• If you want to use your website to generate leads, you first need to be sure that your website is user friendly and is designed to provide the visitor with helpful content that provides answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. 

• Your homepage is your opportunity to make a first impression and to engage the visitor so that they will remain on your website for some time going from page to page engaging in the content that is found on it.
• The mistake that most businesses make with their website is that the website is designed so that it is all about the business and the products and services that are being offered by that business.

• When people are entering search terms into Google or some other search engine, they are not entering your company name or looking for you; they are looking for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. 

• For your website to be effective and to get the visitor to provide you with their contact information and thus providing you with a lead, your website has to engage them and provide them with the answers that they are seeking.  It has to be designed in such a way that the user will remain on your website and engage in your content.
• Most people never engage any further on a website than the homepage.  In order to overcome this, you need to design your homepage so that it is engaging with visitors and provides them with the answers that they want. 

• Your homepage should be designed so that the visitor can find the content they are seeking by following links from the homepage to other pages on the website with a simple click.

• Your most recent blog post should be at or near the top of the homepage, as well as a list of topics and a few of your most popular blog posts. 

• There should be a table of contents that will float down the page as the visitor scrolls so that the visitor can easily click a link to another section of the website without having to scroll back up to the top.  This floating table of contents should be on every page of the website.

• As visitors scroll down on the homepage they should find a content offer that will provide helpful information that they can download.  This offer should be near the top of the homepage.  Additionally, it should be found at the bottom of the homepage. 

• If you don't have a content offer then you must have a call to action that will prompt the visitor to enter their information and answer some questions in order to receive a "reward".  This call to action  should be near the top of the homepage as well as at the bottom of the homepage.  Additionally, it should be at the bottom of every page on the website so that the visitor can decide at any time to "get more information" without having to go back to the homepage or click a link on the table of contents.

• By having the visitor enter their information and answer some qualifying questions you are generating a new lead.  Based on their responses to the questions that they answer and the information that they enter, you can determine whether or not they are a qualified lead for your business.

• Finally, in order to engage with the visitor to your website and to show the visitor that you are being helpful, you should have a chat window that pops up.  This chat window will allow the visitor to ask questions.
   
• You can either have a live person available to answer those questions, or you can have canned responses.  It may be smart to utilize a combination of both approaches.  In other words, prepare canned responses to the most frequently asked questions and provide links to content where the visitor can receive more information that answers their question in more detail.
  
  
• You should also provide links to outside sources that  will provide the answer that the visitor is seeking.  Even though this link will take the visitor off of your site, it shows the visitor that you are being helpful and providing them with content that answers their questions. 

• This builds trust with the visitor as well as creates the impression that you are an expert.  You can almost guarantee that the visitor will return to your website and will provide you with their information and thus will become a lead.  Remember, the point is to create trust and to show the visitor that you are the expert so that they will return to you when they are considering using the services or buying the product that your business offers.

Summary:

1. Your business website should be designed so that it is not about your business
2. It should present you as an expert on subject matter that your target audience will seek for solutions to their problems and answers to their questions.