Websites that are poorly designed won’t generate leads from content marketing.
We’ve been telling our customers for years that web design alone will not make a great website. Well the opposite is also true, your content marketing efforts alone will not result in new leads or customers if you don’t provide them with a well designed website that has a number of interesting and easy-to-decide on call to action options.
When a website combines valuable relevant content combined with a well designed easy to navigate website, each of these enhances the benefits other produces.
We’ve noticed a lot of small businesses are interested in the idea of content marketing as part of their lead generation tools. There is a growing understanding of the advantages and benefits it can provide when applied effectively. That’s fantastic news, right? Its great that businesses are taking content marketing more seriously, but you have to be willing to handle the problem of lead generation holistically. Most of the time, businesses don’t take a half approach by either wanting to just add too much new content to an old website or they just want to make changes to their websites and not change the content.
There is no way around the fact that building a high performance website with quality lead generation and more website visitors requires a significant investment of time and money.
Content marketing, on the other hand, is a need. In addition, if all of the leads you’re driving to your website aren’t converting or delivering mixed messages about your brand, you’ll be squandering your time and money on a content marketing programme.
When you can’t create leads through content marketing.
If your website stinks, you won’t get any leads from content marketing. The only way to tell if your website is bad is to have someone else tell you. As an example, here are a few:
Your writing is disjointed, ambiguous, or rife with slang or industry jargon.
Most often, this is the case. Many businesses build websites without thinking about how they will be used in the future. Although their business and its products and services have developed, their website has not (or someone quickly threw up a couple of extra pages without considering the site map as a whole). When corporations don’t take the time to strategize web page production as part of their overall content strategy, they end up with jargon and corporate speak filling their pages.
Rather than assisting customers, the messaging on your website pages serves internal goals. More and more firms are creating websites and populating them with detailed information about their operations as the web grows in size and complexity. ‘Wait, isn’t that what a website is for?’ you question.
That’s not what I’d say. Your website and its content should put the needs of your customers first and foremost. Design it with the user in mind, so that the prospect can easily discover the information they need and proceed smoothly through the sales process.
The information about your company should be included on your website, of course. However, far too often, I see companies neglecting their customers when they design their websites. The company’s self-promotion traps potential customers, who leave no closer to completing a purchase than they were when they arrived.
There is no way to change your mind.
This one is a no-brainer, right? For some reason, however, businesses regularly develop websites in the hopes of generating leads but provide few (or hidden!) options for conversion to visitors. How do you think visitors will become leads if each page does not include a clear call-to-action, related to the page’s content, with the chance to input contact information? Only a small percentage of your visitors will approach you and request to be included to your mailing list on their own will, in my opinion.
Get your act together
To get the most out of your content marketing, you need to consider about your website as well as your lead generation strategy. Otherwise, the visitors to your website will never become customers. In the end, you’ll have squandered your time as well as your hard-earned dollars.
Is your website lacking in the lead-generation department? Stay tuned for the second part of this post: 5 Ways to Increase Your Website’s Lead Generation.