Positioning Your Website to Generate Leads with Inbound Marketing
Whether you’re looking to design a new website, or you need to refresh your existing website, there are certain elements to keep in mind to ensure that your new site will be positioned as a lead-generating, inbound marketing machine. After all, the goal of any website should be to generate qualified leads for your organization. Here are six steps to take to help position your website to do just that.
1. Develop a Content Strategy
Your new site needs to have a blog. Not only do you need to have a blog, but you need to have a content strategy. People find your website because of its content: the keywords you select and the topics of your blogs. Your content should position you as an expert in your industry, and should give your visitors a reason to return to your website. Your blog pulls people into the top of the sales funnel.
2. Identify Your Unique Value Proposition
Before creating your content, you need to be clear about your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). “If you attract a high number of unique visitors, or you’re a new business, your visitors might not be familiar with you and what you do. You need to immediately answer if what you do is right for them, and why they should buy/convert/stay on your website and not flee to your competitors.” -HubSpot
3. Design Your Website Around Your Personas
Your website is not – and should not – be all about you. It’s important to research who your buyer personas (target audiences) are and make sure that everything on your website speaks to those personas.
4. Optimize Your Website for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
You need to be found in search engines in order to get people to your website. Without visitors, you will fail to generate leads. It’s important that your website copy and blog content is written with keywords in mind. It’s also important that your website incorporates all of the important on-page SEO elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, internal link building, etc.
5. Identify Appropriate Calls-to-Action for Every Page
“Calls-to-action are the elements on your website that drive visitors to take action, whether it’s a whitepaper download, contacting sales, or product purchase. Your website shouldn’t be a static brochure but should prompt your visitors to do something that further engages them with your brand.” -HubSpot
It’s important to position an appropriate call-to-action on each page of your website. This will pull visitors further down the sales funnel and will eventually get them to the point of being a qualified lead.
6. Establish Landing Pages
Each call-to-action on your website should pull people to a targeted landing page. The sole purpose of a landing page is to facilitate lead generation by getting people to “opt in” for a piece of content (eBook, WhitePaper, etc.) in return for their name and email. Make sure to clearly convey the value of the offer. You should create landing pages for every stage of the sales funnel (top, middle and bottom).
Designing your website without these 6 elements in mind is useless. If you fail to use your website to generate leads, then what’s the point of having the site? What other things do you think are important to consider when positioning your website as a sales tool?
