You have put in your time, worked hard to optimize your site. You watched it creep slowly up in the Google rankings, waiting for the day it would finally be number one on the keyword you care about most. Finally! That day is here and you are in the coveted first spot! But you can’t relax now. It’s time to get busy – your work is only beginning. Getting to Google’s number one spot is only the first step in effective inbound lead generation. So before you make it to that point it is wise to have your website set up for lead generation. That way, when that organic traffic starts rolling in, you will be able to convert those visitors to clients.

Levels of Conversion

There are six levels of conversion and it is important that you understand each one. It will help you identify where a visitor is you can strategize for each level.

1. Visitor – a person who views or visits your website
2. Inquiry or Inquirer – a person who has shown interest in your product, service or content
3. Prospect – a person who might want or need your product but has not yet purchased it
4. Lead – a person who fits the criteria for “qualified” as a candidate to be contacted by sales because of their title, budget, timeframe to purchase or decision role
5. Site Conversion – a person who initiates contact with you via your web form, email, phone, etc.
6. Sales Conversion – a person who was once a lead, then makes a purchase

Prepare

Set goals that you can measure. Before you begin optimizing, think about what you want the end result to be. Clearly define your goals, but make them manageable. Think about things like:

• Percentage you want to decrease your cost per lead
• Percentage you want to increase sales and sales opportunities
• Percentage increase you want to see in your newsletter or mailing list sign ups.
• Percentage you want to increase the organic traffic to your website
• Percentage you want to increase the actual visitors to your site
• Percentage you want to see your sales opportunities increase

Get a clear picture of your target audience. You can’t effectively market to someone if you don’t know them. You need to know what your customer looks like, what the like, what they do. Determine your target audience’s demographics. What is their buying cycle and what language do they use when they are looking (and find) your services or products? What does their buying cycle look like? Break each of these down to get a crystal clear picture who you are selling to.

Optimize

Design responsively. There was a time when it was not necessary for your website to display and adapt to smartphones, iPads and the like. Those times have changed, though and responsive web design it absolutely vital now. Your website style must be able to adjust automatically for tablet and mobile devices.

This one move works to your advantage in two says. It enhanced the user experience so that you have more conversions and Google likes that you have enhanced the user experience by making your site more accessible so you get a boost in search rankings.

What every lead-generating website should have. A website that converts needs a lot of things to work together. A good site contains these elements:

• Ease of navigation
• Every page is consistent
• Credible
• Minimal distractions, simple design
• Well placed search bar that is easy to find
• Trustworthy
• Good graphical placement, strong visuals
• Interactive with active, clickable links
• Inviting
• Strategic use of whitespace
• Engaging
• Easy to read font

It’s all in the name. Domain names are one of the areas where a lot of businesses stumble. Try to make your business name your domain name. Avoid adding hyphens, underlines, odd spellings or anything else that would make it difficult for your customers to find you, or worse, wind up on a competitor’s site.

Make it clear. While you want your website to engage visitors, you also want it convey specific things. You want the purpose of the site to be very evident, even to people who are not familiar with your company.

Get Social. If your landing page is built around a particular resource like a white paper or eBook, then you need to capitalize on the shareability of that resource.  Social share buttons make it easy for visitors to share your site and content. What’s more, this encourages social engagement which has proven to be very beneficial to many businesses.

Bottom Line

Once you have passed the hurdle of getting to the number one spot on Google, you need to keep tweaking and testing your site to ensure it is doing what it is supposed to do. There are literally thousands of ways to enhance your site and make it more conversion friendly, find the methods that are best for your business and put them into action.