You know it is funny, over the last few weeks I have talked to several people about their web sites. These companies are working with some of my competitors. The competitors companies are building ok looking web sites for their clients and even setting up google analytics for them to review some of the details that are going on with this new site they built.

This is great, and we are glad to see people taking an initiative to learn about their company's web site and web stats.

The problem I see is that they are focusing on the wrong stats.

Although increased web traffic is important, this does not mean business is better. When I question some of these people about how much new business is coming directly from their web site, they usually tell me that "the web stats say…", ok stop right there. My question is how many leads is your web site bringing in? This is not how much traffic has increased.

Yes, you do have to increase your traffic all the time to reach more people, but after you get people to your site then what?

The key to web success is you need a way to convert you visitors into leads. Let me repeat this since it is very important - The key to web success is you need a way to convert you visitors into leads.

What exactly is a lead you may be asking? Well a lead is someone that fills out a form to request more information. In this day an age, with people in fear of identity fraud and getting spammed it is very tough to get anyone to fill out a standard contact form.

So how do you get people to fill out a form? Well, you need to set up a form that offers something of value. As with any marketing you must ask yourself "What's in it for them". You certainly know you are asking what's in it for me every time you come to a page with a form. If there is nothing of value, people just leave.

The first thing you have to do is look at what problems you solve for your customers. What is their pain points. Then you need to develop a landing page or microsite around this pain/solution. The key is to make some sort of an offer, you know like a free demo, free trial, free download of a whitepaper or ebook. By creating this offer you are offering value to your visitors and something they will be willing to give up their information for.

This is the next step of your web marketing. You need to get your visitors to take action and allow you to start interacting with them. Keep in mind a lead is just the start, it is not a closed deal to a client. A lead however is one step closer to a closed deal and lightyears closer than a blip on the screen of your web traffic stats.

I recommend to all people with web sites, start asking for more. If you are paying money for your web site, and everyone is, demand that your site starts generating leads for your sales team to start calling on. Otherwise you are wasting a lot of money and time to get more traffic that leaves as soon as it gets to your site.

If you would like to see a chart of
a typical web sales funnel, download it here.