published: April/May 2016. Seven tips that demystify lead generation. Business View, Page 17.

The following article was originally published in the 2016 April/May edition of Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce’s Business View magazine. Business View is a bimonthly magazine published by the Saskatoon Chamber.

Would you agree that one of the greatest uses of your website is to generate quality leads for your business? In addition to building credibility and trust, your website is the hub that connects you to your audience. It has the potential to generate quality leads if it attracts the right target audience. However, the site needs to be well designed and optimized for this to happen. In this article I have laid out seven tips that you need to consider if you are serious about lead generation:

1. Begin With Your Customer Journey

Understand how your customer finds you and build your website around your target audience. Often you end up with a website that might look great but does not really convert. The reason is simply because it does not resonate with your customer. The design, the messaging and the flow of information should be around your customer’s persona. I recommend that you develop at least three personas of your ideal client and tie your messaging and design around that.Track Website Performance

2. Track Website Performance

Before trying to improve a website, it’s important to understand where exactly the improvements are required on your website. Another mistake that businesses often make is that they rush to creating a new design, rather than understanding how their current website is performing and building from there. By not tracking and understanding your website’s performance you are bound to make the same mistakes again. the mistakes might look much prettier, but they will still be mistakes. Use a free tool like Google Analytics to track data and understand user behaviour. Include Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons

3. Include Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons

Call-To-Action buttons are perfect for prompting visitors to make a decision. However, these buttons need to be strategically placed pm the website in order for the visitor to first see it clearly, get attracted to it, and to then take action.

The Call-To-Action button must also be designed well enough to invite the visitor to read what is being offered and to seek to know more. The button itself must be clear and big enough for the visitor to notice it and to easily click on it. CTA buttons helps a lot in generating quality leads through your website because you can sort out those visitors who are more interested in the product or service and who are most likely to become buying customers.

When placing CTAs, size really matters especially when it comes to mobile.Add Live Chat

4. Add Live Chat

What a better way to generate leads than by personally engaging with visitors who are currently on the website? Installation of the live chat plugin is very simple and very helpful as well, in terms of lead generation. With this. not only can you see the live number of visitors on your website, but also get a chance to interact with them directly.

Your company personnel can have a live chatting session with your website visitors. If they respond, then a host of information can be derived from these visitors such as what would be the specific product or service that they are searching for, how is their experience on the website so far, and much more. Visitors would also be grateful if a company assistant would personally help them resolve any queries that they may have, or who would be able to provide them with more information about the offerings of your company.Test Your Landing Pages

5. Test Your Landing Pages

No one can check the effectiveness of a website or a landing page without the help of testing – A/B testing to be precise! Since landing pages are the ones that every visitor will be viewing first, it is important that these pages engage audiences and create interest about the website products or services among visitors. Also, since the landing page is often the first impression that the visitor will have about the website, it has to be very good. What’s more, the company has to ensure that the page fulfills the objective, which is of course to generate leads.

Through the process of A/B testing, companies can test two versions (A and B) of their landing pages and see, which one performs better. The one that fulfils the company’s objective and provides the best user experience to visitors is the one that should be chosen.Use Quality and Compelling Content

6. Use Quality and Compelling Content

Well-drafted, informative and relevant content on landing pages engages your audience. Content be in the form of videos, demos or even webinars. Basically, any content or media which the company feels that their visitors will find interesting should be added to the website. When creating content, think about what kind of content is worth sharing and allow the ability for users to share the content on social media channels.

7. Use Intelligent Tracking (Caller-ID for your website?)

Remember when Caller ID came out? It changed the game of receiving and accepting calls. Imagine if you were able to know who has come to your website, much like the caller-id on your phone.

Hope you enjoyed this article. Following is a tribute to our recent clients that have put their trust in us:

• MotifMarketing.ca
• FulBrightEnergy.com
• BreakoutSask.com