Like all great structures you need a solid, well thought out foundation to build something remarkable and your website is no different. Did you know inbound websites average conversation rate is double the rate of non-inbound websites?
Most of the tips in this post are more technical and you will need a developer to put them into place. Once they are integrated with your website you can easily use them to generate more leads and sales.
First we need to get everything in place so it makes it easy for you and your team to build upon. We don’t want to do any technical work when you are doing your day to day marketing as this can really slow progress up.
If you are using an agency to help you generate more leads having these things in place will really help them to get you success quicker.
1. Building your blog
One of the most important parts of building a website that generates leads is your blog and this blog will become your most important marketing asset.
For the most part this will be written content that talks in depth about the questions your prospects have, no selling here as this is not the time or place to talk about your business.
It can really put people off if you talk about yourself and try to make a sale at this stage. The point of this content is not to sell anyone anything but to be helpful.
This content will also turn more of your anonymous visitors into known leads.
If you currently have a blog on your website this is great, then there is nothing wrong with you getting started with this today. If you don’t have one don’t worry it is very easy to get set up with a business blog and it’s free!
I would recommend you use WordPress as it is the world’s most used blogging platform and your developers can have it installed on your website in less than 5 minutes.
Once your blog is installed you are ready to start answering prospects questions and filling your sales funnel with leads.
2. Making your website easy to find
One question I get asked all the time is, what is the most important tip for SEO? The answer is make sure it is easy for Google to find your content. If Google can’t find your content then it will never show up when your prospects search for questions and your products and services.
Most of your content will be found on your blog and if you are using WordPress there is very little you need to worry about when making it easy to find.
WordPress has an excellent SEO plugin called Yoast SEO and this free plugin is all you will ever need. Ask your developers to install it for you.
There is more good news, when it comes to the main part of your website, most content management systems these days are very search engine optimisation friendly so no need to worry there.
If you are using an older or custom platform to power your website then check with your developers.
What your developers may not do for you is create your Meta tags. These are basically little tags that go on each page of your website which help search engines understand what they are about.
You need to make sure these are in place on every page of your website and are optimised with the right kinds of words that describe your content.
This will really make the difference to whether your content shows up in search or not. There is a little more to it than that but you need to make sure your pages are easy to find and if your content is of the highest quality (a factor that search engines look at) then you will have a greater chance of your prospects discovering your content.
3. Marketing automation software
Marketing automation software will really sky rocket your leads. Marketing automation software will control your sales process from a prospect visiting your website all the way through until they have become a customer.
Not only this but with HubSpot, the all in one inbound marketing software, you can also have your whole website and blog in one place. This will really help you to understand the ROI of your marketing efforts.
Marketing automation will help you nurture your prospects into customers with email marketing, SEO and social media.
Using this software does have a more hands on approach but if you are partnering with a digital marketing agency, talk to them about using HubSpot as this will not only improve your leads and sales volume, it will reduce the time agencies need to work on your campaigns, thus having a great cost saving to you and the cost of your leads.
For more information on marketing automation read my guide on marketing automation tools.
4. Easy to navigate website
Having the right content on your website is one thing, making it easy to find is another. This is where you can easily annoy your prospects if the information they seek is not easy to find.
Your prospects are busy people and have low tolerance when it comes to websites that are hard to navigate. So make sure your menus link to the most important pages on your website.
You also need to make sure your menus are named correctly, avoid industry jargon and give them good descriptive names.
Look at your analytical software to see what your most popular pages are and link to them easily from your homepage.
If you are using HubSpot for your marketing software you can easily see which pages assist in conversions.
Your homepage is the hub of your website so discover the most important pages and give them front and centre space so people can easily navigate to them.
5. Write your content for your users
When it comes to creating the sales pages on your website you need to remember and write it for the user. Sometimes businesses forget who they are talking to and use large blocks of text that is so full of jargon anyone who is not an expert will feel lost.
Talk about the benefits more than the features and speak to people in an easy to understand way. Try to write as if you are speaking to a child and then everyone will understand, do not assume people will understand things.
The way you structure your content is also important, make sure you include many descriptive sub headings as people like to scan content to see if it is worth their time reading it. Do not create unnecessary long content, be concise and use bullet points to quickly illustrate benefits.
Always, always tell the prospect what to do next, include a call to action so they know what they have to do next.
“Take your content, half it, and then half it again and you probably still have too much.”
6. Create a responsive mobile friendly website
These days people don’t just view your website on their desktop computers, people will view it on multiple devices. A staggering 50% of local searches are performed on a mobile device so by having what is called a ‘responsive’ website design means that your website content will be easily viewable no matter what device it is viewed on.
There is nothing more annoying than when using a smart phone you have to keep zooming in to see important information.
Another issue prospects have when they visit websites on mobile devices is that they have a hard time converting as sometimes using and filling in forms are difficult. So don’t forget about your landing pages and test them on all devices.
7. Make your content easy to share
When you create great content people will want to share it and this can be a great way to reach new customers and increase leads. So make sure your content is easily shareable.
This is especially true for your blog content and you should add social media sharing buttons to each and every blog post. I do not think this is as important on your main website and sales pages.
If you are running an ecommerce store then make sure people can share your product pages.
On your main website it is a good idea to include a link to the social media sites that you are active on so prospects who use these sites can interact with you.
I would be careful where you position these follow buttons as by placing them in a too prominent place may increase noise on your pages and encourage prospects to leave your website.
I would perhaps think about putting them in the footer as people tend to look there if they are interesting in visiting your social media profiles.
Conclusion
When it comes to generating more leads and sales from your website there are a few things you need to do to turn your website into a marketing assist and increase the amount of leads and sales it generates.
Make sure you are getting the most from your blog by creating content that is customer focused, shareable and easy to find by search engines.
People will view your website on many different devices, so make sure it works on them all with a responsive site.
Don’t frustrate people by making your website hard to navigate, and tie it all together with inbound marketing software.
Now it’s your turn
What are the challenges you face with your B2B marketing and website? Let me know in the comments and I will be sure to answer.
Source: inbound websites average conversation rate is double the rate of non-inbound websites