In his recent enewsletter Michael Stone of Markup and Profit reported the results of a survey among his contractor subscribers. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed said they get no leads or less than 25 percent of their leads from their website. So I thought I would provide some ideas for fixing this common problem.

Too few leads could be a sign of  three things – either your site is not getting traffic; your site isn’t what visitors are looking for; or visitors are frustrated and move on.

Step Number 1: Check the traffic

Check your traffic stats using Google Analytics or another analytics program.  If your traffic numbers are low that’s the first thing you need to address.

Step Number 2: Add Content

If the problem is low traffic volume, one solution is to add content to your website. Optimize pages for keyword phrases so your business has a better chance of ranking with the search engines. In a Hubspot Survey, websites with 300 pages or more indexed in Google generated significantly more leads. A good way to add pages is through a blog. Companies that blog generate 67 percent more sales leads than companies who don’t.

Step 3: Try Paid Search Ads

It can take time to improve your rankings in Google by adding pages or a blog. In the mean time, you can boost traffic with paid ads focused on various keywords. The results are immediate and you can quickly see if there is also an issue with converting visitors to leads.

Step Number 4: Evaluate Your Calls to Action

If your site generates traffic but you are not converting visitors into sales leads, you need to take a look at your website. Do you have a strong call to action? Do you have a call to action for someone who isn’t ready to buy, as well as for someone who is?  People need to know what to do next when they visit your site. If they don’t find it, they will quickly move elsewhere. The  buying process can be long. An email newsletter can help you nurture leads. Include a strong reason to sign up.

Step 5: Critique Your Home Page

Examine your home page critically. Eliminate unnecessary words. Skip the friendly “welcome” greeting and get to what visitors want to know. Tell them how you can help.  Establish authority with third party recognitions and memberships.

Step 6: Trim Down Your Form

Does your contact form ask too many questions? Eliminate any “nice to know” information and focus on the essentials. Email address and name.

Step 7:Make Phone Numbers Prominent

Phone numbers should be prominently place on all pages of the site.

Step 8: Respond quickly

Lastly, when you do get a lead, you must respond quickly.  A Harvard Business Review study of 1.25 million sales leads from 29 B2C and 13 B2B companies showed that firms which responded within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead.

I hope these suggestions help.  Would you like us to create more content about online lead generation?