Your Website Is Your Best Asset for Lead Generation

Consider your website your company's hardest working employee.  It works 24/7, 365 days a year, never complains, doesn’t gossip or take long lunch breaks and provided you have it optimised for lead generation should be a consistent source of sales ready leads that is growing your business exponentially.

If you don’t consider your website as a huge lead generation asset then you need to rethink your online marketing strategy entirely.  Think about how buyer behaviours are shifting more and more towards online both for research and transacting and how this impacts us as vendors in serving this market in a way they want to be sold to. 

With that in mind, here are 8 Ways to Improve Your Website today to help you get more leads

1. Page Title (aka Title Tags)
   
   The single most important element on your page from an SEO standpoint.  This is the keyword that shows up as the descriptor on the major Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s).  This is the keyword to show up on the page tab of the website you are on.  In this blog the page title is "8 Ways to Improve Your Website Today (Part 1)".
   
   For each page of your website select one Primary Keyword and one Secondary Keyword that you have referred to in the main body content.  Use these in your page titles, separated by piping i.e. these symbols " | “.  
   
   For example:
   
   Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
   
   Best Practices:
   
   - Between 50-60 characters long
   - Use piping to separate keywords
   - Use your primary keyword first
   - If you must use your company or brand name use it last
   
   
2. Header tags
   
   Each page will have a host of different headings, i.e. topics on page.  The most important Header on the page is your H1 Header and should include your Primary Keyword, i.e. the purpose of the page.
   
   This should be the first thing the reader sees.  Its impact on SEO is also important so don’t underestimate or overlook your Header tags.
   
   Best Practices:
   
   - H1 should be at the top of the page
   - H1 should include your Primary Keyword
   - Aligned with Page Title and URL
   
   
3. Alt tags (aka Alt Image Tag aka Alt Attribute)
   
   These are basically the description of any image you have on your site.  The image itself cannot be read by the search engines bots so therefore we have to describe them.  Wording the Alt Tags allows the images to be 'read'. 
   
   Best Practices:
   
   - File name: Each word should be separated with dashes (-), e.g. inbound-marketing-agency.jpg
   - ALT text: The alt text should match the file name, without dashes, e.g. Inbound Marketing Agency
   
   
4. Meta Description
   
   This is the content below your Page Title on Google.  People read this and make the call whether or not to click into your site.  Ensure that it creates a compelling reason for people to click through to your site.  Like a text call to action.  
   
   Best Practices:
   
   - Be under 150 characters (but not under 100 characters)
   - Incorporate the primary keyword and at least one secondary keyword
   - Provide a valuable, compelling reason for why someone should visit the page
   - Include keywords in a conversational format; don’t just cram in keywords for the sake of listing them 

The 4 components outlined in this post are essentially your On Page SEO components, they sound more complicated that they actually are so don’t be fazed by them. 

In Part 2 we will dive into 4 other factors to improve your website instantly.  These are less technical in nature but can positively impact not only your website traffic levels but also your ability to leverage your site as a lead generation asset that it should be.