How many times do you hear the mantra “drive more traffic to your website”? Marketers use search engine optimization and bid on keywords with Google and Overture just to drive more traffic to their websites.
Now that pay per click advertising has exploded and keyword prices range anywhere from $.50 to $20, getting readers to your website while still making a profit is becoming a primary goal. Marketers don’t “drive traffic” to their websites just to have people click once or twice and then leave, forever forgetting they were even on your firm’s page.
Yet, so many professional services firms do just that. They create campaigns to get people to their website but don’t think about how they can capitalize on this new traffic once they are there.
Capturing Leads and Getting Visitors To Return
Just because people come to your website doesn’t mean they’ll stick around. And odds are pretty good that they’ll forget they were even there if you don’t remind them on an ongoing basis.
Of course, we all hope that our websites will be so wonderful that visitors immediately reach for the phone to call us up and buy our services, but this isn’t realistic. Instead, we must look to ways to capture visitor information and continue to stay in touch with them.
Remember, if you’re paying to get people to visit your website, but you aren’t getting a call from them or their contact information, you’re throwing the money you just spent to get them to your website down the drain.
So, here are some ways to stay in touch with visitors:
- Create landing pages specific to your keywords – If you are bidding on a specific keyword, create a landing page specific to that keyword. Visitors are more likely to stick around if they see the keyword at the top of your page.
- Create a downloadable booklet or tip sheet related to your keyword – Visitors come to your site for information, but that doesn’t mean you have to give information for free. Make sure to get their contact information so you can keep in touch.
- Create an eNewsletter – A monthly or weekly newsletter that they choose to receive can be a great way to stay in touch with visitors. Most people that visit your website won’t have an immediate need, so this allows you to communicate with them on an ongoing basis.
- Create an RSS feed – RSS is becoming a very powerful way to let people know you’ve just added a new article to your website. People subscribe to an XML feed that they can view online or downloaded to their desktop through their RSS reader. (Read about RSS technology)
- Make your client-focused – If your website offers visitors valuable information that helps them make an informed decision, they’re more likely to bookmark the page and return.
Join our weekly Marketing Success mailing list and receive our free 43-page Small Business Marketing Plan guide. 
This is a great article. However an often overlooked aspect of web marketing is to encourage web visitors to provide their contact data before accessing parts of the site. Many agents just use their website as billboard, but do not effectively use forms to encourage visitors to provide their data and become active leads.
Thank you for all of your good work.
Ryan James
4MySales.com
There are a couple of problems with having people provide info to access parts of your website:
1) Most people are skeptical, so they don’t want to provide their information unless they believe it will be worth it. When you ask for contact info upfront before you provide any other information, you will lose a lot of people who simply won’t think it’s worth their time. Why should they give you any contact info if they don’t know yet if you are trustworthy?
2) Search engines won’t be able to access those hidden pages, so any valuable content you might be providing won’t help your search engine rank.
Capturing leads from your website is critical to effective lead generation, BUT you need to provide valuable, unique content on your website that people can’t get anywhere else.
That’s what attracts visitors. That’s what builds relationships with them. And that’s what will get them to take the next step – provide contact info and/or call you.
That’s where most agents go wrong. They assume their website doesn’t need maintenance – or if they do update it, it’s simply to add a new listing.
Big deal. I can get listings anywhere. Realtor.com. My local newspaper’s website. Other agents’ websites.
What makes your site unique? It’s your voice – the articles and opinions you provide about local real estate news. Start writing and you’ll start differentiating yourself from other agents – and generating more leads.