10 Lead Generation Strategies That Work For Small Businesses

Your leads are only as good as the website that produces them. Today, I'll give you 10 pro tips that you can do to optimize your website for lead generation. And I'm also going to explain why it works so you can understand the concepts behind lead generation. Here are my 10 proven lead generation boosters, that not only increase your conversions, but can also increase your site's trust factor and authority.

Hey there, this is Monique and you're listening to episode number 16 of the Dragon Digital Marketing Podcast. In this episode, I'll share 10 lead generation strategies with you that you can do to generate more leads with your website.

How good is your website at generating leads? And how good are the leads that your website generates you?

In the last episode, episode number 15, I've shown you how to turn your website into a lead generation website. And I've shared my ultimate five step lead generation strategy with you. So you can check that out too, if you haven't already, because in this episode, I'll show you how you can further optimize your website and tweak things to generate you more leads and also more high-quality leads. So you can step up your lead generation game.

Your leads are only as good as the website that produces them. Designing your web pages in a way that you can maximize the number of leads your website generates for your small business doesn't have to be overwhelming or time consuming.

Today, I'll give you 10 pro tips that you can do to optimize your website for lead generation. And I'm also going to explain why it works so you can understand the concepts behind lead generation. So without any further ado, here are my 10 proven lead generation boosters that not only increase your conversions, but can also increase your site's trust factor and authority.

Number one: Begin with the end in mind

When it comes to lead generation, begin with the end in mind, and think about your goals first and then work backwards from there. Define what exactly a lead means to you. Defining this will make your testing and analytics goals even clearer and help you to determine exactly what actions you want your visitor to take on your page. You can then reverse engineer your process and design your web pages according to your lead generation funnel. This increases your chances that your visitor progresses from stage to stage in your funnel as you'd like them to. Examples for lead generation goals you can have are form submissions, newsletter signups, calls, booked appointments, or scheduled consultations.

Number two: Include a phone number

Adding a phone number to your website may seem counterintuitive if you sell a digital product or if you just don't want any calls and you have different goals of what you want your website to achieve for you. Including a phone number on your website, however, increases trust and gives you more credibility.

Even if your potential leads don't actually call, the presence of a phone number does bring them some comfort. You get the same effect by including your real name on your website and a physical address and if there's a place on your website where people can actually see a picture of you or a video of you and get to know you, the real people behind your business, and actually see that there are real people behind your business. You can include your NAP data, meaning your name, address, and phone number on every page in your footer. For example, if you're a local business that also helps you with local SEO.

And if you're trying to optimize a landing page, try including a phone number directly in your header in a large font. Local numbers are more personable than toll free numbers. If you have both, you can include both. If you have only one, preferably you'd have a local contact number.

Tip number three: Put a contact form on every page

You heard me right, on every page. Having easy access to the actual lead generation form is so crucial to getting more leads through your website. You want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to opt in. A lot of people just view one page per session and they don't click around your site because they don't have the time or they just don't think about it, and they also shouldn't have to. So put a forum in one of your side columns that are next to your main column, you know, the middle column, if you have a three column page layout. Or if you have a two column page layout, you can, for example, put your contact form in the right column. And in a one column layout, you can put it at the bottom and have several calls to action in between in the different sections of the page that jump to that bottom section, where your form is, when clicked.

Do what works for you, but have a form on every page. For some pages, a contact form is inappropriate. Then you just have a subscribe to the newsletter from there, or you offer a lead magnet, you know, do whatever works for you for that particular page, right.

Also, the less information you ask for, particularly in the first step, the more likely people will be to submit the form and give you their valuable personal details. If for some reason you need more information, use multi-step forms. That way you don't overwhelm people and multi-step forms are proven to increase the conversion rate.

In most cases you actually don't need to ask for more than a name and an email address. Think about it. Why would it be so crucial to ask for an address and business name and phone number, or even the last name. You can always get that information later. And the first step you most likely just need a first name and an email, if you're honestly asking yourself this.

If you see a long form that you have to fill out and you see all of that information that is requested, people will feel overwhelmed and they're less likely to submit the form.

Number four: Add testimonials with photos

Testimonials are a super powerful marketing tool because they're social proof. They tell the story of other people like your visitors themselves who've been looking for the same solution and who are happy with your solution.

And this implies that your visitor who is looking at your page will be happy and satisfied with your solution too. If you add testimonials that include a photo of the person, and their real name, and the company name, this will boost the effectiveness of your testimonials and give you so much more credibility.

Video testimonials are awesome as well. Anything with rich media takes your testimonials a step further.

Step five: Make videos and speak to your audience

Videos bridge the gap between online and offline commerce. You can use them to really speak to your website visitors on a personal level. Videos greatly increase conversion rates for a wide range of industries and particularly the eCommerce industry and eCommerce websites. However, if you want your videos to be high-performing, you need to speak to your viewers rather than at your viewers.

Number six: Use trust seals

Including a trust seal on your website can increase your conversion rate if the trust seal is more than just eye candy. Yes, seals in general give your website visitors the feeling of security, and you now want to take it a step further and use one seal that actually is backed up by a guarantee.

Tip number seven: Use power words

I talk about this in my free course Brand Story in more detail. There are certain words which are power words, and you want to use them to describe your offer and also in your unique selling proposition. Powerful action words are for example: get, feel, have, imagine having, imagined feeling, free, new, proven, and so on. Check out my free course Brand Story, if you want to learn more about creating a unique offer and building a brand around it. Action oriented words in your offer put your customer in a pivotal role as the one receiving the benefits, as opposed to simply imagining them.

Number eight: Get a custom built website

You can get better results if your website fits your needs and you can do with it whatever you want and you're free to change it and you're not restricted by a cookie cutter website template. Especially when it comes to quality lead generation, you should avoid any cookie cutter, all the work is already done for you, website templates. Invest in the best possible website that you can afford and make sure that your page's purpose is clear upfront.

You can talk to us here at Dragon Digital Marketing and we'll design and develop your website in a way that's tailored to your needs.

And in this case you want a website that's optimized for generating you leads rather than just looking nice and having all the bells and whistles. Having a well-designed website also increases trust and customer confidence when shopping online.

Tip number nine: Use whitespace

Whitespace in your web design can have a huge impact. It draws attention to important elements on your page and guides the eye. You don't want to have content in every little corner of your page and fill every little space you got with something and use too many colors. Keep your design clean and flat and strategically use whitespace.

Whitespace is also called negative space because your page background color doesn't have to be white, of course. So you want to clean up your pages, remove unnecessary elements that fill up the page real estate and give your content, your photos, your calls to action, some breathing room and also keep your navigation to a minimum.

There's no need to add something on a page when it has no strategic purpose, because it distracts your visitors and keeps them from converting into your leads.

And number 10 is: Test, test, test

You got to monitor and analyze your results and create custom reports and create goals, and also create a goal flow in your Google Analytics. Otherwise, how would you know what to tweak? None of these tips will actually do a bit of good for you unless you test them for yourself and determine what works for your unique situation.

You can also do A/B tests, change your call to action from time to time. Like, change it from "Order Now" to "Buy Now" to "Checkout" and see what happens and collect the data.

Add live chat.

Change your colors.

Does your headline copy really include a reference to where your visitor has come from? Maybe your bounce rate is high because your visitors can't see how this is related to where they've come from and why they've clicked in the first place, within the first second that they've landed on your site.

You can also test different offers. If you got free shipping, for example, try to offer a free gift instead. You can also test different guarantees, like 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, just test it.

What's also important is that you have to put the most important information above the fold.

And use active language, no passive language.

And say "you" as much as you can, and rewrite all the sentences that say "I" or "we". It's not about you. It's about your customer. You are only the guide that helps your customer reach his or her goals and solve the problems.

Now you can see how the number and the quality of leads are just two conversion factors out of so many more.

If you want to learn more about lead generation, check out our other podcast episodes, and also check out our blog. You can find it all at dragon-digital-marketing.com.

Summing up. Here's what I want you to take away from this episode. Coming up with a lead generation strategy that works for your business is not rocket science. You can do it. You have to know your ideal customer really well and have a buyer persona and think about how you can make it as easy as possible for them to opt in and give you permission to contact them and give you their contact information.

You can use my buyer persona template to create a detailed profile of your ideal customer and nail your lead generation. The download link is in the description. So go ahead and get your free buyer persona template now.

You want to create as many opportunities as possible all over your website for leads to contact you or to opt in so you can contact them.

And here are the 10 lead generation strategies again, you can do to turn your website into a lead generation website and generate more leads with your website.

Number one: Begin with the end in mind
Number two: Include a phone number
Number three: Put a form on every page
Number four: Add testimonials with photos
Number five: Make videos and speak to your audience
Number six: Use trust seals
Number seven: Describe your offer with power words
Number eight: Get a custom built website and avoid cookie cutter website templates
Number nine: Make use of white space
And number 10: Test, test, test

If you need any help with your digital marketing and lead generation, you can always reach out to our agency, Dragon Digital Marketing. We're happy to help you out. That's what I got for you today. Until next time.