The past decade has been favourable to the small business ecosystem. It took the Indian online grocery brand, Big Basket, just 8 years to become a unicorn. Today, SMBs do not need a truckload of investments for marketing and advertisements or to generate valuable leads. A well designed website or an interactive mobile app can become a great asset to drive sales, increase revenue and help reach out to millions of customers in no time at all.
Here one needs to note that random website with a mediocre design will not do the trick. In a market of over 2 billion active websites, you will need to infuse lead generation techniques in every cell of your online asset and the website needs to stand out as that is the first point of contact.
During your website development phase, ask your team to maintain the following parameters and go live with a winning site working for you 24×7.
Responsive Design
Internet surfing has moved from computers and laptops to smartphones and tablets a long time ago. From reading blogs to shopping apparel, people are now connecting with businesses over their portable gadgets. You might not be able to invest in a dedicated mobile app now but you should not ignore the responsiveness factor of your website. In simple words, your site must adjust to every gadget and provide the same experiences to all customers. Or else, you will lose 25% of your net sales revenue as that is how much mobile shopping brings to businesses today.
Site load time under 2 seconds
Online visitors close and bounce from websites if it takes more than 2 to 3 seconds to load. The patience level decreases further when the browser is running on a mobile device. Even Google AMP promotes this feature where sites with a small lightning mark beside them rank higher than standard websites. To convert your visitors into leads, your website design must surround high-speed load time. If not all, the home and landing pages much load quickly enough to retain your visitors and capture their interest.
Online interaction
Simple features like chatbots and comments can drive engagement and push your visitors further down the sales funnel. A blinking chatbot on the bottom right corner can answer routine questions about products immediately. The comments section under your blogs can make room for more detailed feedback. Plus, onsite ratings, user-generated content and social media feeds can enhance the interaction level which almost assures lead conversion. Plan with your website development team and explore such options.
Focus on SEO
Most of these lead generation techniques will only work if you have enough visitors, to begin with. And no other source sends a greater number of targeted visitors than the top search engines. Hence, search engine optimisation is a must as the process begins right from the design stage. The sitemap you create, the images you place, everything matters when it comes to SEO. The first 5 links on Google attracts over 67% of all the clicks. That is where you will want to be as an SMB website.
Power of SEM
The secret sauce to most small businesses’ exponential growth is search engine marketing. This is how you get placed right at the top of the organic results and become the first link that any online searcher sees. Using PPC is the best way to get noticed. In this SEM technique, you pay for an advertisement only when a user clicks on your link. If there are no visitors, you do not lose money. The conversion rate thus depends on the keywords for which the ad is posted. With PPC one can be visible to almost a billion users on Google every day.
Use Social Media
Along with SEO, leverage social media as it is currently the most effective model for generating leads. Creating pages on social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube does not cost anything. Attach social sharing buttons to the website, so that customers can recommend your website to others, many of whom may share their interests. Social Media ads are a very effective way to get leads that actually convert.
Update site as per data insights
Take the example of Google Webmaster. Connect the website to the platform and read performance data like page speed, bounce rate, visitor geography and so on. Find data on which page kept the customers hooked the most and from where people came to the site. Accordingly, updatethe website’s code to increase performance and content to create more engagement. Data-based upgradation decisions are customer-centric and naturally generate more leads. Create a timeline to frequently update the site. Match the modern trends and stay on track.
While designing and developing a website or improving the existing one always to think from the point of view of a customer. This will help you connect better with the target customer. This is turn will secure more leads, sales and boost the top line. Taking help of experts would go a long way in facilitating this.
Few Easy Tips for Website Lead Generation
- Easy sign up. In addition to the traditional email and password registration give the option to sign up with their Google account.
- Use an image that resonates with the target audience instead of using free stock photos
- Alignment of text and easy to read. The center alignment for all text or too stylish fonton the homepage makes it difficult to read. The harder your copy is the read, the more likely it won’t get read.
- Product shots. Showcasing your product visually is a great way to give users a sneak peek of what to expect once they sign up for an account.
- Using video as a background to keep customer linger longer on the page and explore the services/products
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