How to have a website that generates leads?

About a year ago, I wrote a first article on websites. I had a somewhat marginal view of websites. In fact, people challenged me and were a bit afraid of my approach. After sending 1.5 million emails and generating up to 1,500 leads per week for the automotive sector over the past year, my vision has evolved. Since the beginning of June, we have invested 400 hours on our website. Now, not only do I have a much more precise and marginal vision, I also have a recipe that works. What is the recipe for having a website that generates leads? Here it is, in our evolving guide that I wrote in collaboration with partner Kevin Huddy!

I'll warn you in advance, there’s a lot of content! If you are a serious entrepreneur who wants to generate sales through the Internet, the reality is that choosing your provider/agency to create your website or take control of it is not a simple decision to make.

There are several factors to consider, and my goal is to review each of the following points:

1. The price (my vision)

2. The design and conversion (By Carl Durocher)

3. The content (By Carl Durocher)

4. Why WordPress (By Carl Durocher)

5. Hosting (By Kevin Huddy)

6. Programming (By Kevin Huddy)

7. Essential tools – Plugin (By Kevin Huddy)

8. How to choose your agency? (By Carl Durocher)

How much does a converting website cost?

Well, I have good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news! I have generated millions of dollars (about $20,000,000 in the last 8 months) through lead generation campaigns via email and social media.

100% of these leads were not generated on a website. Everything happened on Facebook LeadAds and on landing pages created with the Unbounce tool.

The bad news? My clients are generally companies that invest millions of dollars in branding each year, and the leads often already have trust in the brand. If you are a typical company, you will need to invest in content marketing to help build the awareness of your company.

Thus, you will need to have a fast website with an effective design and a well-developed blog to allow your audience to have a pleasant experience. People are impatient; if your site loads in more than 2 seconds, say goodbye to your traffic and the profitability of your digital marketing.

So why do I want to start by talking about price even before clearly explaining how to have a website that generates leads? Because if you don’t agree with my vision of websites and the price to pay, you can save yourself a long read! 🙂

My 2 visions on the price to pay for a website

There is a short-term vision and a long-term vision. The long-term vision is more profitable, but it will require you to invest a good cash flow over 6 to 9 months (maybe more) before becoming profitable.

The long-term vision

The long-term vision is to build a website that will first perform well regarding SEO. SEO, or organic search optimization, is your visibility on search engines. It can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to achieve an interesting ranking and many hours (see hundreds of hours) of content writing work.

There are several factors for being well-ranked on search engines, such as the speed of your site and your U/X. Therefore, you will need to host your site on a good server for speed and call upon a competent web design team — still not easy to find — for the U/X. U/X stands for "User Experience"; it’s the usability of your site. Your site must be well thought out and easy to use.

Another very important point is that your website must be well programmed. First, for it to be fast, and secondly, for it to be easily modifiable. By modifiable, I mean that it should be simple and easy to modify the site as well as to add and/or remove content.

To give you an idea of price, our site required 500 hours of work including the content (eBooks, blogs, the training section with an online store, etc.). 500 hours at $85/hour is almost $45,000. This is clearly not for all budgets. However, without the content, there are about 150 hours of work (Design, a bit of text, and programming). We then drop to about $12,500. Then, good hosting will be around $50-75 per month.

"What! $12,500 for my roofing site? Are you crazy!" First, you need to amortize the site over 3 years or 36 months. We’re talking about around $400/month for a highly effective website.

In short, for $12,500 you have a nice store "without inventory" or almost. You will have your "services" pages that can generate leads, but the reality is that you will need to create content to generate leads...in general. If, for example, you have a website for your roofing company and you only invest in Adwords, your site just needs to look nice and have a contact form that is easily identifiable and functional. A "showcase" website, well-ranked, fast, and programmed the right way will therefore cost you around $12,500.

"What! $12,500 for my roofing site? Are you crazy!" First, you need to amortize the site over 3 years or 36 months. We’re talking about around $400/month for a highly effective website. If you invest several thousand dollars a month in digital marketing, it’s a "no-brainer" to invest to ensure your site generates leads.

The short-term vision

The short-term vision is to invest minimally to have a functional site that generates a certain number of conversions (or leads). Also, from an organic search optimization perspective, we’re talking about the basics, focused only from a local point of view. If your business is in Mirabel, for example a florist, you want to at least appear on Google if someone types "Florist Mirabel".

This kind of website can be done on one page (also called "One-Pager"). You can get by for $1,500 to $3,500, depending on the agency you choose. If you don’t invest in digital marketing and the goal is solely to have an organic presence if someone searches your name on Google, this solution is for you.

So, how much does a website cost? A website for a service company with the goal of generating (big) cash: Budget $25,000 including content. A showcase website that will convert visitors following your digital marketing campaigns: Budget $12,500 with the necessary basic content. A showcase website so that people find you with your company name on search engines, cute and fast: Budget $3,000, no content included. The design of a website that converts visitors into leads. A website is like a shop, a grocery store, a shopping mall, etc. In short, it must be thoughtfully designed so that people can easily find what they are looking for and, above all, so that they end up buying OR becoming a lead. What is a lead?

At the moment the visitor to your website provides you with their contact information in exchange for a consultation, quote, eBook, free videos, etc., they then become a lead. In the case of a service company, the goal of the website is to generate as many leads as possible. A good conversion rate will be above 6%. So if 100 people visit your site, set yourself the goal of having 6 leads (including incoming calls).

The U/X or user experience

To do this, the site must be designed very precisely. I call my method of thinking "the inverted funnel". At first, we must find only the basic information, the one that easily answers the basic questions of your traffic. For example, for our company, we position ourselves as "The only agency in Growth Hacking, CRM implementation, and business automation in Montreal". This is therefore the first thing you can see when you arrive on our site:

Since CRMs and Martech are unknown fields for some entrepreneurs and Growth Hacking is a mystery for most, the next information is brief explanations of these services:

For the following services, the site also provides more information so that visitors can understand the service in a general way:

My goal is not to bombard my traffic with information. I rather want to guide them only to the information they are searching for. If, for example, a visitor on my website wants more information about the service related to CRM implementation and automation, they will click on "discover" and can thus receive more information related to this service that we offer.

Finally, at the end, the visitor can either contact us or download the eBook on CRMs. This is when the visitor becomes a lead:

The "Contact" page

The contact page must be your conversion page. In fact, it’s one of the most important pages of your website. Why? Because when a visitor reaches the stage of visiting your contact page, there’s a good chance that it’s because they want to talk with someone from your company. They are thus on the verge of becoming a qualified lead.

This is why the contact page of your website must encourage visitors to fill out the contact form on your website. The title (H1) of your contact page must therefore reiterate what you do and why visitors should fill out the form:

And finally, you must highlight the needs of your visitor. In the case of our website, we want visitors to understand that we can help them generate more leads and increase their profitability through digital tools:

The content of your website

The content of your website has two very precise objectives: to reduce skepticism and to increase the level of trust that your visitors have towards your business. The best way to achieve this is by positioning yourself as an expert and educating your future leads. What do I mean by educate?

If you sell HVAC systems, meaning air conditioning and heat pumps, you must answer as many questions that your audience might have:

• How much does it cost?

• How to install it?

• What are the best brands?

• How to maintain it?

• What are the warranties?

• Why hire recognized and certified installers?

• Etc.

In the case of our company, we have literally shared most of our "recipes" and methods that generate a lot of value for us and our clients. I even created a free guide so that people who want to implement their CRM can do it themselves.

Is it really a good idea to reveal all your tricks? Yes, except for a few secrets. For me, my secret lies in the way I develop relationships with my clients and my business partners. I've still revealed my secret…because it requires a lot of effort and practice. I would say that 75% of my company’s success does not come from my CRM, Martech, and Growth Hacking, but from my relationships and my network.

Get out of the "business" context

I then wrote an article on the subject which is available here. What is the link between how I develop my relationships and my other services? People first buy who you are and your brand. After that, they expect you to deliver on your promise. If you accomplish both tasks, your business will work well.

It’s the same for you, no matter your niche. In addition to educating your traffic, you need to show them who you are. Content (and social media) is the best way to achieve this. Explain why you use eco-friendly air conditioners (if they exist), why you only install lifetime guaranteed roofs, what projects have you done for free and what it brought you? In short, step out of the business context a bit and take the time to show who you are. It could make all the difference if you’re competing against a competitor!

The eBooks

Do internet users still read stuff? 80% of videos are watched without sound. A video with subtitles is 6 times more likely to be watched. So the answer is yes. Your serious prospects will undoubtedly download your eBooks if they are well-placed on your website. Additionally, eBooks have several advantages, the main one being to convert your traffic into leads because you will ask them for their contact information in exchange for the download.

Is it long to make an eBook? It always depends on your objectives regarding its quality and the method you want to use. For example, my eBooks are a precise assembly of several blog articles. I thus ask my artistic director to take articles that are on the same subject, insert them into a PDF document, and style the content. In general, this takes her 6 to 8 hours of work.

My eBooks are available on the following page if you want to have an idea or a template to use.

The videos

Videos are excellent tools to keep your traffic on your website longer. The longer your traffic stays on your website, the better your organic search ranking will be. Also, landing pages that contain videos see an average increase of 86% in their conversion rate! Videos can thus be used to educate your traffic, but also to convert them directly.

You can also offer free videos in exchange for the contact information of your leads. At that moment, your traffic will be converted into leads since you will have their contact information. Personally, I like to use videos in my blog articles. Here’s an example.

The testimonials

Social value is a term used that refers to the level of trust that your audience has towards you and your company. Testimonials and authentic reviews are the best tools to highlight your expertise with the people who will visit your website. It’s very important to showcase them throughout your website.

Why WordPress?

There are several reasons why I really like WordPress. The first and most important is the following: the service providers for programming or digital marketing who know and master WordPress are very abundant. There are options for all types of projects and for all budgets. The important thing is that your website built with the WordPress CMS is well programmed and, if your budget allows, 100% custom.

Modifiable

Also, a well-programmed website in WordPress can be easily modifiable and adjustable thanks to the ACF tool. ACF allows anyone, with a 2-hour training, to make minor changes to their website. Of course, major changes in the design of the site will have to be made by the talents of a specialized programmer.

Numerous integrations

We use about 10 software tools to operate Gro. Whether it’s communication software, planning, automated marketing, landing pages…we use quite a lot. Each of these software tools has an easy integration with WordPress. In fact, I can, for example, connect Slack with WordPress, so if someone comments on one of my blog articles, I receive the comment directly in Slack. My CRM integrates within a few minutes with WordPress…so it’s super easy to set up ultra-efficient systems.

Easy Back-End Interface

If you are a beginner on the Internet, you will still quickly feel comfortable using the back-end of WordPress, especially if you work with a good programming team. Here is a short video to understand the interface of a well-programmed WordPress CMS:

The importance of properly assessing one’s own needs

The most important aspect of creating your website is to have clearly established your objectives and, above all, to have a game plan BEFORE starting the project or meeting agencies. We will see this very important aspect in part 2 of this guide, as well as the following points:

1. Hosting

2. Programming

3. Tools/plugins

4. How to choose your agency?

If in the meantime you have questions, send me an email, we could very well add a section to this guide that directly responds to your question!