If your website isn’t turning visitors into leads…

If your website is generating traffic, but you people aren’t subscribing to your stuff…

If you don’t have a way to convince people to come back to your site…

Then you have a lead generation problem. You need to convert traffic into leads in order to make your website make sense. Luckily, it’s a solvable problem.

According to this post from WordStream, the average conversion rate of any landing page is 2.35%.

If you can get leads from your website, then you don’t have to do some of the other less savory, less fun type of lead generation.

So basically, having effective lead generation on your website can do a combination of things for you.

It turns your website into a member of your sales team.

The weird sales team member that works all hours.

When you look at your website as a member of your sales team, what that means is there’s someone (or something, in this case) that’s working for you, to generate leads for you, around the clock.

All you need to do is figure out what to create in order to turn your website into a lead generation machine.

The ONLY reason to have a website at all is to convert traffic into leads

Put a different way, a website without a conversion mechanism is simply a brochure.

And even the best brochure gets thrown away if it gets handed to someone who doesn’t need it.

The only reason to have a website at all is so people can:

• Get to know you
• Get to know why they need your services
• And truly understand what problems you solve that they might have

That’s all background.

Your website needs to make it easy for your audience to take the next step.

To download a thing.

To watch a thing.

To engage in interactive content.

Because if you look at your analytics, chances are, most people on any given day who are coming to your site are coming to your site for the first time, which means that because they’re coming to your site for the first time, they are not necessarily ever going to come back.

If most of your traffic consists of people visiting your website for the first time, you MUST continually bring in more people in order to convert traffic into leads.

Convincing some of the people who visit your website to take the next step means they don’t have to file your website away in the future, for when they’re ready to solve the problem that you solve.

No one has the head space to remember your name, your URL, or the name of your specific offer, and the last time your target audience bookmarked a site, it was on accident. They’re looking to solve a specific problem, and they’re on your site because something (social media, a web search, ads) convinced them that you could solve it. But you can’t simply convince someone to remember you and come back another time.

That’s the problem.

Luckily, the solution is really simple. You’ve got to turn at least some of that traffic into leads.

2 ways to convert traffic into leads

Converting traffic into leads is a marketing jargon way to say that some of the people who are visiting your website need to be reminded of why they were intrigued by your stuff in the first place.

1. Create a compelling opt-in

Think of an opt-in as the reminder someone signs up for when they go to your site. I wish we lived in a world where every single website visitor became a buyer. I really do. But that’s not how things work.

Not in B2B.

Not really in any industry that isn’t selling an impulse purchase.

So, you need something that compels your visitors to join your email list, where you’ll send thoughtful emails on a weekly basis talking all about the problems they have that you can help solve.

Your opt-in can be a quiz, an on-demand webinar, a live webinar, a PDF checklist… anything.

Except a generic “join my newsletter” note. People don’t want to join your newsletter, and truthfully, the emails you’ll be sending aren’t really newsletters at all. They’re updates, and industry reports, and case studies, and testimonials. But they’re not newsletters.

2. Encourage people to take the next step

It’s not enough to ask people to opt into hearing from you via email, you need to ask them to take the next step.

When someone comes to your website for the first time, they’re at the very beginning of their customer journey.

And remember, it’s their journey, not yours.

When you think about your customer’s journey, think about every step they could possibly take, and what mindset they’re in when they take those steps.

People might not even be aware that they have a problem when they come to your site, let alone a problem that you could solve. So keep that in mind when you think about the copy on your home page.

Make it crystal clear how you help people solve problems.

And make it as clear how someone can engage with you.

Don’t make it hard for someone to hire you

If someone is coming to your website knowing:

• They have a problem worth solving
• And, they’ve decided they want you to help them solve it

Don’t make it hard for them to get in touch with you.

Don’t force everyone to watch a free training.

Make sure you make it as frictionless as possible for the people that are going to put money in your pocket sooner. If you make it easier to spend money with you, you will make more money.

tl,dr: Solution + opt-in + encouragement to take the next step in the customer journey = converting traffic into leads

If you can:

• Come up with a solution to a pesky set of problems
• Come up with a way to compel people to opt in so they never have to bookmark your website and try to remember the problems that you solve
• Encourage some people to take the next step in their customer journey

Then you’ll be able to convert traffic into leads.