Many businesses seek my advice.
Throughout the years, I have seen many common problems marketers and business owners across various industries encounter. But one thing I’ve been seeing frequently lately, so I thought it was time for me to address it.
Many brands are focusing all their efforts on getting higher conversion rates.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s extremely important for the success of your company. For the most part, conversions ultimately translate to dollars. They encourage sales and contribute to your bottom line.
But before people can convert, they need to find your website first. So, companies put forward strategies such as increasing their spending on advertisements.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with this approach.
But wouldn’t it be great if you could increase leads and website traffic at the same time? It’s possible.
There are ways for you to get more web traffic by focusing directly on lead generation. You’re killing two birds with one stone here.
I’ve narrowed down the top 10 lead generation strategies to help you get more traffic to your website. Here they are.
1. Take advantage of your email list
With so many new content marketing strategies out there today, it can be tempting for brands to forgo the traditional approaches.
But email marketing needs to be part of your advertising foundation. Over the years, email marketing has withstood the test of time.
It’s still one of the most profitable marketing tactics.
Just take a look at how it compares to other direct marketing mediums:
Because email is generally inexpensive, it delivers a high ROI per dollar spent.
Email marketing is also extremely versatile. There are lots of different ways for brands to leverage their email subscribers.
One of those methods includes driving more traffic to your website. Encourage your email subscribers to share your content with their friends and family.
As a result, you can generate leads from new website visitors as well as your current subscribers.
Plus, email marketing software makes it easy for you to track and analyze the efficiency of your email campaigns. If you see a spike in website traffic, you’ll be able to know exactly where it came from without making assumptions.
Take advantage of those analytics. Make sure you’re tracking the source of new traffic so you can measure the effectiveness of each email you send.
This will also show you how you’re getting new leads.
2. Increase your social media presence
In this day and age, your company can’t afford to ignore social media.
Across the globe, social media usage has been increasing at a rapid rate for the past decade or so. Just take a look at the user growth across the social networks worldwide:
Having a Facebook profile isn’t enough anymore. You need to make sure you have an active presence on other platforms as well, such as:
- YouTube
- Snapchat
Do more than just create a profile. Post content on a daily basis.
Try your best to get more followers. Create posts that encourage engagement. Respond directly to your followers to entice communication.
These actions make it much easier for you to generate new leads.
Just because someone follows your brand on social media doesn’t mean they visit your website. But now, you can post links to your social pages with the intention of driving traffic directly to your website.
Constantly posting links will increase the chances of you getting an increase in clicks and traffic.
Similarly to your email strategy, you can use unique links to track where the traffic is coming from. You’ll be able to determine which social platforms are generating the most traffic and which posts get the highest engagement rates.
3. Start blogging
If your website doesn’t have a blog already, make creating one a priority.
It doesn’t matter what type of business you have or what industry you’re in. Blogging is one of my favorite ways to increase website traffic and generate new leads.
Take a minute to analyze your brand. What are you offering? Is it important enough for people to visit your site on a daily basis? How about once a week?
Realistically, the answer is probably not.
But if you have a blog, it gives people a reason to keep coming back. Blogs also help improve your SEO because you’re constantly adding new content to your page, but we’ll discuss that in greater detail later on.
As a result of your improved SEO strategy, your organic lead generation will increase as well. The more often you post, the more traffic and leads you’ll get.
Just take a look at how publishing frequency impacts the results bloggers see on their websites:
The strongest results came from the most frequent posts.
You can even pair your blogging strategy with some of the other tactics I’ve previously discussed.
Each time you write a new blog post, you can email it to your subscribers. Post about it on social media. Now you’re able to generate new leads and get more traffic from multiple sources with just one blog post.
Take your blogging strategy to the next level by guest blogging on other websites. While you may not think this is beneficial to you, it’s a great way to increase your site traffic.
That’s because you can use guest posts to consistently build backlinks leading to your website.
Now, readers who may not be familiar with your brand can click on those links and be redirected to your site as new leads.
4. Produce video content
Consumers want more videos from brands.
That’s why 87% of marketers produce video content online. Videos yield a 157% increase in organic search traffic as well.
Furthermore, 46% of consumers act after watching a video advertisement.
Give the people what they want. Your business should have a YouTube channel set up, and you need to add new videos to it on a regular basis.
You don’t need to spend a fortune to produce video content. It’s easy to create and edit your videos in-house.
People would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. This is a top reason why marketers say video content helped them increase website traffic.
You need to have videos on your website.
Add videos to your emails and social media pages. You can even embed video links into your blogs.
This is a strategy I have been using in my blog posts for years now. Here’s an example of one I used recently:
Ultimately, videos can help you generate new leads and increase your website traffic.
If you’re not producing them right now, you need to start as soon as possible to maximize your reach.
5. Build unique infographics
In addition to videos, you can also use other visual elements to enhance your content.
Infographics are another top option for you to consider. By creating unique infographics, you can drastically improve your website traffic.
You can use these visuals in many different ways.
Here’s something to keep in mind. When people use search engines, they don’t always just look for web results.
In fact, research shows that 63% of searches via Google Images result in clicks that generate website traffic.
If people are searching the web for images, you’ll be in the relevant search results if you have infographics on your site.
Plus, once you develop a reputation for producing high quality and accurate infographics, you’ll become an authoritative source of information.
Now other websites can use your infographics to enhance their own content. As a result, you’ll get more referral links, which will drive more traffic to your site.
As previously discussed, backlinks will continue to improve your SEO ranking, which will ultimately improve your organic search traffic as well. This way, you’re generating new leads from multiple sources.
Just make sure your infographics are always accurate and up to date. Any time new research gets conducted, update your old infographics with new data.
6. Focus on your goal
To come up with an effective lead generation strategy, one of the first things you need to do is determine your goal.
Sure, your company may have several goals. But just stick with one at a time.
Are you trying to sell your newest product? Do you want to add new subscribers to your email list? Are you trying to get website visitors to download your ebook?
Once you choose one goal, you can design your site accordingly. Here’s an example from the Orange Hill Development website:
Based on this landing page, it’s clear what their goal is. They obviously want to get website visitors to download their ebook.
You also want to make sure all your other promotions are aligned with this goal and follow the same approach.
For example, let’s say you send an email to your subscribers about your newest product. You provide a link for them to click on to increase your website traffic.
If that landing page doesn’t provide them with more information or a way to purchase the product, it’s not in line with your goal.
In this example, the link should bring website visitors to a page where they can buy the product with a couple of clicks.
7. Create simple forms
Once people land on your website, you want to make sure a new lead is generated.
Otherwise, your increased traffic is wasted.
One of the best ways to do this is to have lead generation forms on your homepage as well as other pages of your site. That way, no matter where the visitor navigates, they will always see the form.
But you need to make sure you’re only asking for important information. You want this process to be as quick as possible.
If it looks as if your lead generation form is going to take forever to fill out, people won’t do it.
Take a look at how conversion rates are affected by the number of form fields required:
Based on this research, it appears three is the magic number. But generally speaking, you can see that conversion rates decrease as the number of form fields increase.
In some instances, the only thing you might need is the email address.
Now, you have a way to contact your subscribers for follow-up information, which can ultimately be used to drive more traffic to your site, as I previously discussed.
8. Broadcast live videos
When it comes to marketing, live video streaming is a relatively new concept.
But many social media platforms have recently implemented this feature, so it’s time for you to take advantage of it.
- Facebook Live
- YouTube Live
- Instagram Live Story
All of these are ways for you to connect with your audience. This also relates to the previously discussed topic of having an active social media presence.
Your live video streams can be used to get more people to visit your website.
Direct them to a landing page you use to generate new leads. Now you’re able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, live video streaming also has a positive impact on sales:
To get the full effect, you should be going live on a regular basis.
You’ll gain a strong audience of viewers and increase the chances of driving more website traffic and generating leads.
9. Use influencer marketing to establish credibility
If your website is credible, you’ll be able to generate more site traffic.
One of the best ways to gain credibility is to leverage your relationships with influencers. You can approach this tactic in many different ways.
If you have the means, you can use celebrities to promote your brand.
That’s because these people are already known and trusted. Working with a celebrity shows your brand is legitimate.
Their endorsements will reach a wider audience. The problem is it’s obvious to consumers these celebrities are getting paid to pitch your products or services.
As an alternative solution, you can use micro influencers to increase your product credibility.
One of the top reasons why I’m an advocate for using micro influencers is because they have high engagement rates with their followers.
Get these people to post about your products, and you will get more traffic to your website.
Your new leads will be more likely to trust your brand if the recommendation comes from a social influencer.
Now you’ll have an easier time generating conversions and ultimately drive higher profits.
10. Improve your SEO
A great way to generate leads and traffic is through search engine optimization.
As you can see from what we’ve already talked about, implementing some of these other lead generation strategies will automatically help your SEO.
But by using other tools to improve your SEO, such as keyword research, you’ll be able to get more traffic from organic search results.
That’s because when someone is looking for something online, whether it’s a product or service, they’ll probably start with a Google search.
In fact, 85% of consumers use Google to help them find information about products before they make a purchase.
Someone doesn’t even have to know your company exists right now. But you can still get them to visit your website if you can master your SEO strategy.
Now that they’ve found your site from a search engine, it will be easier for you to generate a new lead as well.
Conclusion
Website traffic and lead generation.
These concepts are different, but each of them is crucial when it comes to the success of your business.
The key here is finding a way to improve both of them at the same time.
I recommend you shift your focus to lead generation. If you apply the strategies I’ve listed above to generate new leads, you’ll also be able to increase your website traffic.
More traffic and new leads will translate to higher conversion rates and extra cash in your pocket.
How is your company increasing your website traffic by scaling lead generation tactics?