All about Marketing

Many millions of dollars are being wasted on promoting and sending traffic to ineffective lead generation websites.

Here are top 10 tips to make your site generate more leads for you and your company.


1. Keep it clean

A busy, cluttered website will drive visitors directly to your competitor. Make sure your site is easy to navigate and clutter free. We've all been to websites that are awash with information. While you need to get your message across you don't want to scare your potential customers away. Make sure your site looks tidy, with as few colors as possible. Too many flashing banners and ads will undoubtedly detract your visitors from the actual content on your site. Don't include too much highlighting. If you highlight every word in your text, it isn't highlighted it's simply bold.


2. Make it quick

Studies have shown that the average surfer will give any site only 3 to 4 seconds before they formulate that all important first decision. Don't forget that first impressions last so you need to dispense with graphics that take too long to load, ensure that any necessary pictures are of a minimal file size (picture size is irrelevant here) and definitely do not have an all graphics site; they take an age to load, not to mention the search engines can not do anything with them.


3. It's all about conversion.

Paying for a PPC campaign is a very popular way to get visitors to your site, but you have to be careful that you manage your account for conversion not clicks. Spend money only on those keywords that convert to leads. Use the conversion tracking offered by Google and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formally Overture). Or use some other ad tracking software. The main point here is your ad campaign should be an investment, not an expense and if you are not tracking your conversion rate how will you know which it really is?


4. Create trust

You will not generate leads from a website that does not radiate trustworthiness. Use third party trust indicators liberally on your site, for example testimonials, membership organization logos, and endorsements. Also if you state something that may be hard for your visitor to believe, explain to them the details so you build credibility.


5. Copy is the key.

Your website copy needs to be compelling, informative and lead the reader to take your desired action. Do not list facts and features, state benefits. You reader doesn't care if your widget does the quarter mile in 2.5 seconds. They want a widget that "Does the job so fast they can get done and take off early to go fishing"... See the difference?


6. Pre-qualify leads with content not questions

If you need a certain demographic lead, make sure your copy spells it out clearly. Clearly explaining the details about who is qualified for you product or service will keep you from having to screen out unqualified leads with too many questions on your form. Which brings me to my next point...


7. Shorter forms actually make for better leads

Highly qualified and highly educated prospects guard their personal information closely; keep forms short and only ask the minimum number of questions. Long forms with too many personal questions tend to reduce the quality and quantity of your leads. When someone is willing to share all their personal information there is a good chance that person has nothing to lose. You have to consider what information you really need from your leads. If you don't need to know then don't ask. You can always send a follow up email. This will act not only as a good fact finder but also as your next step in creating rapport.


8. Make it easy

Have a form on every page, or at least on every page that it makes sense to have it on. Visitors to your site won't take the time to trawl through 12 pages of website content to find your form and fill it out. I have seen a tremendous increase in leads when I added the form to every page of a site. I would caution you about having a form too prominent on you home page though, it tends to scare some visitors off.


9. Sweeten the deal

Give away free information to entice visitors to fill out your form. Throughout time people have always loved a bargain. The feeling of getting something for nothing is usually enough to help persuade the unsure, and will often lead to extra leads and extra sales. Make sue that you give away something with a high perceived value, no one is enticed with junk.


10. Communicate in the right language and add personality.

Using plain language that communicates the personality of you and your company will build trust and rapport. Don't use technical jargon if you are trying to reach the masses. Very few people are likely to know industry buzz words. Keep it simple and informative and add personality at the same time. Try and answer questions before they are asked.


Use these 10 tips and generating sales leads from your website will become much easier and a lot more profitable.


About the author:
Bryant Jones is a lead generation consultant, S.E.O. expert and the managing partner of http://www.leadssolution.com/

I recently delivered a talk to a small group of budding entrepreneurs. The subject was becoming an online business owner. I worked closely with 5 individuals who were looking to make a living from the Internet. They all had varying interests and varying levels of technological experience. The only thing they had in common was a passion to live a better life.

During our small group discussion I hit on several points. However no one single point was stressed more than keywords and search engine ranking. Before you close out on this article give me a few minutes to explain how I am going to shed some light on this topic- light that will help you deliver hot, targeted traffic to your business for free.

This is not generic information. It is not designed to aggravate you or frustrate you. This article is designed to inspire you to think differently about keywords and search engine rankings. Let's start with some basics and move forward from there.

There are two kinds of keywords- the kind that people search for and the kind that people do not search for. A keyword can be defined as a word or phrase that someone would enter in to a search box at Google or Yahoo. It is the search term or query. This keyword is very important for you to know as an online business owner.

You must know this search term for two reasons.

1) You must have a page that is dedicated to that search term. Choosing search terms is rather easy. Just ask yourself what word or term you would use to find your product or service.

2) You must know if it is possible for you to rank well at search engines for that keyword or search term.

Determining if you can rank well is very difficult. After all, no one knows the exact algorithms Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other search engine uses to rank websites. Let's throw in some examples. I have a website dedicated to strength training for women. I can safely assume that "fitness" is a word that people use as their keyword or query at Google. So I have now picked my keyword. Simple enough. However, I need to rank well for that search term. Otherwise what is the point? If no one is going to see my page on fitness then why create a page using the keyword "fitness"?
I can check out my competition by doing a quick search at the major search engines. If I type the word "fitness" (without the quotes) into the Google search box, it returns 799,000,000 search results. Gulp. How can I ever compete for a position in the first 3 pages of Google? The chances of me ranking well for the keyword "fitness" are very, very slim.

The fact of the matter is that most generic terms are going to be difficult to rank well for. You need to narrow your search terms down. You need to get nichier with your terms. You can spend most of your day picking search terms and then checking the competition numbers. This eats a lot of your valuable time. I built my online business by using a hosting company that completely eliminates this tedious process of keyword and search engine ranking data mining. I simply enter in my site concept and within 20 minutes I have an entire list of related keywords and how much competition there is. Perhaps the biggest plus to having this type of data is that I am now free to build my online business and rank very well for excellent search terms that I would have never thought of. I have an instant blue print of my website and all of its related content.

If you do not have excellent search terms that you can rank well for, you are doomed from the start. No one will ever find your site at the search engines if you do not rank well. That means the only people visiting your site will be friends, family, co-workers and those whom you had to reach by paying additional money for advertising. It's much better to rank well for excellent keywords. This gives you a never-ending stream of hot, targeted leads for free.

My best advice to anyone looking to start a profitable online business is to use the absolute best tools. It makes no sense to spend hours and hours picking search terms and doing half-hearted research. In the end you will lose out on a lot of money and a lot of time. Pick your hosting company wisely and be sure you get the added benefit of the keyword selector and competition analyzer tool as an added bonus for free.


Written by Lynn VanDyke
Courtesy http://www.teawithedge.com