How to generate leads online – I

A white paper titled ‘The Financial Advisor’s Crash Course in Generating Leads Online’ published by Advisor Websites shares interesting insights on how advisors can generate leads online.

In order to generate high quality leads online it’s vital to maintain a strong web presence that attracts your ideal client.

Lead generating website evoke trust and professionalism from it’s visitors. The site creates a positive first impression of the firm. And before that? First, people have to visit your website. Here are few tips to create a good website.

Easy to find

A great website isn’t that great if no one uses it. Step one for building a lead generating website? Getting traffic.

There’s a lot of technical chatter that goes into creating a website that’s ranks highly in search engines like Google, but what’s the big picture? SEO is all about making sure the people who are looking for you online, are finding you.

When a referral searches for you online, they’ll likely type in your name or the name of your firm.

Suppose, however, someone in your city or town is looking for an advisor, but they’ve never heard of you. They may use a search phrase that’s much more vague like “financial advisor in Mumbai.” Websites that rank highly for more generic search phrases are more likely to receive traffic and generate leads. Try putting in other key search phrases into Google and see how your website ranks.

Easy to Navigate

Most website visitors will spend less than 15 seconds searching for the information they’re looking for on a website. Nine times out of 10, web users will navigate away from the website and they won’t come back if they can’t find the information they’re looking for.

The traffic to your advisor website can be broken down into two general groups - prospects (including referrals) and your existing clients. Consider the different types of information each group will be looking for.

Think about your own advisor website and whether your website is easy to navigate for prospects and clients:

• Is the navigation in a consistent location across every page of your website?

• Are the titles of your pages clear and easy to understand?

• Does your website follow the “3-click-rule?”

Easy to Use

Web usability expert, Steve Krug, captured the essence of what a web experience should be like for users in his book, “Don’t Make Me Think.” Krug explains that the best and most used websites are really easy to use.

Successful websites are well thought-out and consider how users will interact. Here are a few of Krug’s guidelines for creating a user-friendly website:

• Clear and relevant calls to action

• Easy to scan information

• Thoughtful use of imagery

• Clean design

• Organized, clean appearance

Lead generation

Lead generation involves a three step process which is as follows:

Identify the offer

Website visitors generally don’t mind exchanging their contact information if they perceive that they’re getting something worthwhile in return.

What can you offer prospects that will peak their interest and add value to their busy lives? Usually the offer is a piece of content that adds value like a blog article, white paper, podcast, guide book, etc.

Get inside the minds of your ideal client (your target audience) and consider what information they’re looking for. We suggest starting this process by building out your client personas.

What type of content will your web audience be interested in? In the last section of this ebook, we’ll give you some ideas for actually generating leads online –for now let’s focus on how to create meaningful content for you web visitors.

Ask visitors to take action

Calls to action are exactly what the name implies: These little buttons direct your audience towards taking the next logical step.

What is it you’d like your audience to do next? Some popular CTAs we find on financial advisor websites are “Schedule a Meeting,” or “Subscribe to My Newsletter,” but when it comes down to it, you can ask your visitors to do anything. The bottom line is that you want to make it really, really easy for your web visitors to do whatever it is you want them to do.

A great CTA enhances your website in a couple of tremendous ways. First, it makes your website interactive for users. It gets your audience involved. In addition, CTAs often result in a lot of great information about who’s visiting your website.

Create the exchange

Lead generation happens when a prospect exchanges their contact information for something valuable. Usually this happens on a form or landing page.

So, what is a landing page? A landing page, sometimes known as a “lead capture page” or a “form page,” is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result or an online advertisement.

Conversions happen on landing pages –it’s the place where website visitors exchange their contact information for a piece of worthwhile content.

Remember when you downloaded this ebook? First you were directed to a landing page where you completed a 4-field form where we collected simple information like your name and email address.

The best landing pages are very simple and unobtrusive. Let’s look at other characteristics of successful landing pages:

Keep it fun and short

Landing pages are made up of three primary items: an enticing graphic, a short explanation of the offer and, most importantly, a form. Definitely keep the graphic fun and relevant (also, keep it consistent with the image that’s used on the call-to-action.) Make sure the image that you choose relates to your audience (who’s your ideal client?).

Be consistent

Basically, don’t exaggerate. Make sure your landing page offers what your call-to-action advertises. Try to use some of the same wording in the call-to-action that describes the offer and its subject matter. Both of these components should be present on your landing page, too.

Remove Navigation

One more way to prevent visitors from abandoning your landing page is to remove all of the navigation along with any other calls-to-action on the page. Removing your navigation and all other calls-to-action on your landing page is the quickest way to keep those visitors on your landing page long enough to fill out your form.

Click here to download the whitepaper. 

This is the first part of the series.