Three surefire ways to get more leads from your website

Your website is a critical part of your business. But you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t optimise your site for lead generation. In Taleist’s live Stand Out session, Sydney copywriter Steven Lewis reveals three foolproof ways you can use to generate more leads from your website.

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Transcript of Taleist’s copywriting FAQ live

Hello, and welcome to another Taleist Stand Out session. If you’re familiar with the format, this is where I’m going to give you some copywriting and persuasion tips first, and then I’m going to answer your questions live. We are live at the moment on Facebook and YouTube. So if you’re watching on Facebook or YouTube, you can ask questions now throughout the presentation and afterwards in the comment section. If you happen to be tuned in as we talk, you know, please hit subscribe, like, comment. If you’re watching a recording, welcome. Also subscribe to the channel, hit like, let us know, ask a question in the comments. We could pick it up and answer for you later. But either way, whether you’re watching live or recorded, we’re glad to have you here.

Three ways to get more leads from your website

And we’re going to start with our presentation on three surefire ways to get more leads from your website. And these are going to be things that you can do without having to be a copywriter. And you know, that you could actually do right now. So you don’t need any technical skills, you just need the framing to know what to do. So let’s start.

Tip 1: Prove your value and build trust

The first thing that I certainly see many websites don’t do very well is proving their value and building trust with their readers. Somebody has landed on your website, it’s like they’ve walked into your shop. If they’re not somebody who knows you already, they’re removed from you. At least if I walk into your shop and I see your product, I can pick it up and I can feel it. And I know that I’m going to get it when I pay for it because it’s right there in my shopping trolley or in my hands as I go to the counter.

With a website, you’re going to buy something from somebody, you know, sight unseen, whether that’s a product or a service. So you need to prove that what you’re selling has value. And you need to build trust that you can deliver it because there’s a difference between proving for instance, that you, that your service has value, and somebody believing that you can deliver that value. So you might believe that an accountant would be a very useful person to have on your team. But that doesn’t mean that somebody also then believes that you’re a good accountant. So those are the two things your account, your website needs to do.

In terms of building trust, explaining your process has a strong role to play. So as I say, you don’t need copywriting skills necessarily to explain your process. There’s a chance that if you do employ copywriting skills, you will explain your process in a way that delivers other copywriting benefits such as presenting how you do what you do in terms of a unique mechanism. But you can certainly, because you work in the business, explain your process without copywriting skills.

This is an example from a company called Geek HQ, which is one of our clients. And they needed people to understand how they worked and that they worked differently. And part of how they work differently was they wanted payment in advance. So to have them as your computer repair people, you needed to buy credits. So that’s fine if you’re a repeat customer. But if you’re a first-time customer, you’re being asked to buy credits before somebody come out and fix your computer or fix your computer remotely. So there was a lot of work to be done on building trust in this company. And part of that was just very simply laying out the four-step process.

Of course, more needed to be done to build trust that your credit wasn’t going to disappear. But, you know, because of course you’re operating as they are in an, in an area in which we’ve all had a cold call or a cold email from somebody at some time telling us that our website you know, is in danger, and that they can fix it remotely and so on. So there’s a lot of warnings about those scams. And in fact, here in Australia, though, there’s a whole website called Scam Watch, I think that set up to warning people about scams that look exactly like the mechanism that our client uses to work. So we had to do a lot to build trust. But the first thing we did was actually lay out their process simply, which it wasn’t on their existing website.

Another thing that you can do to build trust, of course, is to employ proof. So if you’re going to say you do something, then you need to prove that you’re going to do it. And in this case, which is an example for a town planner, we made some assertions like our client thoroughly researches things. Well, any town planner can say that they thoroughly researched things. So we matched every one of these claims that you see in these boxes with a testimonial from somebody that specifically spoke to that particular quality. So we say we research, this quotation says, they do all that due diligence, ie they’ve done their research, and they’re the perfect town planners to work with. And we don’t use research in both of these things. But they are saying the same thing. So that is how we, you know, build that level of trust.

So no spin, we understand your developments got business objectives. So we give straightforward, accurate advice about what’s possible. Most consultants will tell you that they give straightforward, accurate advice about what’s possible. So we go down to somebody who’s actually a developer, so they are the target market. Somebody who’s reading this website will recognize that Carrie Lowe is somebody like them, and therefore has credibility. Because we all favor information from people who are like us, it’s a human trait. So Nick has entrepreneurial flair. So she sees the project in a business light, she arrives with all the answers prepared. These things aren’t necessarily sitting right next to each other. But over the course of reading this website, the reader might not completely understand why they’ve come to trust that planet can deliver what it promises. But they will get to the end of the website, believing that planning will deliver.

Tip 2: Establish your point of difference

Next tip, establish your point of difference. People are probably going to be looking at alternatives. Now sometimes that alternative will be your competitor. Sometimes that alternative will be something that somebody can do instead. So you might not consider a hotel up the coast to be a competitor to a hotel in Fiji. But if I’m going to consider those two things to be competition, then they are competition. So that’s the kind of thing that you have to do, is think about what is the competition for what you offer. What are the other things that your reader is considering, and then establish your difference from that thing.

So it might not be a traditional competitor, it might be something different. An example of somebody failing to build a point of difference with traditional competitor is this example of an accountant’s website. And as usual, I blurred the name of the accountant or covered it in red, because it’s not my intention to criticize anybody specifically. I want to raise some general points. And here the general point is, this is a firm of accountants who say here, they offer trustworthy advice, expert knowledge and real world experience. There isn’t a firm of accountants in the universe that would tell you that they don’t offer trustworthy advice. No firm of accountants would say to you, we offer advice, but it is not trustworthy. We have knowledge, but it is not expert knowledge. And we have experience but it’s only theoretical experience, not real world experience. So this is the exact opposite of a point of difference. This firm of accountants has put up his hand and said, We are identical to everybody else in the market and every other firm that you’ve heard of. Again, if you were to go and read further on in this website under the section taxation law. Understanding the law means we advise you on structuring transactions to maximize your turns, minimize your tax, and help keep your financial affairs in order. And so says every other firm of accountants in the world.

You have to think about what it is that you can own. That makes you different and that for instance, I mean, we’ve got a very inexpensive course on the Taleist website on making your business irresistible. And that course, which is a short practical course, is entirely about how do you make your business stand out as different. And you can find that course if you go to taleist.agency/online-training. You can find that, you can find that course and it’s on the screen there now taleist.agency/online-training, or just go to Taleist.agency and in the Services menu, you’ll find our online training courses. You might not think it’s possible to find a point of difference because you are an accountancy firm and you do all the things that other accountancy firms do. However, that doesn’t change the fact that every business is different and does things differently. And you can find a point of difference if you know how. That’s what we teach there.

I’m going to give you an example of this done well. This is a website that we wrote. So of course, it’s done well. First things first, I want to show you the homepage, which doesn’t particularly go to the point that I’m making about establishing difference. But you can see that this homepage goes to what the client actually wants. And it does slightly touch on a point of difference because this is the website for a boat syndicate company. And what a boat syndicate company does is gather a group of people together to buy a boat as a collective. The argument is no boat owner is going to be on that boat 365 days a year. However if you own a boat and you own it by yourself, you are paying for its mooring, its upkeep, you know the whole thing. So you’re paying the full amount. And that means if you only go on it for weekends a year or 10 weekends a year, or whatever it might be. That’s a very expensive proposition. However if you enter a syndicate, you can enjoy all the benefits of boat ownership. You can go out on a boat just as much as you were ever going to go out on a boat, but you’re only paying a fraction of the cost of the upkeep of the boat.

So the homepage goes to what is it you really want. What you really want is not to own 100% of a boat, because it’s not where you’re going to live, and you’re not going to be on it 365 days a year. So the headline there is the kind of waterside lifestyle usually reserved for movie stars. That is what the ideal customer for this business wants. They want the lifestyle of boat ownership and as little of the hassle as possible. But part of the competition would be owning your own boat, that would be something that many of these people will be thinking about. So we have a whole section explaining how boat shares work, and then an entire page on why it’s better to own a boat share than the whole boat. So we are establishing the difference and the compelling difference between our client’s way of giving you that harbor, you know, that boating, movie star lifestyle, and the alternative ways of giving that lifestyle.

And you would know these things because you sell your product or your service to people all the time. My question to you is whether your website reflects the things that you would say to somebody in person about how you are different from the other things that they might be considering.

Tip 3: Be human

Third and final tip for today on how to get more leads from your website is to be human. People buy from people. And that is true whether you sell directly to consumers or you sell business to business. Because even when you sell business to business, your service or product is being bought by a human. And as I say, people buy from people. There is a reason why salespeople take their clients out to lunch. It is to build relationships, and your website can help you to build those relationships.

This is an example I’ve got. One example in this section, and then I’m happy to take your questions. So if you’re watching live, please feel free to ask your questions in the comments. And if you happen to be in the comments, do, you know, give us a like or a share, or subscribe to the channel. You can also, if you’re listening to a recording or because this is available as a podcast, or you’re watching it as a recording on YouTube or through our website, you can go to taleist.agency/SOS. And you’ll get notifications of when the sessions are happening and the ability to ask questions in advance.

This website is for an accountant in Melbourne. And the point of difference is expressed in the headline. We’re a local, friendly and professional accountant. The accountant who owns this practice, Elizabeth, is an extremely human person, as you’ll see in the next slide. And this was the vibe that she wanted her website to have – local, friendly and professional. But notice that professional and accountants are the last things in that list. Local and friendly are actually up the top, and that’s how she wants to put herself forward. And if you’re watching the video rather than listen to the recording, the picture that you’re seeing on your screen now is local. Anybody who lives near Elizabeth’s accounting firm will recognize all the street scenes in the photographs on her website because they are local to her. So you know, even the pictures are reinforcing that message and building your trust that she means it. Because instead of having Melbourne establishing shots of the CBD or stock images of people of diverse backgrounds shaking hands or staring at a laptop, she’s got local imagery. So she’s clearly locally focused.

But the part of the website that I really wanted to show you on the being human part is this bit. Under the headline, you won’t find our email address on this site. Why? And this remains one of my favorite things to have written for, for a client because Elizabeth said, of course it’s standard on a website to have a contact form and an email address and a telephone number. And Elizabeth did not want the contact form. And she did not want the email address. Elizabeth’s view, whether you agree with her or not is not important because it’s Elizabeth’s business. Elizabeth’s view is her ideal client will pick up the phone because it’s somebody who wants a relationship after that. And as you’ll see, it says in the copy, don’t worry, we do use email, SMS Xero, MYOB. And she also uses MyChat, and MyChat, God Almighty WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, whatever means of communication her clients want after that point.

So she’s not, she’s not antiquated. She doesn’t not have a telephone. And she doesn’t not do cloud bookkeeping and accounting. However, she wants a relationship and to her that starts with a phone call. So I’m not suggesting that your website says, I’m not going to give you my email address because I want to phone you. Our website doesn’t say that. It’s got a phone number, and it’s got an email address, and it’s got a contact form. What I’m saying is that Elizabeth’s website is a reflection of Elizabeth and the business in a human way. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re Microsoft that we’re doing some writing for at the moment or a local bookkeeper in Melbourne. There are ways to be human on your website, and there are ways to sound like a corporate robot. And the more human you sound, and it is possible to sound human and professional simultaneously. I think if you were to read Elizabeth’s website, for instance, there’s nothing unprofessional about Elizabeth or her firm on this website. But it’s a very human side.

And I think that’s a hallmark of all the Taleist sites that we write. When we’re allowed to be human, we are human. And the response that our clients get is much better when we’re allowed to be human. When they’re afraid to be human and they think that sounding corporate, i.e robotic, is actually going to get them more leads, because it won’t. And the purpose of this session today was three surefire ways to get more leads from your website. And being human, I can tell you from decades of experience, is high up the list of ways to get more leads from your website. and to, and to do that ,to achieve the three things that I’m saying here, which is to prove value and build trust, and also to establish difference and to be human, you have to understand your goals and who you are and your clients and your competition. And when you understand those things, you can implement what I’ve said today, which as I say, don’t require massive amounts of copywriting experience necessarily. They require some insight into the questions you need to ask yourself and the business that you’re running.

Now, speaking of questions, this is the point at which I take your questions. You can ask those questions live if you’re watching us now on Facebook, or YouTube. Or you can ask them in advance at taleist.agency/SOS. And some people have indeed asked those in advance. But of course, if you ask them in advance, we can’t put the, you know, we can’t, the only way we can put the questions into the system is to ask them ourselves through YouTube.

What is SEO copywriting and how well does it work?

So these will show up as questions that have appeared on YouTube like this one from Jane which came in earlier, which is what is SEO copywriting and how well does it work? SEO copywriting is quite an interesting area because it’s, it’s not really copywriting in the sense that, copywriting is writing that is designed to convince a person to do something. So you run an ad on Facebook that says I’ve got an amazing PDF download. That Facebook ads, the person clicks it, they go to a landing page that explains how brilliant this download is. And because the page is persuasive, somebody enters their email address and downloads or buys or clicks or calls or emails or whatever it is you want them to do. That’s copywriting.

SEO copywriting has, in as much as it’s SEO copywriting, has one audience and that’s Google. And that’s persuading Google. So the persuasion element, what makes it copywriting, is persuading Google that that page is relevant to a particular search. So if you wanted to rank for best accountant in Mosman, then you need an SEO copywriter to come in and understand what it is that’s going to persuade Google that you should be on the first page of results for accountant in Melbourne, Mosman. If you then want to persuade the person that Google sends to your website to do something, then that’s where you need the traditional copywriting. So, SEO copywriting doesn’t always combine the two. At Taleist, we understand SEO and we understand copywriting. And so we naturally bring the two together when SEO is one of the clients’ goals. But quite often, when somebody is offering SEO copywriting, they only mean the element of persuading Google.

And that’s why often you will reach a website and you’ll read stuff. And you’ll think, I don’t know who this is written for. Because it’s not, it sounds odd, it sounds robotic. And it’s not persuading me of anything. And that’s because it’s written by someone who saw their only goal or their only ability was to persuade Google to do it. In terms of how well SEO copywriting works, I saw actually a survey of SEO professionals yesterday and the results of which were, that they put in content as, I think it was in the top two. If not the top two, then the top three things that are important in getting Google to rank you. The content of the page is critical. Because ultimately, Google’s job is to send a searcher to the best answer to their question. And what makes your website the best answer to that question is your content.

So SEO copywriting works incredibly well. If you can persuade Google to rank you, if you can have great content and it’s done by somebody who knows how to persuade Google, then you can have phenomenal results. But that knowing how to play Google is an area of expertise. Because the chances are, you have people competing with you to rank on that first page. And ranking on the first page is a zero-sum game. There are ten results, give or take on the first page. Obviously, Google search results look different for different searches. But let’s say it’s ten on the first page. If you’re going to get on the first page and you’re not there already, somebody else has to leave the first page to make room for you. It’s a top ten. And for somebody to enter, somebody has to leave. So people are competing to be in there. And they’re working hard on it.

So you have to understand how Google thinks, what Google’s looking for. There are lots of tools that you can have to help you with that. And really, the harder the keyword that you want to rank for. Like if you wanted to rank for accountant Sydney for instance, the more tools and the more expertise you’re going to have to put into that. But doing it well can be incredibly fruitful. So SEO copywriting is the art of persuading Google that your web page is the right answer to a question. Somebody who is good at SEO copywriting has an excellent chance of getting your page to rank. Because you know, content is one of Google’s considerations, but it is a very big consideration. However, if you go for SEO copywriting, you also want to make sure that whoever is writing that page has the copywriting ability to write something that’s persuasive. Because it’s a terrible waste of time to invest in getting a whole load of people to your website, who then say, well, this isn’t very convincing. And then they leave.

What is a conversion metric and how do you calculate it?

So thank you, Jane, for that question. You know, give, give us a thumbs up if you found that helpful. And everybody else, please do feel free to like, comment, subscribe, leave a review. If you listen to the podcast, it does encourage us to keep going so if you find this helpful, please do engage. Okay, the next question. This one is from Naresh. What is a conversion metric? And how do you calculate it? You’ve probably heard a lot about the conversion rate on your website. What is your conversion rate? And for some people, it’s all Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO, if you prefer, much talked about. Your website has a job. And what that job is, I mean, it probably has more than one job and what those jobs are depends on what you want from the website.

So for some people, meaning if you’re a newspaper site for instance, what you want is more people to come to the site and spend longer on the site so that they can see your ads and then you can sell more ads to more people. If you’re selling a widget, then the job of your website is to get people to the widget page and persuade them to buy the widget. So the conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit your website who do the thing that you want them to do. Most commonly, when people talk about conversion rate, they’re talking about the rate of people who, if you’re selling a service, you know, pick up the phone to call you, or email you or fill in your contact form or whatever. You might be offering a lead magnet, a PDF download from your website. In which case, a conversion metric would be what percentage of people who visit your website, who are offered the lead magnet, choose to download it.

So the simple calculation is the number of people who do what you want, divided by the number of people who could have done what you want, multiplied by 100. So if, if, if 1000 people visit your website and 100 of them do what you want, your conversion rate will be 10%. If 10 of them do what you want, your conversion rate will be 1%. But what the conversion is, is entirely up to you. So some people might start small. Or they might say, well, you know, the thing that I want to improve is, you know, I want people to spend longer on the page. That is the conversion that I want right now. Most people are on my site for 20 seconds, but I want people to be on there for at least a minute and a half. And that’s the conversion that they’re looking for. So you should have metrics for your website, because there should be something that it’s doing. You didn’t invest in having a website for it to do nothing but just bob around the internet like a shipping container lost at sea. You invested in a website to get it to do something.

So you need to set a goal for that thing and then measure how well your website does, what percentage of people do the thing that you want. And then once you’ve set a baseline, you can start experimenting with, okay well, I’ve got this percentage of people downloading this PDF. What if I change the headline? What if I change this? This many people fill in my contact form, but I’ve made it compulsory for them to give me my their phone number. What if I take out that field and just ask them for their email address? Do more people do it? So once you’ve set that baseline, once you’ve decided on the conversion, set a baseline which is where you are now, set a goal and then start setting up experiments for what you can do after that.

Thank you for joining us in this week’s Stand Out session

So this has been a Taleist Stand Out session. We’re doing these frequently. So if you want to know when the next one is, go to taleist.agency/SOS and sign up. You’ll also get the mailing list. We email two actionable practical tips every week, things that you can put into practice straight away. You can also ask a question in advance for a future Stand Out session. And even if you can’t make it live, there’s always going to be a recording on YouTube or the podcasts which are available from Apple or Google.

So thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate your support and your likes and your comments and your shares and your forwarding the links to people. It does encourage us to continue. If you have questions about copywriting, digital marketing, websites, writing with influence, LinkedIn, the sort of things that we talk about at the Taleist website, I’m always happy to answer your questions. And just let me know what your questions are so I can answer them in a future Stand Out session. Thank you so much for joining us today.