Even if you’re able to generate a lot of leads for your business, you’ll usually need to do more work to turn those leads into sales. Fortunately, there are a lot of simple ways that you can optimize your website to capture them.
In this article, we’re going to outline how you can design your website in a way that will ensure your business wins the sales it deserves. Let’s get started.
Make sure your homepage draws people in
A lot of companies focus on just optimizing their service and product pages but can neglect to use similar strategies for their homepages. However, this is often the page that people will land on first, so you need to put plenty of effort into getting it right.
On your homepage, it’s very important to ensure that it’s extremely easy for your website visitors to take the next step. Here are a few ways that you can do just that:
• Design a sophisticated tool to direct people toward the products or services they’re looking for. This could be in the form of a quiz, a search tool, or a navigation menu, for instance.
• Point people in the right direction to make a purchase with a strong call to action (CTA). Well-designed CTAs use strong verbs and stand out against the other elements of a web page.
• Make it easy for people to get in touch with you with questions or concerns by having contact options available on every page of your website
For inspiration, let’s look at an example of a website with a well-optimized homepage that draws people in.
DontPayFull, a website that provides coupons and promo codes for a variety of stores, has an excellent homepage. One of the first things a website visitor will notice is the series of buttons featuring some well-known stores, like Target, Amazon, and Walmart. This helps people quickly and easily find discounts for stores they likely frequent. A user can click on any of these buttons to get coupons for that store! Alternatively, a user can plug the name of their favorite store into the search bar and find coupons for it. These elements help draw people in and encourage them to make a purchase.
Make sure that your website is optimized to encourage people to make a purchase. You could use a strategy like DontPayFull and create a search tool that leads users to the products or services they need, for instance or provide buttons that take people to your most popular products. These elements will help you draw people in and capture leads!
Showcase your expertise and authority with content
Showing off your expertise and building authority in your field will be very helpful for earning your customers’ trust! And, this can then lead to more conversions for your business.
There are a lot of types of content that you can create to boost your business and showcase your expertise. Here are some examples to get you started:
• Ultimate guides that outline everything your audience needs to know about a topic
• How-to guides that convey to a reader how to do something
• Webinars or online seminars that teach a viewer about a topic, showing your expertise and helping you generate leads
• Blog posts about timely industry news
Let’s look at an example of a business that has great, authoritative content as inspiration.
Tipalti Approve, a company specializing in procurement process software, has a lot of excellent content on its website. For instance, the company has a round-up article of the top ten financial management tools that can help a user prepare taxes, track inventory, and more. This article shows off the company’s expertise because it outlines the best tools relevant to their field. Additionally, it is likely to attract people who need help streamlining different processes for their businesses. If people find the article to be helpful, they’re likely to see Tipalti Approve as an expert, encouraging them to make a purchase down the road.
You could also consider creating a round-up outlining some of the best products or services related to your field. If you present it objectively, you can even recommend your own products! This will help to show your website visitors that you’re an expert in your field and genuinely want to help your customers, which will earn readers’ trust and encourage them to make a future purchase.
Allow customers’ reviews to vouch for your business
People tend to trust word-of-mouth recommendations over other forms of marketing, so it’s a good idea to ask your customers for reviews or testimonials so you can publish them on your website. This will show website visitors that you’ve done a great job for your customers in the past and will help you capture more leads for your business.
To collect testimonials or reviews, you simply need to ask for them. Consider reaching out to your past customers via email to see if they would be willing to leave a testimonial and a star rating, perhaps in exchange for a discount as incentivization. Or, you could ask a few select customers to conduct a video interview with you where they discuss their experience with your business.
Let’s examine a company that does a great job of using customer reviews to capture leads so you can get some pointers.
Instant Checkmate, a public records search engine, uses customer reviews to prove its value. As you can see on the homepage above, Instant Checkmate has a section where it highlights reviews from real customers. This particular review from David F. notes that he was amazed by the results the website provided. Notice how this review is placed right above the Instant Checkmate search tool — it’s visible to the user without them having to scroll down the page. By placing it here, new website visitors are sure to see it and will be more likely to want to use the tool, helping Instant Checkmate capture new leads.
Consider using reviews in a similar way on your website. Be sure that you choose reviews that highly praise your products or services and place them towards the top of the page, above the fold where people can see them. And, if you have a helpful tool like Instant Checkmate has, make sure to post your reviews nearby. This will help website visitors trust your services more, making them more likely to pay for them.
Use the power of strong calls to action
To turn website visitors into new customers, you need to harness the power of strong CTAs. These are words and phrases — usually placed on a button — that tell the reader what they need to do next. Sometimes, people just need an extra push to make a purchase, and CTAs can provide just that.
Here are a few tips you can use to help create some strong CTAs for your website:
• Start with a strong verb
• Design your CTA buttons with bold colors that stand out against the background
• Highlight your great deals in the CTA copy
Let’s look at a company with strong CTAs so you can get some pointers.
Aura Imaging, a company that specializes in aura imaging software that aims to determine someone’s mood and energy, has a great CTA on its aura camera product page. As you can see above, there is a clear “Order Now” CTA featuring bold red copy on a button that is outlined in white. This CTA stands out against the background and makes it clear to the website visitor where they need to go to make a purchase, as well as what will happen after they click the CTA. This will help Aura Imaging capture more leads.
Be sure to sprinkle strong CTAs all across your website. Use bold colors and strong verbs, and make it clear to the reader what will happen after they click. This is what will help you capture leads on your website.
Make it easy for people to get in touch with you
Sometimes, prospective customers will want to speak to a member of your team to get a better idea of what you do. You can help ensure that you capture these leads by making it very easy for people to get in touch with you from your website.
To start, you need to make sure that your customer service contact information is posted on every page of your website. Consider placing your phone number and customer service hours in the header of your website to ensure that they can be seen at all times. You could also offer a live chat service to allow people to quickly and easily get in touch with a member of your team without them having to sit on hold or wait around for an email response.
Let’s look at a company that makes it very easy for warm leads to get in touch as inspiration.
Salesforce, a customer relationship management software company, makes it very easy to get in touch from their homepage. First, note how the company has its customer service phone number right on the header of its website. This helps ensure that anyone can get in touch quickly — after all, this header is available on every page, ensuring that people can call the moment they have a question. Additionally, if someone isn’t comfortable on the phone, they have a live chat service available on every page. This chat service is available 24/7 and allows people to ask a chatbot questions and receive automated responses. If their inquiry is more complex, they can chat with a live sales expert. Combined, these elements help ensure that people with questions always have a place to turn to in order to find the answers. This is then likely to lead to more sales for the company.
Be sure to have multiple contact options available on your website, as Salesforce has. Your phone number should be visible on every page of your website and, on top of that, consider using something like a chatbot or contact form to help people quickly get in touch. That way, if people have questions or concerns about your products or services, they can get the answers they need to push them towards making a purchase.
Summary
If you’re going to have a successful business, you need to know how to capture more leads. In this article, we outlined how you can capture more leads on your website using strong CTAs, expert content, and more.
Need more help? Check out the AZ Big Media blog. They have articles on social media management, software development, and more.
Author: Aaron Haynes is an entrepreneur, digital marketing enthusiast, and occasional SEO writer. With more than a decade of experience in business development, Aaron helps businesses and agencies develop and grow a data-driven yet nimble approach to search engine control. You can find more from Aaron on Twitter and LinkedIn.
