/7, easily accessible help to your customers. When someone visits your website, you need to be able to deliver personalized customer service at the drop of a hat.
Lead generation is about finding visitors to turn into customers. When you offer online chat services and scheduling options, you make it easier for them to become potential customers, right then and there.
Today, more than 41 percent of consumers prefer live chat for contacting support teams. People want instant help, whether that means scheduling an appointment ASAP or reaching out to someone online that second.
2. Use Fonts to Make a Point
Your website’s fonts can be fun to experiment with, but at the end of the day, they’re a tool that needs to be wielded with intention.
To succeed with website lead generation efforts, think long and hard about what your fonts are doing for your page. What do they say about your brand? Do they enhance the user experience – or detract from it?
Ensure that all text on your website is easy to read and spaced out. Trust us: a screen that’s jam-packed with hard-to-read text will send visitors running for the hills – rather than the checkout.
We also recommend using a larger paragraph font – usually around size 18 so that everything is easy for visitors to read.
3. Use Engaging Images and Text to Highlight Benefits
On your lead generation landing page, you need to incorporate text and images with true purpose. For instance, Blue Apron does a couple of smart things on their page:
- They include pictures of delicious food to advertise their meals.
- They advertise their ability to solve the problems of choosing meals and finding ingredients.
- They have a brightly colored, easy-to-find CTA button.
- They include pictures of what their packages and website pages look like.
Your website should include relevant images, too. At the same time, use your headlines and subheaders to address problems that many customers have – and your available solutions.
If you’re going to have someone fill out a form on your landing page, ensure that you have proper imagery and benefits listed to encourage them to finish filling it out. Your value proposition should be crystal clear, conveyed through short, sweet, and uncluttered messages.
Everything, from the pictures of your products to the text on the page, should engage users and help them take action.
4. Make Navigation Simple and Straightforward
The last thing any visitor wants to do is waste time on a confusing website. They want to get in, find what they need and get out.
Your site should be intuitive to use.
Don’t include hefty navigation that distracts from your actual message, but do include your phone number at the top of the page where it’s easily visible. Use wide whitespaces between copy to help things stand out and include easy-to-click social media icons that make sharing simple.
5. Stay Consistent Everywhere
When learning how to create a lead generation website, keep in mind that people will view your brand in different places and in different ways. You need your brand to present itself as a whole.
Maintain your colors, text, and tone consistencies on all aspects of your website. When someone visits your site’s home, its blog, or another page, it should instantly be apparent that they’re still on your brand’s customized website.
An especially important element to place meticulously is your logo. Use the same logo every time, and be careful about how you position it. This should be easily identifiable and located at the top of your page.
You should also pay attention to your header bar’s width. Is it proportional to your body content container? Does the site embody an overall cohesive look, or does it look disjointed?
6. Use Video to Convey Messages
Our next tip is to use video as a lead generation tool on your website. Video provides a great opportunity to showcase your company’s products, engage with them, and provide solutions.
Getting people to click on and watch your videos is a major step and one that leads your customers one step closer to becoming buyers.
7. Earn Your Visitors’ Trust
Another great contributor to high conversion rates is site credibility. Your website needs to have multiple indications that it’s trustworthy.
We highly recommend placing “trust badges” on your website to show that it’s legitimate. You can also include testimonials, links to review sites, and a live chat where visitors can always reach a company representative.
Whether you’re adding popular payment methods or more customer reviews, keep consumer trust at the forefront of your ambition. The more people trust your website upfront, the more leads and conversions you’ll score over time.
For more information on these credibility factors, read the full study
8. Make It About the Visitor
When a potential customer visits your website, they’re subconsciously asking themselves, “What is this website offering me?”
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling coffee cups, tech solutions, or whale watching tours – if you’re going to ask visitors to fill out a form and become a qualified lead, you need to make the experience about them – not you.
Showcase how your valuable offer will directly benefit them. Create thank you pages that encourage them to trust and appreciate your brand. If possible, add pronouns to your page – this can boost call to action clicks by up to 90 percent.
Your landing page(s) need to make conversions as simple – and attractive – as possible. Focus on the visitor’s needs more and you’ll stand a better chance of upping your form fill outs and lead generations.
9. Make Those CTAs Stand Out
To obtain a real lead, you need people to voice their interest and take the next step, likely through a call-to-action link.
Make your CTAs stand out – position them as colorful buttons with eye-catching fonts or text. Stay away from tacky flashes or pop-ups.
Instead, use engaging text that truly describes the action you want visitors to take (in 2 to 5 words). If you want to include imagery, use small icons that are helpful, not distracting.
We often recommend using contrasting colors for CTA buttons. Also, keep them above the fold. Never force users to backtrack in order to click your button – it should always be readily available when visitors need it.
To get people to click, try using some magic words such as:
- “Free”
- “No Contract”
- “No Obligation”
- “Complimentary”
10. Speed Up Your Load Time
As the quote above indicates, even a tiny loading setback can dramatically impact your conversion rates. That’s why you need to test your loading times frequently. You may also need to ask for professional help to optimize videos, images, and graphics for faster loading times.
All of these design steps are vital to building a lead generation website that actually works. Make a note of them and stick it in your back pocket. Your sales team will thank you later when the leads start flowing in.
Write Catchy, Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Now that we’ve talked quite a bit about designing a highly optimized website, let’s talk about snagging visitor attention with smart, benefit-oriented headlines.
In all honesty, most articles and web pages barely get shared. Out of 100K posts examined by Moz, 50 percent had two or fewer Facebook interactions and more than 75 percent had zero external links.
We don’t say that to dishearten you – but rather to reveal just how hard it is for your marketing team to get content shared. It takes a lot of work and a stroke of luck to create a web page or article that goes viral, drawing in hundreds or thousands of leads.
So, what can you easily do to up your chances of digital marketing success? Write better headlines.
The Myth About Lead Generation Headlines
There’s a common misconception about marketing headlines. Most think that headlines need to sell to readers, but in reality, they need to intrigue them.
As Neil Patel said, “Your headlines shouldn’t focus on selling to the reader. Instead, they should entice and draw readers in to finish the entire article.”
Your headline is the handshake, the first impression rose, the thing that gets people to stop what they’re doing and think about your website.
Take a look at the example from above. It received thousands of shares, not because it was selling something, but because it was interesting.
Remember: we’re not telling you to create annoying clickbait that will drive quality visitors away.
Instead, we’re recommending that you put time and thought into your headlines to grab people’s attention – and keep it. That’s how conversions are earned.
Your Website Headlines Should…
- Tell People About Your Website
Let’s say you’re targeting a visitor who is only in the initial stages of their search. They know little to nothing about your brand. How is your first headline going to change that?
- Stop People in Their Tracks
People are clicking through websites rapidly, often only pausing to read a quick headline before moving on. Is your headline smart enough to grab their attention and keep them on your page long enough to become a lead?
- Mimic the Tone of the Rest of Your Site
If the rest of your website is fairly formal, and your headlines are cheesy and clickbaity, you’re in trouble. Your headlines should mesh seamlessly with the rest of your site’s tone and text.
- Perform Well by SEO Standards
According to the gurus of search engine optimization, your headlines should include strong keywords, be easy to read and stay between 50 to 60 characters in length. Following these guidelines will increase your chance of drawing in organic leads via search engines.
- Use the Right Level of Language
Dumbing down the text isn’t a great tactic, but neither is using erudite terms that will confuse many readers. Aim for a middle ground in which most of your searchers will feel comfortable.
- Highlight Benefits From the Get-Go
Your headlines should be about benefits, not just problems. Quickly convey what your brand will do for your customers with your headlines.
- Create a Sense of Urgency
You want visitors to act now. Create a sense of urgency with time-sensitive offers, limited spaces, ending sales, etc.
When it comes to lead generation website best practices, strong headline writing is right up there at the top of the list. Increase your click-through rates (and leads) by drawing people in with carefully crafted, hard-hitting headlines.
Personalize the Visitor Experience
Last but not least, when building a lead generation website, you need to make it personal.
That doesn’t mean you need to greet people by name or create different websites for different visitors. What it does mean is that you should pay attention to:
- Past purchases and interactions your visitors have made
- Their general browsing patterns
- What ads seem appropriate and effective
Think about what you see when you visit Amazon.
The site instantly recognizes what kind of shopper you are and what you might be interested in. They’ll even provide recommendations based on your past browsing experience.
Your site might never reach Amazon’s level of personalization, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Think about where your content can use a little bit of improvement.
- Is your CTA personal and hard-hitting?
- Have you included real customer testimonials?
- Are your examples relatable to your target audience?
- Are your headlines and posts actually geared toward your ideal customer?
If you haven’t said yes to all of these questions, it’s time to get to work. Learn more about your target audience so you can better personalize your lead generation website and optimize for future conversions.
Add a Personal Calculator
If you really want to personalize your landing page experience, include a calculator. That way, your visitor knows what it will cost them, not a generic customer, to buy your product or service.
Include Quizzes and Virtual Assessments
Another great personalization method is to offer a quiz or assessment to find customized solutions. For instance, as soon as you visit Noom’s homepage, you’re asked to fill out a psychological evaluation to learn what kind of dieting plan will work best for your circumstances.
Not only does this help customers connect more with your services/products, but it also helps you learn more about your leads by asking targeted questions.
Offer Customized eGuides/eBooks
Who doesn’t want to check out a free download?
Allow customers to learn about your brand/products at their own pace by providing them with long-form content they can access on their own. All they need to do is sign up for your email list or enroll in your subscription. In other words, they need to become a recorded lead.
Coupons and Vouchers
Offering a discount is a surefire way to get customers interested. Someone with a coupon in hand is much more likely to try your products or services than someone paying full price.
In fact, 48 percent of customers buy sooner when they have a coupon. Thirty-seven percent buy more than they normally would with their discount.
Conduct A/B Testing
Last but not least, we want to remind you to learn to test and correct your landing page. A/B testing allows you to tweak parts of your site to learn what performs well – and what doesn’t.
Continuously work to test your page. Learn how visitors look for information and what they’re interested in finding first. This will help you make your website more scannable and therefore more likely to generate leads. There are many tools available for easy A/B testing. Optimizely and Crazy Egg are some of the top choices.
In Conclusion
If you take everything in this article to heart, you’ll stand a good chance of building a lead generation website that actually does its job. The more you work with professional builders and designers, the easier it will be to hit all of these marks and increase your conversions.
At Foxxr Digital Marketing, we help local businesses pull in more leads through SEO and smart website design. Let us help you get ahead of the competition. Contact our team today to learn more.
