Not Enough Leads? How to Tell If Your Website Is the Problem

| 2060 Digital

New leads are the lifeblood of any business. The only way to develop a strong client base is to find ways to create a steady stream of qualified leads, but this requires establishing effective channels through which you can attract those leads. One of the most important lead generation channels in this regard is your website. If you’re experiencing a dismal website lead generation rate, it may not necessarily mean that your visitors aren’t interested in what you have to offer; the problem could be the website itself. Below are some questions to consider to find out if your website’s to blame for your lack of leads, as well as what to do to fix it.

1. Is your website functionally efficient?

Many leads can fall through the cracks due to technical website errors such as slow page load times or lack of responsiveness to mobile devices. You can lose visitors when your site is bogged down with heavy scripts or cumbersome Flash animations that slow down page download times. Try to keep your site as light, clean and efficient as possible to ensure maximum compatibility across the widest range of browsers and devices.

2. Can search engines find your website?

In other words, have you sufficiently SEO’d your site? If your website doesn’t pass muster in terms of proper on-page search engine optimization, it’ll be difficult for search engine spiders to crawl and index your pages. This will render your site virtually invisible to search engines, which will cause you to miss out on tons of potential visitors. Run a site check to see if you have the following SEO factors in place:

  • Proper keywords in site content

  • Relevant title tags and meta tags for each page

  • Proper ALT tags in all images

  • No broken or dead links

  • Clean URLs – No long, indecipherable clusters of letters and symbols; try to use keywords in URLs when possible

  • Good use of H1 and H2 headings (should contain your target keywords)

3. Do you have a clear conversion path in place?

Although you don’t want your website to come across as too salesy, you do have to be very clear about what you want your visitors to do when they arrive, and you have to lead them through that series of actions. This may be as simple as a single landing page with a nice clear call to action (such as a “Subscribe” or “Download” button), or it may be a multi-page portal within your main site. A clear and easy-to-understand conversion path will make it easier on your visitors, and it will help you track user behavior in terms of where people may be engaging vs. abandoning, etc.

4. How easy is it to capture your visitors’ information?

If your contact form or opt-in form is too long or complicated, you can expect a high abandonment rate. While most people don’t mind filling out a couple of fields such as their name and email address, nobody wants to feel like they’re taking a standardized test just to request more information. Make it as easy on your visitors as possible by only requesting the bare essentials. More information can be obtained during subsequent follow-up interactions.

5. Have you examined your website analytics?

Investigate the pages that have chronically high bounce rates, and figure out what may need to be done to improve user-friendliness. It could be that the layout needs to be changed, new features or menus need to be added, or the content may need to be re-worded. Make small adjustments to various elements of the page and then monitor it closely once the changes go live to see if any further improvements are needed. If you begin to see your bounce rate go down, that’s a sign that you’re heading in the right direction.

6. Does your website focus on your customers’ interests and needs?

While there’s nothing wrong with being proud of your business accomplishments, most customers are simply not going to be interested in hearing about them when they visit your website. They’re trying to find out how what you’re selling can help them. You have to remember that the purpose of any business is to offer a solution to someone’s problem, so focus the content of your website on the problem-solving benefits of your product or service.

During every phase of your website assessment and adjustment, be sure to diligently track the changes you’ve made, as well as what type of results they’re producing in terms of lead generation. Apply diligence to the tips listed above, and you’ll position your website to eventually become a customer magnet.