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How To Generate Leads From A Website In 2022 – Full Guide

Published on April 27, 2021

Your website is your storefront. If you want to generate leads for your business, it’s important that potential customers can find out more about what you offer on the site – and become prospects in the process. But how do we optimize our sites?

Today we will show you how to do it in ten simple steps…

Step #1: Create a Super Valuable Lead Magnet

A direct magnet is something that you give away for free in exchange for the potential customer’s email address.

It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:

An ebook.
A case study.
A cheat sheet.
An email program.
A video program.
An app.
A reduction.
etc.

What’s that your guide magnet provides a ton of value to them.

It means that your lead magnet should offer an answer to a problem your prospective customer is struggling with.

Ideally, that problem should be the same or related to the one your paid products solve.

For example:

Nick Stephenson, a best-selling author, and a marketing coach, offers free video training for writers on how to find their first 10,000 readers.

It consists of these 3 videos:

This lead magnet is super valuable to his target audience of authors who want to make a living from writing.

It also fits well into Nick’s sales funnel. He teaches authors how to market their work, so the lead magnet gives potential customers a taste of the value that he provides with his paid products.

Step #2: Create a Separate Page for Your Lead Magnet

You need to create another page to your lead magnet and then add the link to it to the navigation bar on your homepage.

This way, not only it will draw the attention of your site visitors, but it will also serve to strengthen the value of your guide magnet in the eyes of potential customers. Something that warrants a separate page must be worth checking out, right?

For example:

Chris Von Wilpert is the creator of the Rocketship Agency that helps entrepreneurs get more visitors with content marketing and convert those visitors into paying customers.

He’s probably best known for helping Noah Kagan grow the Sumo site and email list.
Chris offers two lead magnets on the Rocketship Agency site:

When you click on that link, you are taken to a page on another site, Content Mavericks (it is Chris’ training company where he teaches people to get more visitors with less content), where you can download the case study:

Step #3: Add a Feature Box For Your Homepage

A traditional feature box is an opt-in form on the peak of a homepage.

However, nowadays features boxes that ask you to click a button to get the opt-in form are increasingly common.

For Instance, Derek Halpern, a professional marketer who popularized feature boxes in the early 2010s, used this feature box on his website Social Triggers back in the day:

Now take a look at the feature box that he uses today:

When you click on the”Click To Get Free Updates” button, you access this opt-in form:

Step #4 Insert a Smart Bar For Your Website

A smart bar is a horizontal bar at the very top of a site that has a link to your lead magnet.

It can serve as yet another means to nudge the possible client towards downloading it.

For example:

Chris Von Wilpert has a Wise bar on his Rocketship Agency homepage which promotes one of his lead magnets:

When you click on the”Get The Case Study” button, you are taken to the previously discussed case study page.

Step #5: Insert an Opt-In Form Into Your About Page

Back in the early 2010s, Derek Halpern advised adding several opt-in forms for your About page.

Here is the template that he used he borrowed from Copyblogger:

Prime folks for your site’s content and why it is important.
Opt-in form.
Show social proof.
Opt-in form.
Show private back story.
Opt-in form.

It may seem overly aggressive, but actually, it is just proactive.

Here’s how Derek clarified this strategy:

“If people go to your about page to discover all about your website, you’ve got an opt-in form prepared for them. If they’re there to see if you’re credible, opt-in form prepared. And if they would like to know about you? No issue there either. Opt-in form ready.”

He does not comply with this template anymore, though. There’s only one opt-in form on his About page now:

you might want to experiment with the number of opt-in forms on your About page to find out what works best for your company.

You should definitely have at least one, however.

Step #6: Insert an Opt-In Form To Your Blog Posts

It is probably safe to say that somebody who has made it all the way through to the end of your blog post could be interested in more free content.

That’s why it’s the ideal opportunity to make them subscribe to an email list.

For example:

If you read an article on Chris Guillebeau’s blog, you will find this opt-in form at the end of it:

Step #7: Keep Content Upgrades

A content upgrade is a lead magnet that is pertinent to a specific piece of content.

Content upgrades allow you to be more precise with the value that you supply. The fact that the potential client is reading that piece of content indicates that they’re interested in that particular subject. That makes it much easier to create a lead magnet that appeals to them.

For instance:

Sumo’s”7 Must-Have Instagram Advertising Tools For Rapid Growth” gets Lots of organic traffic.

To get the most out of that traffic that they added a content upgrade to it. It is a swipe file that includes:

The marketing plan they used to grow their Instagram account to 100K followers in a matter of months.
Standard operating procedures to take your account to another level.

They have a link to it in the peak of the post right below the name and in the bottom of the place where they seamlessly transition from the conclusion of the post to pitching the direct magnet.

You can learn more about Sumo’s approach to content updates by watching their video”#1 Way To Build An Email List FAST (Free Step-By-Step Method)” in which Chris von Wilpert explains it:

Step #8: Insert an Exit-Intent Pop-Up To Your Website

An exit intent pop-up is a pop-up that reveals the visitor an opt-in form when they are going to leave the website.

At that point, you don’t have anything to lose, so you may as well make one last-ditch attempt to receive their email address.

For example:

Derek Halpern uses this exit-intent pop-up on his Social Triggers website:

Step #9: Insert Social Proof To Your Website

One of these principles is social proof.

It states that when we’re unsure what to do, we look at what others do.

In the business context, this implies that if a prospective customer isn’t sure about taking a particular action, while it’s downloading your lead magnet or purchasing your product, they will look for cues that indicate what other people think about you.

That is why it’s essential to reassure them by supplying as much social proof as possible.

Displaying “As Seen On” badges.
Sharing relevant numbers.
Sharing relevant accomplishments.
Featuring customer testimonials.
Featuring customer case studies.

There’s is not such a thing as”too much social proof”.

You ought to go out of your way to get as much social evidence as possible and then prominently display it all on your website.

For instance:

Adam Enfroy provides a great deal of social proof on his homepage.

Above the fold, you find a feature box where he shares the number of monthly visitors that his blog gets (500,000).

As you scroll down, you will come across these two screenshots that show his site’s referring domains growth and traffic growth:

Below those screenshots, you may find”As Seen On” badges:

And an endorsement from Ryan Robinson:

Then there is an opt-in form that shows the number of email subscribers on Adam’s email list (43,000+):

There is also a summary of his approach to blogging that includes a few paragraphs about his own journey:

Again, there is no such thing as too much social evidence, so in case you have something which can help you boost your credibility, be sure to display it on your website!

Step #10: Run A/B Tests

It’s important to understand that you will never know what works and what does not until you run an A/B test and analyze the results.

Here’s how A/B tests work:

You create two versions of the same page: variant A and variant B. There should be just one difference between them. That is the element that you are testing.
You split the traffic to that page between the two versions. You send half of it to variant A and half of it to version B.
You then see which variant converted better and maintain the winning version.

You may use A/B testing to optimize your site for lead generation. Consider experimenting with images, copy, social proof, etc..

Note that conversion rate optimization shouldn’t be something that you do once and then forget about it, it should be a constant process of improvement.

Additionally, although any decent A/B testing software will take care of the statistical heavy lifting for you, you may still want to brush up on statistics so that you would understand the fundamentals behind A/B testing.

More Lead Generation Tips

Alright, so now that your website is optimized for lead generation, here are a few more hints…

Tip #1: Understand the Big Picture

You need to view lead generation in the context of your sales funnel.

For example:

Here at ClickFunnels, we encourage a sales funnel model called The Value Ladder:

You provide a prospective client a lead magnet (bait) in exchange for their email address.
You then present that client with a different offer, the center one, which is a more expensive product.
You then present that customer with the final offer, the backend one, which is your most expensive item.
It’s known as the Value Ladder because every offer is more valuable than the preceding one so as the person progresses through your sales funnel they are climbing a value ladder so to speak.

Lead generation is just the first step of that Value Ladder, but it is arguably the most important one since it sets up the connection between you and the client.

To put it simply, if you exceed their expectations with your guide magnet, they’ll be more open to your subsequent offers.

But if you disappoint them, they’ll be skeptical of whatever it is that you would like to sell to them in the future.

That is why you will need to always keep the big picture in mind as you are generating leads.

Tip #2: Pay Attention To Traffic Quality

When you are struggling to generate leads with your website, you need to pay attention to two things:

The website itself.
The visitors that you send to this website.

You see, you can have the best site in the world, but if you send the wrong kind of people to it, you won’t have the ability to convert them into leads.

So make sure that the traffic you drive to your website is composed of your ideal customers.

Tip #3: High-Quality Content

It’s important to understand that each piece of content that a possible customer is exposed to adds to their overall impression of your company.

Including every tweet, every Facebook update, every Instagram post, every YouTube video, each blog post, etc..

And each time you don’t meet their expectations, the odds of them subscribing to your email list and purchasing your products decrease.

This means that you need to make sure that your content is always top-notch, wherever you publish it. Every bit of content matters!

Tip #4: Give More Value Than You Promised

You have probably heard the expression:

“Underpromise and overdeliver”.

Now, the”underpromise” part is quite questionable, because in the event that you don’t guarantee the prospective customer something super valuable in return for their email address you will not get that email address.

So you wish to promise them something awesome and then deliver what you promised.

But the best way to impress a potential customer is to overdeliver, meaning supply more value than you promised.

For example:

Have a look at the Content Mavericks to welcome email that you get when you subscribe to their email list.

It starts with a message from Chris von Wilpert:

Then you get the URL to the promised case study + 2 other case studies:

Then you get more links to various free sources:

And finally, there is this question from Chris:

Overdelivers by giving a bunch of additional resources.
Conducts customer research by asking what business the potential customer is in.
It is a great way to begin the connection between him and the potential customer.

Overdelivering is particularly important here because it reassures the potential client that Chris’s paid products won’t be a letdown either.

Tip #5: Build Your Reputation

Social proof isn’t just”As Seen On” badges, customer testimonials, and impressive numbers. The most significant social proof is your standing in your industry.

When you’re recognized as a professional by your peers, potential customers will be more open to giving you their contact details and buying your goods.

So work on building that reputation by networking, attending conferences, giving speeches, appearing on podcasts, writing books, etc..

It will make everything else much easier.

Conclusion

The first step to converting potential customers into leads is understanding the basics of lead generation. Our team at GetTheMost will help you get up to speed with these fundamentals, so make sure you sign-up for our educational webinar series!

Produce a super valuable lead magnet.
Add opt-in forms to your homepage, about page, and blog posts.
Improve your content with content upgrades.
Use exit-intent pop-ups.
Supply as much social evidence as possible.
There is no denying that this will require work.

But that is the best way to turn your website into a lead generation machine!

Just bear in mind that just collecting email addresses isn’t enough. You want to convert those leads into paying clients.

And what is the best way to do this? Sales funnels.

We made our 5 Day Challenge to show you how to build one.

Generate unlimited leads.
Create your first lead magnet.
Build your initial sales funnel.
Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence.
And start your funnel!
…in just five days.

So don’t wait.

Click the link below if you’re ready for the next step — to build your high-converting sales funnel that will make the most of your marketing efforts!

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