In this article I highlight 3 easily overlooked – yet crucially important – features that, if missing, can drastically limit the effectiveness of a website in generating the desired volume and quality of sales leads to the owner.
First, let me define what I mean by “Volume” and “Quality” of leads:
Volume of Leads:
The rule in online marketing is similar to that observed offline. Basically for every 100 persons exposed to your marketing message, only 1 to 3 can reasonably be expected to respond with an enquiry – which will not necessarily result in a sale.
That means only 1 to 3% of visitors to your site are likely to contact you. Given such low prospects it becomes crucial that you set your website up to harvest that small number of potential clients/buyers, for every 100 site visitors as often as possible.
Quality of Leads
Getting the desired number of prospects in is one thing, but even more important is getting the RIGHT quality of prospects!
This second aspect is also dependent on the “message” you communicate to those visitors that eventually become enquirers. What you tell them on your website, and how you say it will influence the impressions they get about what you can do for them, and ultimately move them to connect with you.
If you fail to do it right, you could end up attracting people with the wrong mindset and expectations from you.
That would mean your chances of converting them to clients after they make contact, will be reduced. And if you succeed in winning them over as clients, it’s likely you may be unable to satisfy them.
You don’t want do that to yourself. Which is why It is in your best interest to address the 3 important features I discuss below:
1. Article Marketing Highlights:
To succeed with markeing online, Article Marketing can boost your ability to generate leads.
To make the most of your writing, you need to publish your articles on a blog, linked to your site, with latest ones preferably auto-displayed on the website.
But how you do that also matters. Specifically, you must not make the mistake of serving article titles alone.
The display of new article titles on the site, without corresponding
display of brief previews under each, denies readers additional incentive to
click and read.
If they don’t have something that draws them in to read, they’re likely to spend less time and eventually click-away without connecting with you.
2. Opt-in form offerings:
You need to make opt-in form offerings that appeal to the range of potential clients you have.
For some of us, our target audiences are multiple in nature. We therefore need to make offers to appeal to their respective interests.
One possible way is to send confirmed subscribers an autoresponse email with
a link to access a downloads page where all the promised “gifts” can be
accessed by each subscriber.
The opt-in form’s “visual display”
will need to be designed to inform visitors of the multiple offers – each
targeted at the different audiences you serve.
If the functionality to put the above in place does not already exist on your site, you may need to have your developer incorporate it.
3. Clickable Slideshow Images:
To make optimal use of the space capital on your website, especially the home page, you can make use of a slideshow.
However, not just any – it’s best you make the individual images clickable in the slideshow.
And you need to know how to access the slideshow from the administrator back end of the site, to add the images you want along with their corresponding URLs.
If that’s not possible, or you can’t spare the time, be sure to retain the services of your developer to do that, because you will need to peridically make those changes, for marketing purposes over time.
Final Words
The 3 features discussed above, if missing from your site, will prevent you from making the most of visitor traffic we’re getting.
This is because you will not be serving them enough “response-generating” information, visually, to draw them in to the extent that they do more than just look around and leave.
You need visitors to feel a need to go a step further and make contact with a
view to learning more from you via other stuff you announce that you offer – apart from articles and other standard information.
A key measure of your success will the volume and quality of LEADS you generate.
1, 2 and 3 if correctly put in place, and used, can boost the results you get, with that regard, over time.
