"THE GROWTH BLOG" - A RESOURCE FOR B2B LEADERS, MARKETERS, SALES & SERVICE PROFESSIONALS

Since the pandemic, user behaviour online has rapidly evolved, and so has their purchase journey. Even if they complete their purchase offline with their favourite salesperson, you can be sure that earlier decision stages were influenced by online search. 

Simply put, to make an impact with your website today, you need to make one hell of a first impression, and you have seconds to do it. Once engaged, you must keep that visitor on your site and exposed to your offer for as long as possible. 

Here are the 7 key website elements for effective b2b lead generation.

1. SEO
2. Powerful landing pages
3. Lead magnetS
4. Exciting & Engaging Blog Content
5. Forms
6. CTAs
7. Good User experience
   
   

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

You can have the greatest website on the planet but it's not going to matter if it can't be found. You’ll need an SEO strategy to get your content ranking #1 on Google when people search for solutions to their problems.

B2B companies should always keep their website and its content optimised. Without effective SEO, the only people that will see your webpages are those who already know your company name and type in your URL. 

Here are the top 5 elements you need to build an effective SEO strategy.

• Search topics
• Subtopics keywords
• Pillar pages
• Topic clusters
• Title tags and meta descriptions

Learn more about these elements here. 

2. Powerful Landing Pages


A landing page is where searchers end up when they click on a CTA or a link in their searches. Powerfully-written and well-designed landing pages engage your target audience and draw them into your lead magnet. If you do a great job they will stick around; if you don't, they will be gone in a flash. Make sure your site has the ability to build landing pages easily and create content quickly to reflect the latest changes to your business. They must be able to capture a visitor's information via forms. 

In b2b marketing, your target audience will often find your landing page through your marketing emails or newsletters, SEM, CTAs across your website, blogs, social media, paid ads, events and more.

3. Lead magnets

A lead magnet is a resource or offer that entice your target audience to receive in exchange for their contact information such as name, email, and phone number. To generate leads willing to give you more detailed contact or company information, your lead magnet needs to be perceived as a valuable solution to their problems. 

Lead magnets can come in multiple formats; such as complimentary consultations, free trials, downloadable items such as whitepapers, ebooks, reports, educational videos, infographics and more.

Put your valuable lead magnets behind a form and ask your visitors for their contact information.

4. Exciting & Engaging Blog Content
 

The statistics around blogging are undeniable. Companies that blog generate 55% more website visitors, a 67% increase in lead generation, and have 434% more indexed pages by Google. 

Blogging works because it adds lots of indexable content to your site (think SEO) offering the search spiders, and more importantly your visitors, engaging content that is fresh and up-to-date. It is vital to building a blog that is fully integrated on your site and not sitting off to one side on another domain name. Otherwise all that valuable "SEO juice" you create by your regular blogging simply leaks away.

Blogging is probably the single most important activity you can engage in to attract visitors to your site. But be warned, it requires commitment. Once per week is really the minimum. Ensure you allocate the role of "blog publisher and editor" to someone. They don't have to do all the work, but they are the one responsible for making sure blogs are posted on time and on topic.

5. Forms

A form is where your visitors give you their contact information in exchange for your offer and therefore essential to lead generation. It’s usually placed on a landing page with one specific offer with short and sharp information about it.

A form consists of fields for visitors to provide their details such as Name, Last name, Email, Phone number. Once they submit, then, voila! — you have a new lead!  

Keep in mind that your visitors will be more willing to give their details if they see value in your offer.

6. Call-To-Action (CTAs)

A Call-To-Action (CTAs) is an invitation that prompts a specific action in your visitors and keeps the lead engine running by facilitating easy movement between stages of the buying journey.

It’s best practice to have a CTA that is action-oriented, eye-catching within your landing page, blog or email, include a clear value proposition and aligns with the landing page, email copy, blog copy that surrounds it. 

Use your CTAs as links to core content on your site. For example, use CTAs to link from your home page to core content offers on your site such as "download this free eBook" or "Take a free 30 day trial." (see the CTA and the end of this blog for an example!)

Test the effectiveness of your CTAs. Try different wording, different placements, different colours and imagery. A/B testing is an excellent structured process for figuring which CTAs convert best.

7. A Good User Experience

You can nail points 1 through 6, but if site visitors have a bad experience (such as broken or slow-to-load site pages, poor design, or confusing navigation), then all your efforts were still for naught.

How do you double-check? Easy.Google will do it for you. Log into your Google Webmaster account and see if they notified you about any errors their spiders encountered:

We've found it to be a great and easy way to stay on top of the technical aspects of our site. If you want a quick overview, you can check through a Website Grader.

Enabling your site with these key elements maximises your chance of getting found by your target audience and once discovered, engaging with them and building a meaningful two-way relationship. The new way of buying means using your site to dynamically interact with your buyers rather than as a passive online brochure.