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Lead Generation

Build a High-Performance Lead Generation Website that Converts

June 25, 2021
Behind every successful business, there is a robust lead generation strategy that is driving their revenue.

Enterpreneur.com explains that if your company is not into lead generation, you can forget about growing your business. In this digital age, creating a lead gen website should be one of the core strategies to get right from the beginning. If you don’t invest the time, effort, and money into successfully converting a website visitor into a lead, you are missing out on a huge opportunity.

Read on to find ways to turn your website into a lead generation tool.

What is a lead generation website?

A lead generation site is like any other website but the design and content have been optimized to get visitors to submit their personal information through strategically placed submission forms. No matter what business or industry you are in, you can transform your website into a lead generation site by enhancing some of its aspects.

Even thought there are , One There are many ways to optimize your website for leads but a very common strategy for SaaS companies is to make sure the homepage converts as many people as possible.

An great example of a website that does this well is Basecamp. You should check them out if you want to get some inspiration.

How does a lead generation website work? 

There are a lot of different ways that you can generate leads from your site but they generally have the same basic structure.

  • A visitor will come to your landing page from organic search or paid traffic to gain knowledge or solve a problem
  • The content within the landing page is optimized based on the search query
  • The content will introduce an offer, quiz, consultation or additional info where they will gain much more value
  • A lead capture form is easily accessible on the page where they can provide their contact information in order to receive that additional value
  • Once the form is submitted, their info is sent to you and considered a new lead they gain access to the valuable information

The lead generation technique that is most common in Sass companies is the “Sign up for a free account” form but there could be a lot of different scenarios on your site that you could implement, such as:

  • Getting the results of a quiz
  • Having the business call you for more information or a quote
  • Get added to their email list for product updates or newsletter
  • Access to free content like an eBook

Data gathered from visitors can be used to in future lead nurturing campaigns to turn them into a qualified lead.

How do you build a successful lead generation website? 

First of all, put yourself in the visitors shoes and really try to understand what they want or what they are trying to solve. Your conversion rate will skyrocket if you can match your content to their pain point.

As stated before, a lead gen site works like a regular website in the sense that it provides updated information, delivers fresh ideas, introduces your brand, products, or service, and educates customers regarding your business. But aside from these, lead gen sites add ways to convince interested visitors to take further action and submit their personal information which can be tracked as a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL).

Let’s walk through the best way to build a lead generating website is to

Define target audience

An important first step is to define who you are trying to reach. The audience for B2B lead generation will really differ from B2C and fully understanding who you are trying to reach will set the stage for the following steps.

Create a buyer persona for important pages

Your website pillar page takes up all the aspects of your business. Also called a power page, it covers in-depth all your topics and provides links to visit other content on your website. Your visitors will likely check out different pages of your website so each page should have offers, sign-up forms, and other lead collection methods in place.

Signups from specific pages may be grouped to create customer personas which you can also use to create more targeted content for future marketing campaigns.

Consider your end goal first 

Just like planning for an important activity, event or meeting, consider your goal. What do you want to happen? What do you want your visitors to feel or experience? Defining your end goal will help you create better, more targeted strategies to win your customers over.

If you plan to make a million dollars in sales, you should come up with a certain number of opportunities (x opportunities). To create a specific number of opportunities or x opportunities, you must have x SQL or sales qualified lead.

The number of SQLs will depend on the number of MQLs or Marketing Qualified Leads. HubSpot describes an SQL as the product of in-depth research and vetting by your marketing team. SQLs are ready to work with your sales team. Meanwhile, an MQL has personally reached out to your company and may be transformed to a full-fledged customer if handled correctly. MQLs become SQLs once they are ready to take the next step and talk to your sales department.

Review your entire inbound lead generation strategy

Establish where your inbound website traffic is coming from and create lead generation tactics for every source. Your content marketing strategy will be important here as you should have each part of the buyer’s journey mapped out.

Provide quality content, testimonials, reviews, product specs, comparisons, or anything that will give value to your visitors. A well-informed, confident visitor will likely opt-in, sign up, or fill out to hop aboard.

According to Hubspot.com, around 70% of customers say that page speed affects their willingness to purchase from an online store. Also, website conversion rates suffer a decrease of an average of 2.11% with every second delay.

Create a lead generation strategy for every part of the sales funnel

A customer’s buying journey consists of different stages which must be carefully analyzed for possible conversion opportunities. Don’t take for granted different customer touchpoints! Analyze these and come up with good strategies to convert.

Start with a traditional landing page or a simple quiz to gather basic information. As you get to know your visitors more, ask them to sign up for emails to alert for new products or service. Always have opt-in forms ready on every page as some customers may only be waiting for the right time to convert.

Remove any unnecessary website design elements from

Web design is extremely important to get right as it can turn off or distracted a visitor. Remove anything on the page that would get in the way of a visitor from becoming a potential lead.

Additionally, put the most important parts of the page above the fold (meaning, the part of the page that the visitor first sees). So that would be a catchy headline, a brief paragraph that explains the value proposition (a product that solves their problem or an eBook that is a complete guide…you get the idea), followed up by a call-to-action button or form that they need to fill out to get started

A really great job of this is from Lyft’s driver signup page.

An example of a great lead generation landing page that has all the important info like contact form and call to action at the top

Add a call to action (CTA)

Use powerful words to convince your customers to opt-in. CTAs depends on what you want to accomplish. An eCommerce site may ask a potential customer to order, save, shop, buy, pick, view, add to cart, and more. If you want your readers to follow a newsletter, ask them to refer, subscribe, join or sign up.

Examples of CTA buttons

Examples of call to action buttons (cta buttons) that call attention

Utilize gated content

Don’t show all your cards yet. Let your visitors yearn for more, more relevant information, more tips, and more details about your discounts, deals, or promos. Provide an opt-in form for these gated content where your visitors must sign up with their details before they are allowed access. Gated content helps generate good leads and deliver optimized content.

Use live chat 

Your website must have a live chat service to cater to any inquiries from your visitors. Having a live agent to talk to and to answer questions about your service or product is a relief for customers. Agents may collect information like the visitor’s name, job title, and location, any relevant information to help him with his concerns or to complete a transaction. A visitor may need to provide his email address or phone number for any follow-ups.

Test and optimize

Test your lead generation website strategies and make changes accordingly. Testing can be tedious but it guarantees that you’re using the right techniques or cost-efficient strategies. After testing, optimize your content and monitor the results. Testing is vital to all marketing strategies especially if you’re still planning on a good lead generation website campaign.

Hotjar – this tracking and testing software was created for marketers, UX designers, and managers. It can help you track customer satisfaction or CSAT, net promoter score, or NPS and VOC or the Voice of Customer. Hotjar is not about dealing with a bunch of numbers and stats; it will let you know what your visitors are doing on your website through user behavior.

A/B Testing – according to Forbes, A/B testing or split testing is when two versions of a marketing campaign or content are tested to an audience. This helps find out which campaign works better. A/B testing can work with any type of business and will yield data that you can readily use for creating any kind of marketing strategy.

Google Analytics goals – goals from Google Analytics are a way to measure user behavior in your website. A goal is any kind of completed action or conversion which helps your business reach success. Understanding goals is an important part of your digital analysis measurement plans. Properly defined goals allow Analytics to display conversions or conversion rates of your website.

Mouseflow – this special tool provides heatmaps to tell you what your customers are doing on your site and where they find their needs and frustrations. Mouseflow will track mouse movement, clicks, forms, scrolls, and more so you can take action at the soonest time.

An example of a website that uses Mouseflow for heatmaps that show where people click on the screen

Forbes recommends A/B testing for all your marketing strategies not just for your lead generation website, but also for your emails, social media posts, CTAs, blogs, and so on. To perform A/B testing for lead generation, choose one variable and divide your leads equally but randomly.

Test versions of your campaigns simultaneously but at different points in time. Let the tests run and after a few weeks or a month, measure the results. After the rest, formulate an action plan according to the results. The insights you gain from A/B testing are invaluable and may be used in creating all kinds of marketing content.

Author

Greg Tucker