Today I’m going to show you how to optimize your website for lead generation so you can capture lead intent, find qualified prospects, and handle sales outreach more efficiently.
But first there’s something you should know. Most websites are donkey channels.
They deliver information passively, relying on visitors to know what they need and where to find it. That can result in lengthy customer journeys and lost leads and revenue.
In contrast, a lead generation website is a unicorn channel. It’s designed to attract prospects, understand intent, and nurture leads—streamlining sales outreach and filling your sales pipeline.
So how can you implement lead gen unicorn tactics on your website successfully? Find out how an automated lead generation tool like Customers.ai can put you in the fast lane to Unicorn Land:
- What is a lead generation website?
- Clarify user intent
- Develop lead capture forms
- Create valuable lead magnets
- Perfect your calls-to-action
- Personalize website content
What is a lead generation website?
A lead generation website is engineered to guide prospects through a sales funnel. Its primary goal is to convert visitors to leads.
A site that generates leads effectively can benefit both your business and your visitors. It provides prospects with useful resources while collecting invaluable data you can use to nurture and convert leads.
Building a successful lead gen site requires:
- Understanding who your ideal buyer is and how their customer journey works
- Knowing how to create and serve content for each stage of the sales funnel
- Adopting the right tools to capture lead intent and automate lead qualification
Other aspects like site performance and security are also important in building trust. A well-maintained lead generation site will convert more visitors than one which falls short, so knowing how to fix SSL certificate errors and address other technical snafus will serve you well.
5 Ways to Optimize Your Lead Generation Website
There are tons of ways to optimize your website for lead generation. Let’s look at some of the top tactics and tools.
Lead Generation Website Tip #1: Clarify user intent
Your business might have dozens of potential offers available to entice prospects. But not every offer is the right fit for every site visitor.
That’s why understanding user intent is essential. To guide visitors in the right direction, you need to know why they’ve landed on your site and what kind of information they’re seeking.
In some cases, the answer might seem obvious. For example, one of our recent blog posts explains how to check Instagram analytics.
It’s safe to say that people reading this post want to know about Instagram marketing strategy. So we added a relevant offer into the blog post: an opportunity to access Customers.ai autoresponder tools for Instagram and Facebook.
But what if user intent doesn’t seem so obvious? Ask visitors directly! With Customers.ai web chat, you can engage site visitors proactively and ask them how you can help.
In fact, when you opened this blog post, our live Customers.ai chatbot probably greeted you. Here’s how the live web chat looks:
First, our live chat tool asks visitors to choose the topic they’re interested in. Then it gives them a few options ranging from tools to business types.
We can use their replies to understand their pain points and goals. We can also get a better sense of their intent and respond accordingly.
Lead Generation Website Tip #2: Develop lead capture forms
Recognizing intent is just one task our web chat tool can tackle. After prospects choose a topic, the Customers.ai bot tells them a little about what they can achieve with the tool they picked.
We can (and do) share a lot of cool automation hacks via web chat. But connecting with prospects via multiple channels is always a smart move.
So if prospects are interested, we ask if we can send them more info via email. Since Customers.ai web chat has lead capture capabilities, we can get their contact details—ranging from names to email addresses to phone numbers— and integrate them into a business phone system right then and there.
Setting up a similar lead capture form is easy. In Customers.ai, go to Chat Starters and open the Website Chat Widgets menu.
Create a new website chat widget and add an intro message to welcome site visitors. Give them some options to choose from and link each to a separate dialogue. Here, we included six options.
Next, head over to Dialogues and create unique conversations for each of the options you provided. When building our live chatbot, we created a mini quiz before offering a free gift.
Remember to keep the dialogue chatty so it sounds less like a bot and more like a helpful resource. You can even add short pauses between questions and responses to make your chatbot more natural.
Then create your lead capture form, using a separate widget for each datapoint. For example, we started off by asking prospects for their names. We made sure to save their responses as a First Name attribute so we could add them to our contact list.
You also have the option to add tags throughout the workflow. In this example we added tags every time a prospect provided information so we could keep track of which questions they’ve answered.
Lead Generation Website Tip #3: Create useful lead magnets
Although lead capture forms are incredibly powerful, they can’t collect contact details without prospects’ permission. And in most cases, prospects want to make sure there’s something in it for them before they give away their personal info.
That’s where lead magnets come into play. Lead magnets offer value that prospects can’t get elsewhere—making it worthwhile for them to provide their (highly valuable) contact information in exchange.
You can choose from a long list of lead magnet options and formats. Downloadable guides, PowerPoint templates, insightful reports, and exclusive webinars are all great for attracting leads.
For example, our Customers.ai bot offers a list of top tactics to prospects who indicated an interest in web chat. In exchange for the insights, they provide their contact details.
You can set up a similar workflow in your web chat dialogue. After you’ve collected contact info, add a Zapier trigger to prompt our email marketing platform to send the lead magnet.
Then you can shift the dialogue back to engaging with your new lead. In our web chat, we ask leads if they’d like to learn more about another topic—which helps us better understand their intent and how we can help.
Lead Generation Website Tip #4: Perfect your calls-to-action (CTAs)
Your lead magnets might be totally bananas. But they may not get the traction you intended if you don’t tell prospects exactly how to access your lead magnets.
So what’s the solution? Create clear, compelling CTAs that prospects can’t resist clicking.
For example, our web chat uses the CTA Claim My Prize to get prospects excited about the lead magnet we created just for them.
We also love offering free trials of Customers.ai and free access to our latest tools. Throughout our website, you’ll see CTAs like Get Customers.ai Free—which are great for grabbing attention and getting leads into our funnel.
Some of our offers and lead magnets are a bit more exclusive and only appear on a dedicated landing page. With their singular focus and streamlined website design, these landing pages are specially engineered for lead generation. Apply a logo from the stock of free logos or make your own.
For example, one of our lead magnets is an Instagram webinar hosted by Customers.ai CEO Larry Kim. It shows marketers how to 10x Instagram growth and engagement via automation
When prospects click the Save My Free Seat CTA, the landing page asks for contact info and details about their Instagram account and social media engagement. We can analyze the info that leads provide to determine if they’re a good fit for our product.
Lead Generation Website Tip #5: Personalize content for return visitors
In most cases, it takes multiple touchpoints to close a sale. Before they’re ready to buy, your prospects may visit your website multiple times to look for resources or review pricing.
You don’t have to treat returning prospects like strangers. Instead, you can make them feel right at home.
Our web chat tool makes it easy to create different starters for new and returning users. If you’ve already visited our site at least once, the Customers.ai bot will greet you with “Welcome back!”
Setting up separate chat starters only takes a second. Create a new chat starter and click the Edit Display Rules tab.
Then change the settings so that it displays for returning visitors only. You can link the same options and dialogues or set up totally new ones to appeal to more informed prospects.
Simplify Sales Outreach With a Lead Generation Website
From lead magnets to A/B tests, these optimization tips can help you find, qualify, nurture, and convert prospects. With automated lead capture tools like Customers.ai, you can transform a donkey website into a unicorn marketing channel.
Why wait to begin optimizing your website for lead generation? Grab your free Customers.ai trial now and get started with our website lead generation tools today.
Important Next Steps
- See what targeted outbound marketing is all about. Capture and engage your first 500 website visitor leads with Customers.ai X-Ray website visitor identification for free.
- Talk and learn about sales outreach automation with other growth enthusiasts. Join Customers.ai Island, our Facebook group of 40K marketers and entrepreneurs who are ready to support you.
- Advance your marketing performance with Sales Outreach School, a free tutorial and training area for sales pros and marketers.
