7 Ways to Turn Your Website into a Lean, Mean, Lead Generating Machine
	By Kevin Fleming | February 21, 2008

We are all looking to improve the leads and sales that our websites generate for us. One of my jobs here at FOS is to come up with new ways for our clients to attract customers and entice them to buy online. I thought some of these ideas would make an interesting blog post so below I present 7 ways that can turn your website in to a Lean, Mean, Lead Generating Machine.

1. Offer a Newsletter
This is one of the best things you can do for your website. If you don’t have a newsletter yet, get one now! Having a newsletter allows you to easily market to your existing customer base. A newsletter really provides a win for everyone because it allows visitors who are interested in your products or services to stay informed, and then allows you to continue to market to them.

2. Add a Blog or News Feed
Having a blog or news feed is a great way to increase your leads. In essence it works similar to a newsletter, allowing your visitors to subscribe and receive periodic updates about new products and services. Now that I’m thinking about it I really love anything that allows you to continue to market to people long after they’ve left your website.

3. Have “Website Only” Coupons or Deals
Offering customers “website only” coupons is a great way to give your website or e-commerce store a jump start in leads or sales. When people find out they can get a better deal on the website, they will flock there and will be enticed to buy. Having daily, weekly or even monthly deals only available on the website will definitely help attract more eyeballs.

4. Provide a Personalized Visitor Experience
You may have seen online dating ads in the past that said something alone the lines of “Find singles in (fill in your city)”. This is an example of an advertiser trying to attract your attention using an ad thats personalized to your location. Using something similar to this on your website such as “Great Deals for Philadelphia PA Customers” can increase your leads and sales. Implementing something like this on your website is fairly easy to do for a technical person.

5. Use Landing Pages
If you’re bringing traffic in to your website through paid advertising, using landing pages can drastically increase the number of leads and sales your website generates. A landing page is a page made specifically for selling products and services and usually includes sales copy or a sales letter. By sending your paid advertising directly to landing pages you may see a huge increase in your conversion rate.

6. Make Your Site Feel Human
No, I’m not talking about making your website come alive like in one of those crazy horror movies. When people visit a website they like to see the person or team of people behind it. Include pictures of yourself or your company to give visitors the impression that they are dealing with another human being. This can increase conversions by providing visitors with a sense of security.

7. Add Product Ratings or Testimonials
Although user testimonials can sometimes seem gimmicky, in most cases they actually do work. I’ve found it’s best to have a product rating or review system built in to your website or store. Having a system like this allows customers to easily and automatically add ratings and reviews to individual products or services. This saves you time because it eliminates the task of gathering these reviews and testimonials manually.

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