Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, digital marketers and businesses continue to work despite the social distancing, and it is imperative that you continue working to get more Web design leads this year despite the projected setbacks.

So today, we’re going to work on getting your website up to spec with the best practices in the industry. We are going to talk about not just the common mistakes in creating a powerful website that can generate Web design leads; we’ll also be talking about what you can do to improve your website right now so it will be ready to present any new campaigns you may have in mind.

Powerful Techniques from Top Websites

We’ve taken a look at the practices of several high-performing websites in various niches, and we dug deep to see how they’re generating leads left and right. Here are the results of our digging.

1. Targeted messaging – Websites perform better when they cut to the chase and immediately address the known pain points of their consumers. This is especially important for B2B audiences for Web design leads because it’s imperative that you convince your B2B audience fast.

B2B audiences are often groups of people who report to higher ranking officials from their organizations and companies. Therefore, the more specific your pitch and more tangible the possible results, the better they will respond to your present campaign. Remember: the more specific your solutions to pain points, the better off you will be.

2. Use dynamic questions so people will receive a different opening question or lead question every time they open the landing page. You can perform split testing to see which opening questions lead to increase dwell time and conversions, and adjust accordingly. Since most campaigns are done over a period of a week or so, it makes sense to do split testing daily so you can get better results overall.

3. In addition to changing the opening question or lead frequently, you may also put the largest opt-in box at the very beginning of the sales letter on the landing page to shock your customers into taking action. This is a classic hypnotic sales technique that still works today. The reason why this works is actually quite simple: if the opening of the landing page and its content are presented so confidently, there’s no reason for people not to sign up. And if the landing page provides the precise information required by decision makers to allow the organization to adapt the solution/system you are selling, then people are going to sign up fast.

4. The text in the opt-in box needs to be engaging and has to shoot straight. For example, making an offer and emphasizing that the current offer is “Free Forever” is going to bring a lot of people to your yard. People want value, they want to get stuff for free.

Give that value to them and they’ll be sure to reciprocate by listening to what you have to say in subsequent campaigns. This is the reason why lead magnets that give away free stuff work so well across markets – they work because the law of reciprocity works each and every time.

5. Using animation to make your landing page as dynamic as possible is good, but adding too much animation further down the page is going to be problematic.

Limit animation to the top portion, you can add a series of animations there if you want, but keep the middle and lower sections of the page clear of videos that have some buffer time before they can be played fully. Images are fine, as well as infographics that load fast, but rather than rely on video wholly, use bulleted points and lists to get your other points across. Optimize the landing page as much as possible and you will get great results.

6. Improve the CTAs throughout your website. CTAs should be limited not just to the main offer (the content at the center of the page) but also other functions within the page that lead back to the main website. For example, the navigation has to be super clear so people can search for what they need in the website, as well as the index as to where they can find other information and products that you may have. Integration between the landing page and the main website is recommended.

7. If you are promoting to different niches, you can avoid confusion by preparing a slightly different landing page for each of them. For example, RedShelf, which sells different kinds of eBooks, has a separate landing page for students, schools, and publishers. While there are sharp distinctions because each market has different needs, everyone gets what they need information-wise, and B2B audiences of every layer are able to use the information to eventually decide whether or not the solution being promoted to them is what they need. This is the fastest way to get into someone’s psyche, and to link them to the core message.

8. It would also be super helpful if your website has separate contact details for sales and support. It is frustrating for many website visitors that they cannot contact the business specifically to ask questions about the current offer or service. We know that many businesses have just one catch-all phone line or email for all kinds of inquiries, but again, it would be best if there was a separate line for people who are not customers yet but are interested in knowing more about the offer.

In this situation, it would be great if you could provide an on-site chat bot (at the very least) to field questions and collect contact information from customers. Current statistics show than a whopping 80% of consumers are happy with having at least a chat bot to talk to when they need more information.

 And the way things are going with AI, who knows? Maybe you will need less people to interact with customers at the very beginning of the sales funnel. People who want to buy something want their questions answered quickly – that’s the gist of it. If you were a potential customer, you would think the same way, too.

9. If you feel that your material is not engaging enough, there is a quick fix for that: bring to the center the most important benefits of your work as a Web design company and create a story around it.

People have always loved stories and great storytelling has launched many a company in the past two decades. While the visuals of websites have changed immensely since the time of train-long sales letters, people continue to love and crave for good storytelling, so why shouldn’t you jump on the wagon?

10. Make CTAs as dynamic and personal as possible. Take it from industry leader Evernote. The Evernote website has always prided itself in keeping things as simple as possible with how they sell their product.

By keeping it simple and as personal as possible, the way the service is promoted is viable and the message reaches its audience all the time with lines like “Meet Evernote, your second brain” and “Remember everything. Get organized. Succeed together.”

Evernote makes use of common cue words that people hyped because self-organizing is difficult to begin with. But by addressing pain points in a very positive way, Evernote cuts ahead of the competition in the market for to-do lists by advertising its services as something more than just a simple to-do list. It’s a way to get your life organized. That powerful message is something that anyone can relate to, and if the need is already present, people download the app and respond to offers of premium.

11. The best-performing landing pages are the ones that provide easy sign ups. In addition to the more traditional sign-up method of entering your email to register, it would be awesome if you can also link other automated sign-up methods to your website. Sign-up via Facebook and Google are great options, so people just have to click the buttons on the sign up form instead of manually typing their emails.

12. Clarify to your users that your videos are videos. This may be as simple as putting a caption or a heading on each video. Headings are simple and effective, and they visually guide the eyes to focus on specific elements on the page.

For example, you can write “Watch How Your Business Can Improve Sales in As Short as 24 Hours” above a video that shows a summary of case study statistics.

You can also enlarge the pre-loaded video screen on your landing page so people know that they’re not just pictures, but videos to be watched. You are free to split-test to check if your B2B audience is responding well to the current format or layout of your website.

14. Your homepage can hold a lot of power over your B2B audience. For instance, Basecamp has gone the extra mile for their customers by using a very specific aesthetic for their homepage.

The campfire logo is original, it’s unique to Basecamp, and the recall value of the graphics is high. You will be able to tell if you are face to face with a Basecamp post or product by just looking at the graphics associated with the content.

Who’s to say that this won’t work with your business? The main message here is that you should make your business as unique as you can, because that’s how people remember your branding. Every aspect counts, from the images that you use to how you promote your brand outside your website. So we must focus not just on the home page, but also what happens after people leave the home page.

Now would be a good time to think of the answers to questions like: how do you want people to remember your business? How do you want people to recall your brand? How are you going to accomplish these things using your campaigns?

15. When featuring a specific free download or offer, it’s important that you list down clearly what people will get from downloading it. In short, we want them to get something of value, but at the same time, we want to make it evident how the value is packed to what is being offered.

This is not always apparent when you just describe it in general terms, so it’s essential that you outline the benefits. State the benefits as clearly as possible, so people will be able to act immediately on the CTA.

16. Look back at your content now and ask yourself: does your content trigger a sense of curiosity or wonder in people? Does it have that magic that makes people want to learn more about your company? As we have said before about good storytelling – people love good narration, they love to hear stories about success.

You can integrate a sense of wonder in your content to give your promotion a sense of wonder and magic that will draw people to your core message. Your only objective, as far as marketing is concerned, is to get people to agree with your core message without any hesitation.

17. People in general don’t like pop-ups, but these continue to help improve conversion rates in websites across different verticals. It’s imperative that you continue to integrate pop-ups in your landing pages without irritating your B2B audience.

So far, statistics show that exit-intent pop-ups are being received well by consumers because these don’t really block how people view landing pages, so you may want to look into this type of pop-up. Also, remember that you can format exit-intent pop-ups to the molecular level, so don’t be afraid to go beyond the traditional layout to see which works the best.