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October 26, 2016 at 12:30 AM
When new prospects visit your website, what happens? Ideally, you want a high percentage of them to converting into leads. However, before your website can convert prospects into leads, it must be equipped with lead generation pages, also known lead-capture or opt-in pages.
What’s the difference between a landing page and regular web page? One is designed to provide high-level information while the other (the opt-in page) is built to do one thing: generate leads.
On traditional corporate websites, prospects can come and go anonymously. And while traffic and visitors are important, they are not the same as leads. Leads are those who are interested enough to leave you their contact information so you can follow up with them.
Of course, most prospects think twice before completing any forms on your website. In fact, I’ll bet 90 percent of you never get more than one or two leads a month from your site. How do I know that? Because after reviewing hundreds of advisor sites, I’ve come to the realization that almost none of them have been optimized for lead generation. They are still functionally built like it’s 1998.
So how do you optimize your site or pages for lead generation?
An important first key is to understand that online lead generation is a value-for-value exchange. Prospects will only give you their contact information if doing so will get them something of value in return.
This happens by having two things:
- A valuable offer (also known as a lead magnet)
- Optimized landing pages
In this article, we are specifically outlining number No. 2 above — how to optimize your web and landing pages for lead generation.
You can use the following points to refine any landing pages you currently have up and running, as well as the ones you create in the future.
You only have 2 seconds to grab visitors’ attention. Make your headline count. (Photo: iStock)
1. A compelling headline
When visitors hit your landing page, you have only 2 seconds to grab their attention. The headline is the first thing they’re going to read, so a compelling headline is the best way to ensure they spend time on the site or page.
One formula for writing a headline that works really well is to use a proven headline formula like the following:
“How to (Insert Positive Benefit Statement) without (Insert Negative)”
Or
“How to retire confidently without the fear of running out of money.”
This speaks directly to both the desired end result of your ideal prospects as well as the negative thing they want to avoid.
There are lots of formulas for crafting headlines that work. Bottom line, the headline is extremely important and any lead-capture or web page that you create must have a compelling headline if you’re going to convert visitors into leads, so be sure to spend some time on creating several you can use on various pages.
Don’t hide your call to action where readers will never see it. (Photo: iStock)
2. A call to action located above the fold
Most web visitors don’t scroll down the page. So the button they click and the form they must complete to receive whatever offer you’re making on the page must be positioned above the fold. What does that mean? “Above the fold” simply means the top half of the page, the section of your site that’s viewable without scrolling down. Anything you can’t see without scrolling down is located “below the fold.”
This is an area where we see a lot of websites fail. Most advisor landing pages have tons of text, bullet points and images, and then, at the very bottom, there’s a button. We want to avoid that. We recommend what we call a “high-level call to action” or an “above-the-fold call to action.”
Keep the amount of navigation options to a minimum so visitors don’t get distracted or confused. (Photo: iStock)
3. Limited navigation
Ideally, the only action a prospect should be able to take on your landing page is complete a form and become a lead. That’s it. That’s the whole purpose of directing them to a landing page. To avoid distracting visitors, your landing page shouldn’t offer links to a lot of other pages. This is another big mistake that we see a lot of advisors make.
