Many organizations spend countless hours scrutinizing the color palette of their website during the design process and completely ignore those elements critical to lead generation and business-critical metrics. Of those business-critical metrics are using analytics appropriately to gather meaningful insights, having strong CTAs and designing clear calls-to-action. These two elements should be planned for and discussed early in the website design process, as they power success and growth for a business.
The lead generation potential of a website is directly attributed to compelling site content and having strong, clear calls-to-action. The coupling of these two elements are essential for the development of a lead-generation website.
Providing clear and strong calls to action for lead generation
- Make sure your calls to action are visible -- do not hide your calls to action
- Visually differentiate your CTAs from the website and background - Make them stand out... Don't let them blend into the background.
- Do not use small, diminutive CTAs -- Give CTAs a bold presence
- Display a phone number, if possible, in plain view on the website
- Test and iterate different button styles during a marketing campaign to ensure that they are effective. It may be a good idea to use A/B testing to experiment with CTAs.
- Ensure that text links are clear: use a blue color, underline or another differentiator to show links
- Reduce the number of distractions on a website. Remember hierarchy is important for lead generation. Create compelling content with strong CTAs.
- Do not use "Submit" or "Send" for button type... Use a more compelling message that demonstrates value: Try "Download whitepaper" or "Buy Now" instead.
- Embed forms on lead generation pages instead of links to other pages... Visitors will be more likely to submit a form that is in front of them, than link through to another page to submit a form. Also, you can use web analytics to determine your best conversion pages as well.
- Do not link call to actions to your website's homepage
- Don't overload your website with too many call to actions... Remember to build hierarchy and clarity
- Reduce the page load time by removing unnecessary elements like Flash or unoptimized images... Load time is key to visitor happiness
- Don't obsess over small design elements, website colors or a pixel perfect web design and neglect compelling content and well-planned CTAs.