If you have a website, blog, or product, you’ll want to fully understand the art of lead generation. This can seem overwhelming to the beginner as you try to figure out where to begin, how much to spend, and what type of time commitment this requires. In reality, lead generation isn’t so bad. Whether you start from scratch or already have a mailing list, the lead generation tactics are fundamentally the same.

Create Your Ideal Prospect Avatar

Begin by asking yourself what the basic reason is behind your lead generation requirements. This will help you later determine what method of lead generation will be most effective, and who your target leads are. Now create a customer avatar and drill down on who is your ideal prospect. Answer these questions, get specific and identify your avatar:

1) Who is your perfect prospect?

2) Where are they located?

The first step is to build traffic to your site. The best way to get traffic to your site is by being the top result on search engines like Google. So, having identified your avatar, you will now know what they are looking for. So include specific keywords in the contents of your pages, and if possible, in your URL. Think about what types of keywords are most effective when you’re searching for something on the web. Just typing in “technology” will turn up millions of results, none of which are necessarily specific to what you’re looking for. The more specific (or “long-tailed) the keyword, and the more it’s repeated in your content, the higher your ranking will be in search engine results. Use Google Keywords Tool to identify low competition key words.

Check out these additional quick tips on creating high-ranking keywords:

• Create backlinks, which means that the anchor text for your backlinks contain your keyword.

• Keyword density is the correct balance of each key word in your posts and pages. Check your competitor’s density and use that as a baseline.

• Use “Alt Text” for images, which is what search engines use to “read” the image since they can’t “see” them. Without Alt Text, search engines don’t know the image exists. This is also a great way to sneak your key word onto the page again.Use title tags, instead of having titles that relate back to your URL or business name. Each page should have a unique title tag based on its content. That way, your page will rank highly for its content, not just for people specifically searching for the name of your company.

• Create meta descriptions, or brief, 1-2 sentence summaries of what the page is about. This will appear in search results, especially if it has a key word from the page and title tag. Avoid keyword stuffing.

• Create high quality content because it’s the link-bait your business needs to get eyeballs on your page

These are all generally free lead generation methods and will promote your site.They are useful, but may not get you ranked highly very quickly. Also, if your topic is popular, it may be outranked by websites that pay for advertising themselves. At some point, paying for advertising may be that additional push you need to get your company’s name recognized. There are a number of methods to do so:

Lead Generation By Paid Advertising

Lead generation can occur quickly and effectively by paid advertising. It is one of the most commonly used methods by successful marketers. There are several options available:

Pay-per-click is an internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which advertisers pay the publisher (typically a website owner) when the ad is clicked. It is defined simply as “the amount spent to get an advertisement clicked.” PPC platforms include Google Adwords, Facebook Ads and advertise.com

Lead Generation By Social Media

Paid advertising makes lead generation much easier, but it is possible to succeed without paying out-of-pocket. One of the most popular ways to spread your company’s name for free is through social networking and media. This is my own personal favorite lead generation tactic. Making an account on any of the following sites costs nothing, and by spending some time building your profile and network, you can spread your product free of charge.

Facebook allows you to post content in many forms, including text, photos, videos, and links. If your network interacts with the content, Facebook’s “Graphrank” will kick in and promote the content to users within degrees of separation. Having high-quality content matters over everything else. This is my number source of lead generation and for more tips on Facebook Marketing click here.

Youtube drives traffic to your company through video product reviews, or tutorials on your service. Optimize your title and video description for keywords to increase lead generation.

Pinterest is ideal for visual content. Adding a “pin it” button to your posts can drive large amounts of traffic to your site. Visually appealing content like infographics tend to be shared more often than traditional photos in the business-to-business (B2B) space.

Google+ is very similar to Facebook’s Graphrank.  When content is posted to your G+ page, the content is promoted with higher rankings in the search engine for friends and friends of friends. For example, if you posted content on “b2b lead generation,” and a colleague in your circles searches Google for the same phrase, “b2b lead generation,” your post would be given a high ranking on the search engine results page.

Quick Tip: Within your social media posts, make sure to vary your content between videos, pictures, and articles. This increases your lead generation results. It makes your potential leads feel as though they connect with you, and provides a way of giving back to the internet’s ever-growing want for information. It’s also a great way to build friendships and connections that last for years to come.

Lead Generation With Joint Ventures

If you’re starting or have a business or you have something you want to market, then the best option is to invest in joint ventures. A Joint Venture (JV) is a mutually beneficial agreement between two parties. For instance, if you have a product but don’t have a big mailing list, you can approach a person with a list and offer a JV in a form of giving away 50% commission off every sale made. Joint Ventures are the number one strategy the gurus use to do big launches.

They approach their friends and colleagues 2-3 weeks prior to launch, and personally invite them to do a promotion. The next thing you know, every marketer on the planet talks about the launch and it’s a success. If you’re just starting out, you probably don’t have a big list or a product (or both), so you might think that JVs are not for you. This is another misconception. Joint Ventures aren’t only done on a product-list-commission basis. JVs can take many forms: instead of offering a commission, you can always offer a service or something of value to that particular party. It’s a fantastic lead generation method.

Lead Generation Further Tips – Where To Send Your Leads

Now that you’ve built, and attracted an audience, where do you send them? The answer is, it depends. Send leads to content on your site if you are promoting using social media. For media buying and PPC, you should send your visitors to landing pages that promote taking action. That action can be purchasing a product, submitting information, or clicking on an ad. Successful landing pages relate strongly to the advertising campaign they are attached to. Clicks to a relevant and optimized landing page can result in sizeable boosts to your lead generation campaign.

For the PPC landing page, having the keyword, ad, and landing page tied together seamlessly increases the relevancy of your pay-per-click ads, bumping them higher on the search results page and lowering your cost per click. Each ad campaign should have its own landing page specifically targeted to the keywords in that ad group. Even if the main content on the page is the same or similar, just adjusting the page title or adding a few words related to the different keyword driven ad groups can create more opportunities for lead generation. Always test your landing page and use clear and concise wording. Focus on the “pain points” where possible to increase conversions.

Eliminate distractions from the landing page. In the end, the simple fact is that distractions destroy conversions. Your landing page must give the prospect a clear path to the call to action. Be sure to focus on a single, easy-to-convert purpose. Collect as little as you need at this stage of the sales funnel, knowing you can always accrue more during the lead nurturing process. Take advantage of landing page software to quickly create a conversion-ready page that will immediately provide lead generation results.

Lead Generation Take Away..

There we have it my friend. Many different choices for your lead generation needs. Each day, something new and innovative comes along so keep abreast of the latest developments. You always have to research and test and don’t give up because you will make a breakthrough. If you need any help with any aspect of your campaigns then do get in touch. I will be happy to help you with your lead generation.