For many companies, the ability to generate good, qualified leads is critical to achieving their sales goals. Often, simple changes to your website can dramatically improve the number of website lead generations.  This blog outlines four simple steps companies can take to optimize their website to improve lead generation.

1. Be easy to do business with. Sounds simple, but I am amazed at the number of websites where it is difficult to locate a phone number or contact form. Prominently display your phone number and contact forms throughout the architecture of your website so that site visitors can easily contact your organization.
2. Create separate contact and lead forms.  Quite often I come across websites that use their contact form as the only means of generating qualified leads. When this happens, it eliminates the ability to add targeted questions that help you qualify a form submission based on the profile of what a good lead is for your organization.  Typically a lead form asks site visitors for basic contact information like their name, company, email and phone. In addition, a website lead generation form has two to three qualification questions on the form. Common questions include asking their timeframe to purchase, product interest and the ability to leave some comments or details about their needs.
3. Use calls to action and landing pages. Give site visitors more opportunities to submit a lead form to let you know that they need help. The more call to action (CTA) triggers and landing pages on your website, the more leads you have the opportunity to convert.
4. Use the right CTAs.  The most common CTA on a website is often the “request a quote” or “request a demo” promotion. However, more than 90 percent of the people that visit your website are not ready to buy. They are simply in the information seeking, problem solving or product researching phase of the buying cycle. Take the time to develop CTAs that target to the middle and top of the sales funnel. Give site visitors the information they are looking for by developing ebooks, white papers, case studies and checklists that cater to them.

Bonus tip: Follow up. Yes, you would be surprised how many companies spend time and resources to generate leads but forget to develop a drip marketing campaign to nurture these opportunities. If you have a long buying cycle, create a lead nurturing campaign that touches each opportunity multiple times after the initial form submission. Different people prefer to be reached in different ways, so be sure to develop campaigns that include a variety of marketing activities including email marketing, social marketing, direct mail and phone calls. Also, to improve the effectiveness of your follow-up, be sure to send out content and marketing materials that are relevant to their original inquiry.