Oftentimes when it turns out that leads don’t flow into the company, the first reaction is changes in marketing activities. After all, if users don’t contact the company, it means that our marketing is ineffective and doesn’t deliver the right message, or worse — it doesn’t reach the target group of the company at all. Practice shows that this is not always the case.

In the course of my career, I’ve seen a lot of companies that had well-optimized lead acquisition channels, often based on many levels of user awareness, and yet the clients didn’t contact to the company. Why?

Usually, the problem is not only getting the right users to the site, but also convincing them to explore the site and get information about the company and its services, and finally to make the conversion, i.e. the first contact attempt. In 2019, the vast majority of companies have websites, but only a small percentage really care about its looks and sales effectiveness.

Let’s assume that monthly your company…:

  • spends USD 5000 to obtain queries,
  • thanks to which it gets 750 user visits to the website,
  • of which the number of conversions is 15, which gives us a conversion rate of 2%,
  • conversion (on the query) costs USD 333.

Your website has existed since the beginning of the company and has deficiencies not only in relevant information, but also is not visually attractive, which together means that the conversion rate is low. If your website was attractive, contained all important information and was designed according to usability standards, your conversion rate could increase by, for example, 100%. It’s easy to calculate*:

*Both results apply to the same advertising budget: USD 5000.

This is a hypothetical situation, but I’ve seen similar increases in conversion rate after implementing a new website in a large number of small and even medium-sized businesses. What would your business look like generating twice as many leads?

All you have to do is substitute the conversion rate from the obtained lead into the contract and the average transaction value. Let’s assume that the conversion rate is 20% and the average transaction value is USD 2000.

Difference: + USD 6000 / month. (+ USD 72 000 yearly)

Seeing these numbers, you understand why in web design we are supporters of mathematics and opponents of innovative creations that win prizes at beauty pageant competitions… but don’t sell.

So what are the most common mistakes that I see on company websites?

The website isn’t adjusted to clients’ preferences 

Often, the problem is caused by the lack of adaptation of the website to your clients’ preferences. Example: you run a cheap and easy to start SaaS and you don’t have a price list on the website or a free trial period option. Lack of these two options means that customers, even potentially interested in your product, may not convert due to insufficient information (price list) or too high risk (no trial period).

On the other hand, if your product / service goes to a group of more “analogue” customers, remember to include your company’s contact details on the website. Not every user will be willing to contact you via the form, and posting an address, email or phone is meeting your client halfway — showing him the opportunity that is adapted to his usual behavior.

In addition, if you reach a group of recipients who strongly focus on the security of their data and the form is elaborate or you require online payments from them, make sure to have the ssl certificate.

User experience mistakes

Another reason for the lack of leads is a number of errors related to the usability of the website. We write about the most important of them in the following sections. You must be aware, however, that if your website contains mistakes that make your users confused and unsure what actions to take (e.g. no call to action buttons) or how to navigate it, your conversion will be much lower than you might expect.

I recommend getting acquainted with 10 heuristics by Nielsen, who is one of the most recognized usability experts in the world and checking the compliance of your website with them. Otherwise, you can order a usability audit from recognized experts. As part of cooperation with clients, we also carry out such audits, so feel free to write to us.

Lengthy conversion path

Usually, your website’s conversion rate will increase if the user’s path to contact your business is shortened. It is assumed that 1 to 3 steps is the most optimal way to get conversions. The longer the user’s path, the greater the likelihood that something will interrupt them.

These can be other distracting elements on the WWW that will distract them from taking the action you want them to take, and even things completely unrelated to online activity: e.g. a phone call from a client or a request from a colleague.

Lack of a contact form or one that is too long

If the main goal of the website is to contact the company, it is worth giving users several options of contact. Some of them will prefer direct contact using the phone number on the site, others will use the chatbot, and others will leave their contact info via the form.

In B2B, it is the form that generates the most queries, so the lack of it is a serious mistake. Remember, however, that simply putting in the form doesn’t guarantee an increase in the number of new leads and it must be properly designed. Tests confirm that, as a rule, the fewer fields on the form, the greater the chance of conversion (but not always).

On our contact page you will find a form that contains only two fields: email address and phone number. We have given up fields such as name and company name, because this information is usually included in the email address (especially if you offer B2B services). The message is also not so important to us, because our sales representatives examine the needs of customers at the stage of the first sales conversation.

Fewer fields in the form, however, don’t always lead to an increase in conversion rate. If you offer specialized services and already during the first contact you need a lot of information from the customer — create an extensive form. The fact that the form will be longer will also help you get better quality leads (you will receive a notification from those who are highly motivated to act). Make sure, however, that all fields are necessary and not “nice to have” — ​​respect the time of your potential customers.

If you have a form on the page, but the leads don’t flow in, make sure that it’s connected to the appropriate email address. You may find that you are obtaining leads, but because of a small technical error, you’re not aware of their existence at all.

Lack of social proof

In order for a user to contact you, you must effectively encourage him to do so — social proofs will help you do that. These are some of the most important elements on the page that support the user’s decision to convert. If you don’t have them, in most cases this is the main reason why you don’t get new leads.

In the case of B2B companies, these work very well: testimonials from clients, their logos or case studies from previous cooperation. You can also place widgets for external profiles with opinions about the company or present the experience of your team. 

Lack of UVP

Social evidence has a great impact on whether a user chooses to convert. There may be several companies on the market that offer the same or very similar services and can boast of great projects. To stand out from the crowd, you must offer values ​​that your potential client won’t get from your competition. In this case, the Unique Value Proposition comes to the rescue.

You have probably noticed that a huge number of companies, regardless of the industry, communicate that they are “innovative”, their products are “of the highest quality” and their team “adapts to the needs of the customer”. If you communicate your products in the same way, the only difference between you will be in the price. Thanks to UVP, your offer will be tailored to a specific customer segment and you will be able to offer clients a value that suits their needs.

Lack of a CTA

Another mistake that I notice when working with clients is the lack Call To Action buttons and messages. Buttons are an inseparable element of the user’s navigation on the website, thanks to which we help him reach the information that is important to him and finally get him to act in a way that’s valuable to us. In the case of the B2B industry, it is usually initiating contact with the company.

You don’t measure micro and macro conversions

In order to be able to analyze effectiveness, user behavior on the website must be properly measured. Check if you have defined goals (micro and macro) in Google Analytics and whether their implementation is calculated correctly in the tool. It may turn out that thanks to the correct measurement you will notice that the problem is not your website (because all behavioral indicators such as: bounce rate, pages/session rate, time spent on the site are in order), but the source of your traffic.

This way you can easily find out which marketing activities have a higher return on investment. Also, if measuring a relatively simple user behavior is not a habit for someone in your company, how do you want to face the analytical challenges that are waiting around the corner?

You don’t test new solutions

I’ve already written about the importance of testing in this article: How to increase the number of B2B leads thanks to marketing tests? Testing, however, is not limited to sources of traffic, but also to elements on the website. Thanks to testing, you will know, for example, how the order of sections on the main page (services, social proof etc.) affects the conversion rate or what messages reach potential customers more accurately.

This, in turn, will allow you to generate way more valuable queries from the same traffic. For testing, you can use Google Analytics or dedicated solutions such as Google Optimize (this tool is free).

Depending on the elements tested, note the change in conversion rate and changes in user behavior that I wrote about earlier.

No mobile version

According to the Digital 2019 Report prepared by We Are Social and Hootsuite, currently around 67% of people use mobile devices. So if your website is not adapted to this type of user, you automatically lose a very large part of customers. If your business offers local services that are searched for by location — the loss can be even greater.

A quick review of your website for mobile devices can be done using the free PageSpeed ​​Insight tool, which immediately presents you with basic recommendations on how to improve the operation (but not only) of the mobile version of the website.

Bad looks

Even if your website meets all of the above parameters but its appearance isn’t attractive and adapted to the profile of your potential customer, you will not use the full potential of your page. If from the very beginning of your business your website looks the same, while the pages of the competition are much more pleasant to look at, it is a sign for you that you should invest in website modification.

First of all, pay attention to the sizes and types of fonts (are they legible and of adequate size), colors (do the colors “repel” the user), graphics/photos (are they original and attractive?) and whether all the subpages are aesthetically consistent.

Don’t forget about the banner blindness phenomenon. If the elements on your website are static, do not change from time to time or do not contain personalization elements, there is a good chance that users will skip right through these element, and thus — won’t take the action you want. Make sure that important elements are in visible places and stand out from the whole WWW.

Loading time

The waiting time for full page loading should not exceed 3 seconds. After this time, as much as 80% of users are close to giving up on exploring the site. This means that the vast majority of the traffic that you generate for your website may never see an offer.

Using tools such as GTMetrix or Google PageSpeed ​​Insights, which I mentioned earlier, you will learn how quickly your page loads and what needs to be improved to make its parameters better.

A site adjusted to the client’s country

If your company sells services/ products in a specific market, you should take care of several elements that increase the page conversion rate.

Users are much more willing to cooperate with companies whose websites are in their native language. If you sell products on the German market, make sure that one of the versions of the pages is in this language. In this case, the appearance of the domain also matters. When selling in Germany, consider buying a domain that will have .de suffix instead of .com. Your site will work much better only thanks to such minimal change.

You don’t generate traffic to your website

For dessert I’ve leave a point that doesn’t refer directly to the appearance of the website, but often it is the reason why customers don’t come to you.

Your website won’t generate leads if no one visits it. The mistake of many businesses is the conviction that it’s enough to create an aesthetic and easy-to-navigate website to successfully attract customers.

Many of these businesses forget about an earlier step, i.e. about generating the right amount of traffic to the website — users at various stages of the shopping funnel. If you don’t generate 750 visits per month it will be difficult to start generating the dozen or so leads from the initial example.

Remember that even if you launch paid traffic acquisition channels, you cannot forget about its organic counterpart. When launching the page, make sure that the agency or freelancer who created the page for you has enabled ergo indexing that allows robots to scan the page. This is the basic thing to be done after receiving the site from the developer, but it is often forgotten, which generates much more serious problems in the future.

Now there is nothing else to do but check your site for the above points. If you see deficiencies in individual segments, you automatically have a clear recommendation to implement changes that will increase the conversion rate.

However, if your website doesn’t generate leads, and you are sure that all of the above areas are optimized in your case — write to us. We also help clients in diagnosing the reasons for poor web quality or in choosing the right partner for a new version of a website.