There are many organizations that have invested significant time, effort and resources in building a new website. These same organizations ask us a very familiar question: Why isn’t our website generating any leads? They become frustrated and disappointed that their investment isn’t paying off. The key to an effective website is being able to cater to all phases of the insurance buying cycle.
These websites are very impressive and not to mention more affordable thanks to the hundreds of pre-built website themes available on the HubSpot CMS Hub™ , WordPress and other web hosting platforms. So why are these websites not cranking out leads?
The simple answer is not all website designs - including pre-built themes and custom websites - were designed with generating leads in mind. It’s easy to get caught up in the “look and feel” of a website design and lose sight of what is required to generate leads.
Is Your Website Designed to Generate Leads?
More often than not, the focus of a company’s new website is to showcase what solutions they offer. Most of their effort is spent in three areas:
- Visual (pleasing to the eye)
- Content (about their company), and
- Solutions they offer
All of this is not a bad start, but only a portion of what constitutes a website designed to generate leads.
When a serious buyer visits your website, they are looking for information to quickly determine:
-
If your solution can help solve their problem
or
-
If your solution can help them take advantage of an opportunity
In other words, they want to determine if they should spend the time learning more about your company and the solutions you provide. If your website is built correctly, you can actually help a visitor self-qualify themselves.
Keep in mind that buyers will be in different stages of their buying cycle when they visit your website:
- Awareness – the buyer is researching potential solutions for their problem
- Consideration – the buyer is evaluating solutions they are interested in
- Decision – the buyer has decided on their solution strategy, method, or approach
Here are 3 of the main reasons why your website may not be generating leads:
Reason #1: Lack of Helpful Information for Each Stage of the Buying Cycle
Many new websites provide an overview of the solutions focused on the Decision Stage of the buying cycle. The assumption is if a serious buyer is looking at their site, they must be ready to buy.
Therefore the content is focused on providing access to product literature, trials, and live demos. All of this content is important, but only when the buyer is in the decision stage of their buying cycle.
For each stage of the insurance buying cycle, your website needs to provide the appropriate content.
Awareness Stage
When the buyer is in the Awareness Stage, your website should provide educational content to help prospects educate themselves about the issues, problems or potential opportunity they are interested in. Examples of content used in the Awareness Stage includes:
- Blogs – many new sites are not creating original content, just republishing news articles
- Explainer videos
- Social media
- Analyst and research reports
- eGuides and eBooks
Consideration Stage
In the Consideration Stage, you want to provide education content to help prospects learn more about a solution for their problem, issue or opportunity. Examples of content used in the Consideration Stage include:
- Expert guides
- Videos and podcasts
- Comparison white papers
Decision Stage
The Decision Stage is when you can provide the content and resources to help prospects choose your best solution for their problem or opportunity. Examples of content used in the Decision Stage include:
- Case studies
- Customer testimonial videos
- Product and vendor comparisons
- Live custom demos
- Product literature
- 15-day free trials
Most companies have a good amount of this content but have limited ways for interested buyers to access it easily.
Reason #2: Limited Ways to Convert
The proven way for your website to generate inbound leads is to provide helpful content during all stages of the buyer’s journey and easy ways for interested buyers to access the content they are interested in.
Most new websites we review simply use the catch-all “Contact Us” Call-to-Action ( CTA) which is a Decision Stage CTA intended for buyers who are ready to engage. By using the "Contact Us" landing page, you are lumping in potential interested contacts with all types of requests for your attention. In reality, the "Contact Us" landing page becomes an easy way for legacy salespeople to try and sell you something.
Your website should have conversion paths or CTAs for all stages of the buyer’s journey. Once you develop helpful content for each stage of the buying cycle, this now enables you to create CTAs for each stage of the buying cycle.
Reason #3: Limited or no SEO strategy in place
An interested buyer cannot evaluate your company if they are unaware of your existence. It’s an absolute necessity to have a complete SEO strategy in place to attract buyers who may not be aware of your company and the solutions you provide.
Every page on your website should be optimized including:
- Landing pages
- Blog posts
- Email campaigns
Many companies count on traffic coming to their websites from direct visits (buyers who are familiar with their company and type in the URL) and email marketing campaigns. Although they are important channels to drive traffic, these companies are limiting themselves to just these two channels by not having a complete SEO strategy in place.
By having a complete SEO strategy in place for your entire website, you can also drive traffic from organic searches, social media and referrals.
Conclusion
Don’t try to force an interested buyer directly to a Decision Stage CTA. By doing this, you make the assumption that everyone visiting your site is ready to buy, which makes it difficult for them to learn more about your company.
As you know, the insurance buying cycle can be a long and dragged out one. You want to attract and keep visitors in all stages of their buying cycle. You can do this by catering to all 3 stages, and not just the Decision Stage.
We offer a no-cost website assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of your website to generate inbound leads. Click on the button below to request an assessment of your website:
