4 Tools To Keep Your Website Generating Leads … And More Leads

The phrase “Turn your website into a lead generation machine” sounds a mite sales-y but in fact, that’s what most business owners hope to get from their websites: visitors come in and get transformed into live leads via sign-ups and opt-ins.

In fact, lead generation components have become the core of successful websites. By way of analogy, you might admire a car’s upholstery, GPS and smooth styling, but the vehicle won’t do you much good till you add an engine.

Like most car parts, lead generation components – including your landing page and forms – aren’t built to last forever. The Internet changes and so does your business. So these components are not “over and done” once you take delivery of your website. To get more subscribers, you need to keep making changes. That means replacing the “work hard” rule with “work smart.

You’ll find two ways to work smart: hire help or find tools to DIY.

#1: Leverage your hiring decisions and decide when to be a DIY webmaster..

When you’re doing something for the first time, or you’ve got something that will only need to be done once, you can shorten the learning curve by hiring someone to do it for you or teach you the short cuts.

For instance, when you set up your website for the first time, you can spend hours figuring out what you need and what goes where. Alternatively, you can hire someone to get it done. The question to ask is, “Do you plan on doing this again for more websites? Will you maintain the websites yourself or hire an assistant?”

If you’re going to be a dedicated DIYer, you can choose again: take a free or paid course and/or hire someone to review your work. Your decision to spend time and money will be influenced by how much you’ll use the information in future.

I’ve studied WordPress extensively because I use it every day for myself and my clients. If you have just one site and a business focused on law, accounting, planning, or coaching, you could learn just enough to know who to hire.

Ideally your copywriter or consultant will keep your website humming along for you, by recommending resources and answering quick questions. In fact, just today I got a message from a former client, asking me to decode a message from her domain registrar.

#2: Choose tools to make the job easier.

These days you may be able to enjoy the best of both worlds: taking control as a DIYer without a huge learning curve. Starting with WordPress itself, more and more tools have become available at varying price levels.

For instance, these days websites aren’t just about 4 pages. Many (most in some fields) build their websites to be lead generation machines. After all, when you think about it, that’s the goal of a lot of your marketing activity. You can create videos, hold webinars and write blog posts till the cows come home … but all these activities lead to one place, the form and landing page where your visitors enter their email addresses.

You can even create your website without a techie or designer!

At one time, even the simplest tool, such as an exit pop-up, required significant, expert coding. Today you can create a professional looking landing page in a proven format, with no coding, in about 5 minutes. You can set up popups and feature boxes — and even avoid annoying repeat visitors with repeated messages. Split testing? Another 5 minutes. Period.

What’s more challenging now is …

With all the tools available, as well as opportunities to hire support, you need to know exactly what you need. The key is to identify your needs not by specific tool (“I need an exit popup for this page”) but by function (“I need a way to catch attention of visitors who skim through the site at breakneck pace”). “I need to segment my list,” becomes, “I need to stop inviting people to an event after they’ve accepted and paid.”

Additionally, you face a new tradeoff. The cheapest tool may end up costing the most because you have trouble figuring out how to use it.

So your questions become: “Does this tool do what I want? Will I feel comfortable using it? Do I have to pay someone to implement the function for me, which will add to the cost? Will I dread using it so much I’ll never accomplish the task?”

For example, let’s review 4 tools to help your website generate leads.

Icegram is completely free to use as a plug-in. They’ve got nifty cools like “toast” (boxes appearing in corners) as well as popups.

PlugMatter is a program with a free “lite” level that will be adequate for many business owners. You can create a simple feature box – a form that sits on top of your site, inviting visitors to sign up for your lead magnet. I created one in about 10 minutes with the free version of PlugMatter on my site, MidlifeCareerStrategy.com

Incidentally, I was blown away by their support. When I accidentally destroyed by site by entering the wrong code, the PlugMatter people got everything back in a matter of minutes.

OptinMonster helps you create forms and do A/B testing on forms. I’ve heard their support works well.

I use LeadPages because it’s so easy to create landing pages as well as forms. It costs more than other options but I can do everything myself. I have seen in increase in subscribers since I got LeadPages along with an increase in my own sanity.

I’m an affiliate of everything but Icegram, but no single tool will be right for everyone. I recommend these steps:

1 – Start with identifying what you need. In some markets you won’t need to be active in list-building because you get clients from many different sources. In some markets, exit popups will backfire; in others, they’re practically expected.

2 – Choose the lowest cost resource. Test it immediately to see if you’ll like using it; you usually have 30 days to decide. Most software companies cheerfully give refunds if you can’t use their products.

For instance, I really like the ThriveThemes Lead plug-in, but for some reason it didn’t work for me.

I also liked OptimizePress, but the plug-in doesn’t work with my theme and I wasn’t ready to revise my website. If I were starting over, or creating a new blog, I might. Both companies have loyal supporters who swear by them and both cheerfully refunded my money within the 30-day guarantee period.

3 – If you can’t get the lowest cost resource to work, look for something that fits your needs more closely and/or fits your work style. Buy only what you’re willing to test immediately.

So… what’s your approach to choosing services and tools? What works for you and what’s been a nightmare? Answer in the comment section below.And check out this free webinar