Reader Q&A - How To Generate More Leads from Your Website

From the comments:

I have a website that I have spent long hours making it and adding information to it. I also get a stream of about 2,500 visitors a month, but I don’t have anyone emailing me about any questions or just anything. So far I have had two contacts. Tell me what else do I need or do to improve. Thank you.

Sargon, it sounds like you are doing a number of things right.

• You’re providing lots of good information.
• You give away free reports to attract buyers and sellers.
• You offer several ways for people to contact you.
• You’re looking for ways to convert visitors to leads.

You’ve realized that traffic is virtually useless unless you can convert those visitors into leads, which means you’re off to a great start. So how can you start generating more leads from your website?

When people visit a website, they look for the information that is most relevant to their current problems, worries and concerns. They don’t take the time to learn your website. They don’t read every page - or even most pages. They make a quick assessment of your site based on whatever page they land on. If they find what they’re looking for - great, they might keep reading. If not, they leave.

Most people have an extremely short attention span, so they visit a page, quickly skim the content to see if it’s relevant to them, and if not, they leave. It doesn’t matter if you do actually have that information they are looking for. If they don’t see it, in their mind, it’s not there and they’ll keep looking.

Providing great information isn’t enough!

Information is useful only if your prospects can quickly find what they are looking for. They don’t want to dig through your site - they just don’t have that kind of time. So it’s up to you to point them in the right direction.

How can you do this?

• Make your content scanable. Most people skim web pages rather than reading them, so make sure you use headlines, subheads, bullets, and bolded text. Visitors should be able to pick up the key points on each page with a 3 second scan.
• Link to other content that might also be relevant. Don’t expect people to learn your site’s structure or to hunt for content - they won’t. Instead, make it easy for them by listing other articles on your site that they may find relevant. For instance, you might include “For more information on this topic, read my article on X or Y.” You can also link to that content directly within your articles.
• Use a clear call to action on every page. Make sure each page encourages visitors to contact you. Consider adding something like “If you are ready to move forward, call phone number or fill out this online contact form and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.”
• Test your offers! I’ve mentioned this before, but testing is crucial to the success of your marketing.

A website’s job isn’t just to provide information. It must also persuade the right visitors to take the appropriate action. Here are some other suggestions to improve web conversions:

• You mention you are getting 2,500 visitors/month - are they the right visitors? General traffic is virtually useless. You need to attract the right types of people who are specifically looking for the information your site provides. If you don’t have web analytics software installed on your site, I highly recommend you sign up for Google Analytics and monitor the types of people coming to your site. Where are these people coming from? What information are they looking for? What keywords do they use? What pages are they clicking on? How long are they staying on your site?
• Give visitors a way to search your site. While some visitors like to browse websites, others will immediately look for a search box. You can provide a custom site search on your site with Google Custom Search Engine for about $100 per year.
• Make your reports more prominent. Don’t bury your best content deep within your site - promote it. Mention your free reports - or better yet, include pictures of the reports - on every page of your site, such as in a sidebar that boldly claims “Free Reports for Buyers” or “Free Reports for Sellers.”
• Stress the benefits of your free reports. When I visit your reports page, the promotional text describing the reports is tiny. Sell your reports - why are they so valuable? For each report, include a “Here’s what you’ll learn” header and 3-5 bullet points that stress the key benefits people will receive from reading these reports and why they are “must reads.”

Finally, to really make your site persuasive, you must also sell yourself. In your About Me section, stress the types of people you work with, specifically, and why prospects should choose you over all other agents.

I’ve covered in detail how to choose a target audience and create a unique selling proposition in other articles, so I won’t get into that here. I will say, however, that one of the best ways you can market yourself is to present yourself as an authority - a specialist - on your local real estate area.

Don’t just pick “anyone who might need my services in or around Chicago.”

It’s virtually impossible for you to effectively target all 9 million plus people who live in that metropolitan area. You just don’t have the budget.

Narrow your focus and specialize. The more specialized you are, the better the prospects you’ll attract. People want a specialist, not a jack of all trades.

Remember - marketing is about figuring out who you want to work with (your target audience) and then providing information about their biggest worries, concerns, and problems to grab their attention, keep them interested, and start building rapport and trust. Make sure they can find the content they need to make an informed decision by highlighting additional content they might find useful, and be sure to tell them repeatedly how to contact you.