5 Simple Ways to Optimise Your Website for Lead Generation

In this increasingly digital world, personal trainers rely more and more on web-based lead generation to grow their businesses. Referrals and word-of-mouth leads are still important, but online leads are now an integral part of an effective fitness marketing strategy.

While search engine optimization (SEO) is also a factor of successful internet marketing, SEO focuses on getting more visitors to your website. Lead generation and conversion focuses on turning website visitors into leads. 

It is much more cost-effective to convert a high percentage of visitors into qualified leads than to get a larger number of visitors to your site but convert few of them. The tips below outline ways to optimize your website for lead generation and grow your client base. 

1. Analyze the Current State of Lead Generation

​In order to improve your website's lead generation, first you need to understand the current state of your online lead generation. If you don't have a website, this might only come in the from of the occasional call from a potential client who found your phone number on Yelp, Google+, Facebook, or some other listing service.

​If you do have a website, can you track how many leads per month you get from it? What tool do you use to collect lead information? What percent of your clients come from web-based leads? Once you have an understanding of what your process is now and how it is performing, you can work towards optimizing your site to improve the results. 

The easiest way to track your lead generation strategy success is by listing each of your strategies, how many leads that strategy gets for your business and how much it costs per lead acquisition (CPA).

​At My PT Website, we use mainly inbound marketing methods to attract people who are already looking for our services instead of outbound marketing methods which focus on trying to persuade people who have never met you that they should buy your services.

2. Optimize Calls-to-Action

​A call-to-action (CTA) can be a button, link, or even a sentence on a website - anything instructing the viewer to do something. "Join now" or "sign up for your free session" are examples of CTAs for the fitness industry.

​Even if your website already has call-to-actions, make sure they are in the right locations and used the right way. A call to action should reflect what stage of the buyer journey your website visitor is at for maximum results.

For example, if your website visitor is in the Awareness stage, he or she may be reading a blog and be intrigued by your knowledge, this doesn't mean she wants to buy from you so perhaps a free eBook with a call to action "Download you FREE eBook" would be ideal.
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But if you have a website visitor who is in the Decision Making stage, she might want to get in touch. For her, a contact form with the call to action "Submit" would work perfectly.

CTAs should follow these general guidelines:

• Stand out and be easy to find when your site loads
• Be large and a contrasting color from your design
• Use actionable words like "download", "contact", or "start"
• Use words that create a sense of urgency like "now" and "today"
• Provide value or an incentive
• Be the obvious next step for somebody (avoid too many options)

​For instance, the main button on your homepage could say "Start Training Today" above a sentence stating "Get your first two training sessions FREE". This is much more appealing than a link that just says "Register".

3. Optimize Landing Pages

A landing page is a standalone webpage, separate from your website, designed for a single purpose. For a personal trainer, a good landing page offers something of value (i.e. free session or an e-book) in return for information like a visitor's name, email, or phone number.

​The page should only request essential information - keep it simple, easy, and user-friendly. Lastly, you want the page to deliver a short, focused message that drives your value. Using empty space to promote the call-to-action makes for a clean landing page. 

Use the following checklist to optimise your landing pages:

1. Headline uses actionable, value-driven words. 
2. Headline matches source copy.
3. Sub-header concisely describes the benefit of the offer.
4. Body copy is scannable, scrollable, and compelling.
5. Page title, URL, and meta description are all optimized for search.
6. Image is indicative of what you'll get after filling out the landing page form.
7. Image has alt-text.
8. Form is the proper length for landing page goal.
9. Submit button copy is customized. 
10. Form enabled progressive profiling for return visitors. 
11. Landing page content passes the blink test.
12. Top navigation menu is removed.
13. Layout is responsive.
14. Smart content has logical default tokens.
15. Content behind the form is mobile-friendly.
16. Thank-you page and/or kickback emails are set up and functional.
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4. Optimize Thank You Pages

Once a lead signs up or fills out a form, most websites redirect to a thank you page. This page is an opportunity to provide a next step for your hot lead. You can use a thank you page to tell website visitors to explain when they will receive a free download or ask them to take a short survey, provide personal fitness info, or share your site on social media.

​In contrast, it is also an opportunity to provide value and give them information by adding links to fitness content or other pages of your website for them to explore. Do not let your thank you page go to waste. 

5. Optimize Email Auto-responders

Email campaign services like MailChimp allow users to send automatically generated emails to subscribed leads. It could be an email immediately after they sign up for a class or a 5-week, 5-email campaign with tips for core strengthening.

All of these emails are critical interactions with a person that has already expressed interest in your service. To optimize these interactions, auto-responders should include:

• Relevant and value-driven subject lines
• As much personalization as possible
• Concise and compelling content
• Images and videos
• The next call-to-action

One huge thing to avoid with auto-responders is feeling spammy. If you cannot see the value the email provides the lead, then you can bet they also won't see the value. 

Takeaways for Increasing Online Leads

​While there are dozens of ways to optimize a website for lead conversion, knowing your current situation, along with optimizing calls-to-action, landing pages, thank you pages, and email auto-responders are key elements to increasing lead generation.

​Of course, everything needs to be monitored before and after changes are made to track results and allow for further optimization. It can be hard to stay on top of the latest website tools and marketing techniques. Our goal is to keep personal trainers up to date with the latest in online lead generation. Sign up for free tools, and resources today to start learning how to enhance your website.