Lead Time: Essentials For An Effective Website

Social media and search engine optimization (SEO) are tools to drive traffic to your website. However, unless the website is set up to generate leads or convert a visitor into a customer, it does you no good.

Once you’ve driven potential leads to your site, it’s up to the site to capture the leads. Otherwise, it’s all been a futile effort. There are three “black holes” into which leads can fall, and if you don’t fix them, you’ll waste valuable time and effort with getting sales.

When a visitor lands on your site, it should be clear what you want them to do. Don’t make them think or work! You have only a few seconds to capture their attention and keep it. Don’t take anything for granted.

CALL TO ACTION (CTA)
The CTA should be easily visible when you first land on a page. Visitors should not have to scroll down to see it. View your site on different devices to see what the visitor sees (different browsers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, too). In addition, there should always be a CTA at the end of a blog post. If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they won’t do it!

LEAD GENERATION
The idea is to capture the lead’s information (email address, name, and possibly a phone number). Some folks may be reluctant to give out their numbers, but they’ll give you their info if they think they’re getting something of value.

Here are some ideas for lead generation CTAs:

• If you partner with a local realtor, you can offer a free moving or house staging tip sheet. For B2B customers, use tips on saving space and getting organized.
• Offer a free area newsletter for newcomers and partner with the local chamber of commerce. Offer a coupon or discount. Get creative!

Once you’ve captured their information, the leads have to be nurtured. Consistently feed them. Use a drip email system with email tools like MailChimp or Constant Contact, but don’t overdo it.

Don’t let them fall through the cracks either. Regularly evaluate your website’s analytics at least once a month. Review your email marketing reports. Take note of which networks are driving the most traffic to your website, your click-thru rates, and your conversion rates. If 100 people clicked on a link and only 50 converted, what happened to the other 50?

There is such a thing as too many leads. If you’re doing social media right and don’t have a marketing automation system set up to capture, feed, nurture, and follow up with the leads your social media efforts are generating, they’ll never convert into sales.

If you’re not getting qualified leads, then you need to rethink your marketing.

The bottom line is more sales! Unfortunately, many small business owners only have a really nice online brochure that doesn’t come anywhere near being an effective website. It’s not your fault. It’s another case of not knowing what you don’t know.

Usually, when a small business owner hires someone to build a website for them, they want the best price for what they think they need. You hired someone who told you that they could build a WordPress website for you. Well, anyone can. That’s the beauty of WordPress. It’s fairly easy to construct a site; however, like home construction, you need three critical things. First, you need the foundation and walls (bricks, wood, paint, etc.), which is also known as the design. Then you need the functioning parts (plumbing, electrical, etc.), also known as development. Finally, all the insides (furniture, appliances, decorations, etc.) could be considered the copy or content.

Each of these components, like when building a house, requires specific talents and skills to build a livable house and an effective website. Sometimes you find the perfect contractor or company who has all of the talents and skills needed, but that’s rare and it may be expensive. Let’s break each one down.

A WEB DESIGNER
A designer is a very creative person who can take your logo and color scheme and create a beautiful online brochure. Moreover, the designer might be a very talented graphic artist and make your site “easy on the eyes,” but can they write? Do they know the mechanics of creating effective calls to action, backing it up, creating a shopping cart, and securing it from hackers? Sure, you want to help out your relative who just graduated from design school, but you’re not going to have a site that works for you in the end.

For instance, a realtor contacted me and asked me if I could determine why their website wasn’t coming up at the top of Google search results. (Isn’t that everyone’s wish?) Well, the site was gorgeous. It was promoting a new condo in downtown Phoenix. There was no blog with fresh content touting the benefits and fun of living downtown. There was no way to capture leads. Yes, they had a contact form to set up a tour, but it wasn’t compelling enough. It lacked good copy and content.

A WEB DEVELOPER
This is the real techie person. They can figure out all the mechanical parts of the website. The developers will build a secure shopping cart or booking system and install all the proper plugins to make it secure. They should also cover backups, security, and make it search engine optimized.

It has to be easy to navigate; that’s part of the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).

They’ll make sure that it passes the Google Core Web Vitals test, especially if you have a lot of mobile users. Additionally, they’ll install all the widgets and plugins needed to engage the visitor (what makes a site function).

A developer may not have an eye for design, and they probably aren’t creative writers. They usually put up the information that you give them, but is the text copy effective?

I was asked to review a website and in reading their “about us” section, I ran into the phrase “grown slowly.” It stopped me cold. Slowly is a negative connotation. That word doesn’t need to be there. Just having “grown” is sufficient. It implies logical growth, from a mom-and-pop outfit to a company with over 50 employees.

THE COPYWRITER
Good marketing copy walks the visitor through a logical progression to exactly where you want them to go. It’s compelling, enthralling, enchanting. (Don’t laugh; it’s what you need!) As a result, it captures the visitor’s attention with eye-catching, curiosity-piquing headlines and subheadings. Therefore, it keeps the reader going with bullet points (people don’t like reading long sentences or paragraphs) and bold and italics for emphasis.

To have effective copy, you really need to know your target markets and their storage needs.

Educate yourself on how it all works so that you don’t get “taken” when you do hire someone to do it for you. Recently, I worked with a client who thought the company she hired to redesign her website was honest and above board. Little did she know after she described her vision for her website, the company went to several of her competitors and used the same exact design. It was so obvious. That’s horrible business ethics!

What about doing it all yourself? Obviously, if your budget is tight, and you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you, you can always attempt to build it yourself. However, there are a few things to consider.

You need time to build it, and if you’re not that familiar with the platform you’re using, it will take you longer. Also, you need time to learn how to build it in your chosen platform. How much is your time worth? Which platform should you use? Sure, you can relatively easily create a website using a website building or even the free websites that are out there, but is it going to do what you need it to do? Furthermore, you will probably outgrow it as your business grows and you require it to do more.

Personally, I prefer WordPress. You have so many options on style and functionality that some of the “site builders” don’t have or are limited. And just like any technology, stuff breaks. Who’s going to determine where the problem is? Moreover, who’s going to fix it?

Most importantly, don’t build it then forget it! Even if your business doesn’t change much, you still have to check on your website at least monthly. This includes your analytics. Make sure it’s doing its job 24/7.

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Giselle Aguiar, founder of AZ Social Media Wiz in 2011, is a social media content and digital marketing consultant and trainer. She’s been involved in internet marketing since 1995. Today, she specializes in strategic and tactical planning, social media setups, 1:1 digital marketing training and coaching, SEO copywriting, and WordPress websites. She is a trainer and mentor for the Arizona Commerce Authority as a founding mentor of its Digital Academy. She is also an avid blogger and lives in the Historic Roosevelt District of Downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Visit her website, AZSocialMediaWiz.com, for more information.