Can your website generate leads?

July 1st, 2007 No Comments

Amongst Australian SME’s, there are 2 sides to the ”generating leads from your website” camp:

Those that do
Those that don’t.

For those that do of course, this is a dumb question…

For those that don’t, we find that the reason is often:

Lack of understanding about the purpose of a website
Fear and confusion about the web
Bad experience, let down and failure.

Let’s get this straight, if you currently:

Want to grow your business
Have sales reps
Generate leads by advertising in any medium (that’s most SME’s) . . .

then the chances are you could be generating leads through your website.

For SME’s a website must be more than just an exercise in branding, design and information. It needs to be about lead generation.

Now, if you think that websites don’t generate quality leads, then consider this: In the last 6 months our own websites have generated leads from organisations such as:

Coles group
Microsoft
Simplot
Department of Education and Training NSW
Dubbo Shire Council
Westpac Bank
Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria
Victoria Police
The South Australian Government.

Our clients’ experiences are very similar. You see, the keys to generating quality leads are:

Your understanding of your prospects (WIIFM)
The quality and relevance of the information that you publish
Your unique selling points
The techniques that you use to ensure a conversion.

If your website is not generating quality leads, then your company is experiencing something akin to forgetting to place your ad in the yellow pages… Not happy Jan!

Brett Gilbertson - Web Marketer About the author: As the owner of a web marketing business, I’ve spent the last 7 years studying ways to boost the conversion rates of my clients’ websites. Today, our best websites convert up to 20% of visits into leads and 50% of leads to sales. The target for our clients is a minimum 5% conversion rate on visits to leads which is staggeringly more than the typical website at 0.1%.