Why quality is better than quantity in the online lead generation game

I imagine because you are reading this blog post that you are interested in generating leads for your business, you are also probably interested in finding out how to do this online. In this blog post we will be looking at why increasing visitors to your website isn’t always the answer and why you should be focusing on quality over quantity. We will be looking at the following areas:

• How online lead generation has changed
• Which metrics are really important in tracking success
• Why we shouldn’t be afraid to specialise

How online lead generation has changed

There was a time that we all wanted loads of ‘hits’ on our website and searching for and finding the right product to buy was a long thought out process, well times have most definitely changed. We are a much more sophisticated bunch these days, being tricked into visiting a website with rubbish content won’t work. We are time poor and make decisions much more quickly than we ever did before.

If I come to your website then I want to know instantly that I have come to the right place, I will be asking myself these questions

• Do this company do/sell what I was looking for
• Where do I go next on the website to purchase/enquire
• How much is it going to cost me

The likelihood is that they will then disappear and compare your offering with some of your competitors unless you have brand loyalty with that user already (if you sell products and can’t compete on price then you need to think very carefully about how you can build that loyalty). Whilst we still shop around, this whole transaction will take place very quickly. The more expensive the purchase the more time it is likely to take, B2B transactions also take longer.

Whatever your business does, the real point is that if you are looking to generate new leads then the world has changed and therefore “getting on the first page of Google” or “doubling the number of visits to your website” isn’t always the right goal to have in place. Users have become used to coming across businesses they’ve never heard of before. Suddenly online markets are full of companies all competing for those top spots on Google and for some businesses that top spot is never going to be achievable for your key phrases, you need to be very clever about how you reach those all important new leads.

Which metrics are really important in tracking success

Now let’s go back to ‘hits’. There was a time in the not too distant past when the focus was very much on two things

1. How many visits you had to your website (slightly different to hits, but that’s another blog post)

2. What your keyword positions are

Now, remember that I mentioned we are all very sophisticated searchers these days and that means that the things we type into the search bar is also very different. Rather than entering in one or two words we are very specific and much more descriptive about what we look for, this means a couple of things:

1. Tracking a handful of keywords is really not that useful

2. That this then presents opportunities for businesses to be found for lots of niche phrases

The online world is a very congested one now, there was a time when the big brands didn’t really bother too much about whether or not they appeared in the search results because everyone knows them right. That’s not the case now and that means that the playing field is nowhere near level, there was a time when a small business could be ‘found’ for some very heavy duty phrases, i’m afraid the bad news is that nowadays, that is almost impossible for the organic results. To be honest, I wouldn’t advise going after these big phrases if you aren’t already found, there really isn’t much point. It will cost a lot of money and won’t necessarily get you a return on that money spent. There are much better ways to get an ROI.

Niche phrases are known as long-tailed keyphrases, rather than a handful of keywords driving traffic to your website, we now see hundreds if not thousands of phrases being typed into the search engines. This comes back around to the way that we search, very often we will ask questions or be incredibly specific about what we are looking for. To give you an example, where we would have once searched for “IT Essex” we may now look for something like “IT provider in Essex for a small business” and where we would have searched for “shoes” we would now look for “black sandals with small heel evening” or something along those lines.

Not only do long-tailed keyphrases give you a better chance of getting those organic rankings and attracting quality leads, they are also proven to convert much better than less specific search phrases.

This means that the old SEO techniques aren’t as useful as they once were and it’s also why content has become so utterly utterly important in generating leads online.

Why we shouldn’t be afraid to specialise

It’s one of those difficult questions that most business owners get asked, so then, what is your niche? But we all want to reach as many people as possible, we want to look after everyone we can right?! We are passionate about the fact that our products and services can help a large number of people/company’s out. Obviously this depends on what you do, but so many of us want to satisfy everyone, mainly because we care so much about what we do and want to make a real positive difference to others.

I’m not saying that you should turn away business if you don’t want to just because it doesn’t fit into a specific niche, what I am saying is that by targeting a niche market online you give yourself a very good chance of generating those leads you are looking for. Trying to target every business in the UK for example could be a very expensive exercise, but by trying to help a specific niche you can really focus your effort and save yourself a lot of time, money and hassle along the way.

By doing this you will find your investment doesn’t need to be as scary and the ROI is actually likely to be a lot higher than by trying to make everyone your customer. The other benefit is that once you have gained the attention of a particular market, this often filters out to potential customers that sit just outside of that market. Once you have a strong presence there you can look outwardly to other niches should you so wish. So don’t ever forget the end game, but unless you have the budget and time available to compete against much larger company’s, then set realistic goals and build from there.

But what about quantity vs quality

Because of all these changes in behaviour we need to start looking at our analytics in a different way and focus on engagement rather than things like visits, keyword positions or even the number of leads. There is really not much point in getting hundreds of un-qualified leads each month that simply take up time, without really getting either party the end result that they are looking for. Wouldn’t you rather a smaller number of quality leads coming through the door?

By making sure you understand your market and are attracting the right kind of visitors to your website you will help to generate those quality leads for your business.