Lead generation and SEO with Danielle Gagnon

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Andrew:
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Clientside, this is the podcast where we invite guests to share their marketing experience, giving you actionable takeaways so you can develop your brand, your marketing and your growth. Thanks so much for joining me today from a safe socially distant, two meters. I'm your host Andrew Armitage, and I'm also the founder of A Digital, which is the digital agency behind the Clientside podcast.

Andrew:
Now, I'm really excited for today's conversation and it's great to have you here. Today we're on episode number 19. We're talking with my guest all about how to generate leads from your website. Now, of course, as everyone in business will know when it comes to selling, new leads and new customers are essential for growth. So how can you do this online? Lead generation is all about starting a conversation, but in increasingly digital times, how can you do that? And in addition, how can you keep people interested in what you have to say if they're not quite ready to buy from you? If you're looking for leads and new enquiries will drop straight into your inbox or the phone will ring. But as people are spending more time browsing online, they're also looking for opportunities to get to know you before they're ready to buy from you. So keeping these people entertained and informed with great content that adds value or helps them to solve their problem is vital to build your lead pipeline and grow your database.

Andrew:
Now, I'm sure you'll have heard of phrases like lead magnets, funnels and landing pages. We're going to be covering all of these in today's episode. But we'll also talk about search engine optimization, CRM and some of the metrics you can track with tools like Google Analytics. So it might sound like we're getting a bit technical, but we're really not. There'll be loads of easy and actionable steps to take away from today's show. So let's dive in and introduce today's guest. So I'm joined today by Danielle Gagnon, who describes herself as a SEO ninja obsessed with helping entrepreneurs and small business owners turn their passion into profit online. Danielle is the founder of the 21 day sell a success challenge and the content cash machine. And through these online programs and one on one coaching Danielle helps business owners learn how to sell more stuff and promote their services online through simple and actionable search engine optimization strategies. So welcome to the Clientside Danielle.

Danielle:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Andrew:
Now, I'm hugely appreciative because you're having an early start. Your you're calling from near Manchester, but Manchester, New Hampshire, we've got Manchester down the road from us here. But Manchester, New Hampshire, so you've had a particularly early start. So I'm really grateful for you taking the time to join us. So tell me just a little bit about yourself, Danielle. What do you do and and your background.

Danielle:
Yeah. So I am the owner of Elevate Virtual Marketing Solutions. That is my digital marketing search engine optimization company. I have a long history of SEO. I've done it in my nine to five jobs before I started my business. But back in 2018 I was just decided I was sick of that corporate, cubicle lifestyle. I wanted to be home with my kids more and still and still work. I knew I didn't want to just stay home. That was not in the cards for me. So I started my business and I started off doing a bunch of different marketing things social media marketing, email marketing, all of these different things that I had experience in. But I quickly realized that my true passion laid in search engine optimization and helping people generate leads organically. And it just became, it became really clear to me that that was such a powerful tool for businesses that so many people really aren't taking full advantage of. So it really was just sort of a clear path for me to go with my business. It's been really, really fun making that transition and just helping so many people leverage their power of SEO.

Andrew:
Yeah, it's it's a wonderful feeling, isn't it, when you can see sort of the light bulbs come up behind the head almost and start and see results that come from some of these strategies. So let'stalk a little bit about lead generation, because I have in my experience, quite often when companies are planning websites, particularly smaller companies, they don't necessarily think of the purpose of what the website is going to do for them. And lead generation is so fundamental for businesses and, you know, particularly now where we we can't as easily go and sit in front of somebody or meet up with people. That lead generation aspect of a website is going to be so important. So what what sort of things should people be thinking about when they are planning a new website? And perhaps lead generation isn't top of their list? You know, I've come across a lot of small businesses who, rightly or wrongly, they kind of see the website exercises or dare I say, a bit of a tick box exercise. Yeah, we need a website. We've got to have a website. But they're not necessarily thinking in terms of what else that website could do for them. Yes, they want to appear in search engines, but they haven't really considered how they might go about that. So what are the things that people are overlooking when it comes to lead generation on the Websites?

Danielle:
Absolutely, and you're completely right. So many of the businesses that I work with, you know, they have a website, but maybe they built it in like 2008 when they started their business and they haven't touched it since. Oh, yeah. They're looking at it as just like a thing. They need to have to look professional or to seem legitimate, which is, you know, they're not wrong. I think a lot of a lot of people don't like to do business or feel sort of turned off by companies that don't have a website. If you're just marketing from a Facebook page or something, it sort of makes people question, you know, are they a real business? What's going on here? So, you know, it's not incorrect to view a website as just this needed thing to appear legitimate or to appear professional. Yeah, but the issue becomes, like you said, a lot of people just treat their website. I like to say it's like a pretty face. And really a website can be a lot more than just a pretty face and should be a lot more than just a pretty face. It shouldn't just be a place where you are pushing people to. It can actually be this active driver of leads and be actively pulling people in.

Danielle:
So in terms of what people overlook, a lot of times they overlook search engine optimization completely. A lot of people know it's a thing. They know that they want to show up in search engines. They maybe know that their competitors are showing up on the first page of search engines and they're not sure why they're not. And a lot of times it just comes down to the foundation of the key words and phrases that they're using on their website. So anybody that has ever looked into search engine optimization before probably knows that keyword research is a big piece of it. Knowing the words and phrases you need to be using on your website. If you don't do that piece, you're not going to have success in search engines. And it's something that a lot of people look over, you know, the words and phrases you use to talk about your business, but they don't necessarily match up with the words and phrases your ideal clients, your ideal audience are using to search for what you do.

Andrew:
Particularly if you've got technical elements in language.

Danielle:
Exactly.

Andrew:
Or industry jargon is always the big one.

Danielle:
Industry jargon is huge. I always use this example. It's a little it's a little gross, but it's the perfect example. I worked with a client who was doing like colonics enemas, basically. This is what her business was. And she was using the the phrase colon hydrotherapy. And it was the only word she used on her website. And I was like, I don't know what that means. Nobody, nobody says that, like, your average person is never going to type that into Google. And so it took me a lot of convincing to get her to change her ways. But when we started using some of these more common phrases for this service, she's now at the she's number one on Google for those sorts of searches in her area. And she's getting tons of leads from her business. And so I always chuckle and use that example. But it's a really good example of that industry jargon of not having that mismatch between the way you talk about your business and the way your clients talk about your business. And that's super important when it comes to that sort of organically, naturally drawing people into your website.

Andrew:
Not only that, it's an easy thing to change as well.

Danielle:
It's incredibly easy. Yeah. I mean, there's so many tools out there, a lot of free tools, too, or low cost tools to actually do that keyword research to see what are people actually searching for so that you're not having to guess, you're not having to assume you can actually see right in front of your eyes exactly what people are searching for online when it goes.

Andrew:
What real people are looking at.

Danielle:
Exactly the other thing that I think a lot of people overlook is just sort of what I would describe as just basic infrastructure to collect leads. You know, maybe you have a I would hope you have a contact us page. I think pretty much everybody has a contact us page with a simple contact form.

Andrew:
But it doesn't always work though does it? That's the problem? There's so many times you can submit a form and something's gone wrong. It drives me crazy. You fill a form in and I don't know, you might not have put loads of detail in the form, but let's say you put four or five lines in. You submit the form and it disappears. It takes the content away, it hasn't submitted or in fact, you might not even know if it's submitted. Yes, those sorts of things can be can be such simple things to oversee.

Danielle:
That's one of my biggest pet peeves when I am trying to find businesses to work with is not knowing whether it's submitted. Like you never got a message saying it was sent or you don't get some sort of automated response being like, hey, we got your message. I'm in the process of moving. And I've so I've been talking all kinds of businesses dealing with like buying and selling your house. And that has happened multiple times from like, did you get this? Did you see this? I've no idea. So just super basic infrastructure sometimes like a contact form that actually works or having something pop up that says, hey, we got your message, super simple things like that, sometimes even that is overlooked. And then beyond that, just having having a better way to capture email addresses, to capture leads, whether it's through a pop up or through, you know, a free guy at a white paper, a discount on services, anything like that, just a simple incentive to collect those email addresses. So many businesses don't have that. I think it's pretty standard in in our area of business and marketing and digital marketing, all of that. I think those types of businesses are like, you know, that's pretty standard these days. But a lot of maybe smaller businesses or businesses and other industries don't necessarily think about that when they're building a website. And it can be such a powerful way to one collect more leads, but also collect leads that are already pretty qualified. If someone is downloading your content is going out of your way to give you the email address. You know, they want what you're offering and that's a pretty solid lead. If they're going through the process of, if they're willing to give you their email address to get that piece of content.

Andrew:
Yeah, there needs to be a bit of an incentive doesn't there? I think, you know, you look on a lot of websites and there is literally just you sign up to our email newsletter. Well, what am I going to get from that? You know, what do I get back from you? If I give you my email address? I think it's going to be a two way exchange, hasn't it?

Danielle:
Absolutely. And one of the people that I've followed for years, that is sort of the master of this is Amy Porterfield. She does a great job of having multiple freebies and discounts. So if you if you offer multiple services, for example, that are very different, you could have a free guide or something like that that is specific to each of those services. So when someone is on your let's say, let's pick a random company, I'll just do something like my own. So when someone is on my search engine optimization services page, they can download like a basic SEO checklist or something like that. When they're on my copywriting page, they can download a guide to effective messaging. So not only are you able to better serve people that way and get them to to sort of get to know you and what you do, you can also figure out what those people are actually interested in when you have multiple different freebies and things like that.

Andrew:
Yeah, and you obviously it means, you break it down can't you and see which which areas of your business are in greatest demand essentially, or what is that area that is of most interest to people that are coming onto your website. And it takes you one step, I guess, a little bit beyond what you might see in Google Analytics, because, of course, all that's anonymized and it might be great that you can see, well, we've had 50 people look at this page. We've had forty people look at that page. But actually, it's that next level of commitment, isn't it, when people say, actually, I'm really interested in this. I'm not just browsing. I am interested in what this person has to say. It gives you a little bit more to have a look at and analyze, really in terms of how accurate and how relevant your messaging is.

Danielle:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. One of the other things that sort of goes along with having having that ability to to capture more email addresses is then having some automation built in. So like we were talking about before, if I submit someone's contact form and I don't get something telling me that they received it, I'm annoyed. I'm questioning whether they got it. And so if you're collecting people's email addresses, you have to have some automation built and you don't want to be manually responding to people's emails or responding to people's. Obviously, you need to have an automatic delivery of whatever freebie or incentive. But beyond that, having a few automated emails that sort of start to nurture those leads helped them get to know you better. That is so powerful because, one, you can then spend your time one on one talking with people to the people who are engaging with that content. So you're not necessarily having to take time out of your day to individually talk to each and every person who submits their email address. You can see which people are actually opening these nurture emails, which people are then clicking on the links, which people are actually engaging, and then take that time and respond to those people one on one. Because, I mean, who has time to be emailing all these people that are going to start coming in through your website.

Andrew:
Yeah. Yeah and it allows scale, doesn't it? Putting automation in. And, you know, if you really have got something that people want and there's been plenty of examples through lockdown where where suddenly people have adapted because the normal business has has been blocked or prevented, they've suddenly adapted to do something else and that's taken off and they've become really busy, really popular service that they might have been offering. So, yeah, having that automation in place allows scale. And it just means that your, your your own personal time is spent doing more impactful, more meaningful tasks rather than chasing emails, which, let's be honest, nobody likes doing that.

Danielle:
No, nobody does. And I think a lot of times people like especially if they've never done the sort of stuff before, it feels very complicated and overwhelming. But there are just so many really simple tools out there to make this super easy and that are inexpensive, too. You don't need to this isn't like some massive investment you have to make right off the bat, you can certainly start with those less expensive or even sometimes free tools to do all of this, like MailChimp is a great example of a tool, with MailChimp without paying them a dime, you could have a pop up, a lead capture on your website with an automated email campaign and boom, you're done without ever giving them any of your money. So if you're just starting out, that's a great way to do it. And you can always upgrade down the line when that's working for you. Yeah.

Andrew:
Yeah. What is it that you feel is know do you find people are receptive to these kind of things or do they do they sort of feel a bit threatened by it in some ways because the technology is taking over? What are the sort of things that might put people off from from doing or setting up some basic automation like that?

Danielle:
Yeah, I think when I typically talk with people, people that are traditionally online, based in their business, are usually very open to these things. Maybe they're even already doing them to some extent and just need to sort of perfect their process or, you know, change up their messaging or improve their whatever their freebie is. Where I find most of my pushback or questioning of it is those face to face service based businesses. So like I happened to have worked with several like landscaper's, which is just a random thing that I somehow have become like the local landscaper go to. And I have some of them have been super open to this and adapted really quickly and honestly. Those are the people that are now on that first page of Google and doing super well and not having to chase after all these leads. I had a client who I started working with last spring, this spring say like, is there a way to to turn off my contact form because I can't take any more clients and I'm just too busy. But I think a lot of times when people are so used to that face to face, very personalized interaction, it can feel it can feel a little hands off or impersonal. And I think what I always try to remind people is this isn't replacing that more personalized one on one conversation. It's just making sure that when you have those conversations, it's with the right people who actually are going to are much more likely to turn into actual clients or customers for yours. It's protecting your time.

Andrew:
Yeah. And it just enables the conversation to keep going as well, I think, doesn't it? You know, because you get busy sometimes we all get to the end of the day, I think, oh no, I meant to reply to that person, but if you've got an element of automation in place, then that can fill that gap, I think can't it.

Danielle:
Absolutely. And it can help people. It can just help you take people on that journey. So maybe maybe they enquired on your website or they downloaded your guide and they weren't quite ready to actually, you know, pay for your service or buy your product. But if you have those automated email campaigns in place, so you can sort of, you know, still nurture that lead over time, even if you're not talking to them, one on one, they can turn into a client down the line. I mean, I know I've had that happen to me with people that you download my freebie a year ago, suddenly come to me now and are like, oh, hey, I've been reading your stuff and now I'm ready. And I didn't have to do any of that. I didn't have to continually follow up with them and like, set myself reminders on my calendar to email that person. It just sort of naturally happens over time.

Andrew:
And you've already got a bit of a relationship in place by that point as well. So actually, when it comes to having that face to face or that physical conversation, you you start starting two or three steps down the track. You're not starting out at sort of ground zero. You've already got some rapport which has been built up.

Danielle:
Yeah. They feel like they know you. They feel like they can trust you. They've gotten a feel for even just the way you talk and the type of messaging that you use. Yeah, it's it's a super powerful way to just help them get to know you and your work better.

Andrew:
Yeah. OK, so we've touched on SEO and obviously that's bringing people to the page. We've touched on the contact form and automation, which can help to nurture leads. What about landing pages? I mean, we can have contact forms on landing pages and it might just be simple enquiry page, but what are the key parts of the landing page that can really help people engage and actually get through to submitting that form in the first place?

Danielle:
Yeah, so landing pages are so important. A lot of times I see people running an ad campaign, let's say like a Facebook ad campaign, and then you click through and it just goes to their homepage and you're like, what am I supposed to do now? This isn't what I was looking for. And now I have to find the thing that they're advertising. I mean, that is like a very basic what not to do in a situation, but it just highlights why landing pages are so important, because the main the main thing you need to focus on when it comes to a landing page is having them be solely focused on that one action you want people to take, don't have links off to other pages, don't have ads, you know, literally just the one action you want people.

Andrew:
No distractions.

Danielle:
Exactly, and that needs to be your focus the whole time, in terms of, you know, how to actually make people get your landing page and then click through to your guide. I always like to say I learned this from one of my coaches a while back. Feelings before facts, really like poke at the pain, sounds mean, but do it, bring up their pain points. You know what their pain points are. If you've done your research, you know what your your ideal clients are, need help with or what their problems are. So talk about that. Make them remember and really feel how big this problem is and then get into the facts of how you can help them solve it. The other thing that's really important is having a very clear call to action. And that sounds very basic, but it's something that a lot of people forget to do. I mean, something as simple as saying like click here, download this link, just tell people what you want them to do.

Andrew:
A step by step instruction. If somebody come from an ad, I think that's really important because if you've popped up in their Facebook feed or something like that, they might not even have been thinking about what your product or service is. So if you are going to interrupt them and direct them away from the whatever they were doing, it might have been looking for information that might have been looking for entertainment. You have to capitalise on that moment really quickly, don't you? And if you haven't got those steps in place that literally guide people to where you want them to get to, then they're going to be forced to think and very quickly going to think, you know what? I can't be bothered. I'm going back to what I was looking at because it was far more engaging or exciting.

Andrew:
Right. And if they leave before they give you your email address, you know, it's over. It's going to be a lot harder to get them. But you've already. Yes, exactly. And you paid for the click as well if you're running an ad campaign. So it all increases your overall budget and the cost of your marketing, doesn't it?

Danielle:
Absolutely. I am one of those people that's very susceptible to advertising. I feel like ads work on me if they're good, obviously if they're good. But I'm also, you know, in I work in marketing. So I also pay really close attention to which ads are working on me, which ads, or am I then actually clicking on? It's like a weird experience where I'm like, this is working, I know what you're doing, but it's still working. I'm going to buy this product and the ones that get me to, like, stop my scrolling and actually click and buy, obviously the ad copy and ad call to action has to be strong and speak to my pain point too. But yeah, the ones that actually get me to buy, to actually then give them my email address or download their freebie even, are those ones that I get to that page. It's super focused. It's exactly what I was expecting when I saw their ad or I saw their social media post. It's just hyper focused on exactly what I was expecting to find. And it's very clear exactly the action I need to take, whether that's giving them my email address or giving them my credit card, whichever it is, as long as it's super clear and it's super focused and speaks to those pain points that I'm trying to solve, then I'm much more likely to buy. And I think a lot of people have a hard time picturing what that might be.

Danielle:
You know, if you're a landscaper to go back to that example, you might be like, OK, what seriously, how am I going to poke at people's pain when it comes to their lawn? But there is always a way to do that. I mean, a lot of times when people are looking for a beautiful lawn, it's not because they care about how the grass feels on their feet. It's like they're trying to impress their neighbours or they're the only people in the neighbourhood with a crappy lawn. There's there's always a way to really think about what the underlying motivation for someone is and then to poke at that and remind them how much it hurts to have the worst lawn in the neighbourhood.

Andrew:
Yeah, I guess if you if you build up a little bit of an ecosystem around bringing people into your site, you've got a landing page, you've got a contact form, you've got your mailing list, you've got automation in there. If you're able to nurture those leads, you can start and build a little bit of a rapport, a bit of a relationship with those people, OK, might be online. It might be fairly tenuous relationship, but at some point you could then say, what is your what's your real motivation to improve your lawn? Why is it you really want to prove or complete a quick survey here? So. So even though you might not be in a position of necessarily transacting directly with people, the sales point of view, that doesn't stop you from using that list to sort of extract more information and understand why people might have signed up to that list in the first place. What is their motivation? Why did they come to the site? What is it that they might have a particularly hard time with in terms of managing the lawn or the landscaping? And all of that is it's intelligence, isn't it? Is customer intelligence.

Danielle:
Yeah. You can gain so much intelligence just from actually talking to people or surveying people, like you said, and even just from studying your, you know, obviously get your website set up with Google Analytics if it's not already such a powerful tool that you can just from looking at those analytics and seeing sort of the path people take through your website or looking at those people that actually turned into leads, looking back, you know, what page did they come in on? What page is are a bunch of people dropping off from all that sort of thing can really give you so much information in terms of what messaging is working, what messaging isn't working? Where do you need a stronger call to action or where do you need to improve your website to actually capture more of those leads?

Andrew:
Yeah. OK, so you talked about Google Analytics and I daresay there's probably not many sites that don't have Google Analytics on it. There will be some But yeah, that's the one thing that every site should really have. What are the other things that people can do to track leads? Because, of course, you know, leads, new sales are the lifeblood of of businesses. Every business is going to need new leads at some point. And presumably, if you're running ads or something like that, you've got to be able to track those leads. So what are some of the ways that people can do to track the leads and and measure the effectiveness of the things that they're putting out on their website?

Danielle:
Yeah. So I'll touch on some of the thing, the measurement side first. So there's there's obviously with Google Analytics, if you're running Facebook ads with the business manager, the ads manager, there's so many different stats and pieces of analytics you can look at it and it can be really overwhelming for people. So I like to recommend, especially if you're just starting out or if you're like a one person team or just a couple person team and you're doing this on your own, you're not working with some big agency, should just pay attention to a few really key things. So click through rate is super important if you're running an ad campaign or even if you're just posting to your Facebook page or Instagram page, really paying attention to how many people, your impressions, to click rates or how many people are seeing it and then how many people are actually clicking on it and looking at this for each post that you do or each ad campaign that you do or even blog post. How many people are reading a blog post and then clicking on whatever your call to action link is at the end and studying that?

Andrew:
I think, just to interrupt, a really important point, a call to action can go on your blog post as well. Doesn't just have to be on a landing page.

Danielle:
Yes, exactly. I always say every page of your website should have a clear next step. If your services page should link to your contact page, a blog post should tell people, go see the service, download this thing, send us an email. Whatever it is, there should always be a call to action or a next step for someone to take and studying those and seeing which of those are working well and which aren't can just give you a lot of information to improve those ones that aren't working well, see which messaging is working well and then apply those same practices to pages that aren't working well. Same with, similarly is conversion rate. So taking it a step further, OK, those people that are actually clicking and whether it's clicking through your ad and getting to your website or clicking from this blog post and contact you, whatever that is, how many of those people are then actually converting actually downloading your freebie or actually buying your product or actually becoming a client? Paying attention to that is really important because it can help you figure out which sources of traffic are bringing you the best leads, essentially if you're getting tons of clicks from Facebook ads, but none of them are converting into actual paying clients or customers, then maybe that's not the best path for you. Or maybe you need to update your messaging to actually attract the correct people. So I think a lot of times you mentioned this earlier, like people are going after like page views sometimes. But do page views really matter if none of those people are then giving you money?

Andrew:
No.

Danielle:
They don't. It's just a vanity. It's just a vanity metrics. So really paying attention to what pieces of content or what campaigns are actually leading to conversions. The other thing I always pay attention to, which I mentioned previously, is sort of what I call a drop off point. So are there pages in your website that people get there and they are just leaving? Like just hordes of people are leaving? That's a sign that that's a page that either doesn't have a clear call to action. Maybe it's a blog post with no next step and tons of people are reading it. And then they're like, OK, cool, thanks for the information. And they leave. Maybe it's just as simple as just needing a call to action within your blog post. Or maybe it's something bigger, like your overall messaging isn't working or it's you're not advertising it properly. And so when people get there, they're surprised by the content, whatever it may be, it's just important to pay attention to that so you can take a closer look at that. And then the other thing that I like to recommend people do is a lot of people call lead scoring. So just being able to look closely at your leads and see which are more are most qualified based on how they engage with your website or engage with your other content. And there is lots of software that you can use to do this, but you can also just sort of do it on your own, especially if you're just starting out, you know, look and see how many of your emails have they open? Have they clicked on links within your emails? Do they follow you on Facebook? They follow you on Instagram, simple things like that. If someone is doing all of those things, that's a pretty good sign that they're really qualified lead and someone that you could start talking to on more one on one basis.

Andrew:
Yeah, sure. And I guess that's where that's where CRM comes into things a little bit more, isn't it? Because in the back of some sort of lead generation system, you want some sort of CRM that can help with the measurements. But obviously you can put notes against different, different leads, different contacts, and also keep a measure of who might be buying there as well.

Danielle:
Exactly. And just not losing track of them. I mean, I'm even guilty of this sometimes of like you, you talk to someone in Facebook messaging or someone sends you an enquiry and then maybe you're sending them automated emails, but you haven't kept track of where that person is in your sales process. And then you just completely forget about them when you could be doing more to nurture them and to turn them into an actual client. So I always recommend, if you're doing all of this work, to drive people to your website, collect email addresses a CRM is so, so important. And and there's so many out there. I use keep by Infusionsoft with a bunch of my clients. It's really, it's pretty affordable. It's very straightforward. And it's it's great. I mean, I think a lot of them work this way, but you can set up a very clear process or pipeline that you want your leads to take to turn them from a lead into a client. And you can just see exactly where they are within the process. Nobody's ever falling through the cracks or getting lost. You can build so much automation into that process. And so any any tool like that is super powerful for just keeping track of all those leads you're going to start getting.

Andrew:
That's right. Yeah. So I think we've covered most things there. But I think the the real standout thing is that this isn't a one off process, is it? And I guess that's where a lot of companies can come unstuck because they see it as this is something I've got to set up. But you've talked about testing. You talked about looking at stats, looking at the analysis, working out scores against different leads. This isn't just something that you can set and forget, is it? And there's automation that comes in there, but you've almost got a little bit of a mindshift change that might be needed. If someone's coming from your background where they've not done this kind of stuff, it's, it's going to require a bit of commitment on their side, isn't it, to keep going and keep testing and keep reviewing all of this stuff. It's not just going to happen. And a phrase that we use quite a lot is digital is never done, is it?

Danielle:
Yeah, I love that. It's true. A lot of people, a lot of people that come to me wanting search engine optimization, they know it's you know, it's a thing that you're going to transform their website. They're going to start like automatically magically getting these leads. And I'm like, yes, like that can definitely happen, but it's not. Set it and forget it. You can't just do it once and then say, oh, cool, I'm done. I don't have to worry about this anymore. It is always an ongoing process, whether it's creating new blog posts or other new content, new ad campaigns, reviewing everything, really digging into analytics. It's definitely an ongoing process. That's why automation is so important, because you can stop wasting time on some of these tasks that can be automated and then focus your time on the stuff that's really important, that really can only be done well by an actual human.

Andrew:
We still have a purpose don't we, we're still needed!

Danielle:
It's getting smaller, but we're yeah, we're still important.

Andrew:
Well, that's been really good Danielle. Before we wrap up, just are there any favourite tools that you have? What are the favorite tools that you have for some of these sorts of things. You've talked about MailChimp. Obviously we've covered at Google Analytics. You've mentioned Infusionsoft. Are there any others that you think are really good to have as part of your your lead generation ecosystem?

Danielle:
Yeah, so I if you're doing landing pages and things like that, lead pages is a really great landing page tool. I also use click funnels a lot in my business. That's great, if you need landing pages that are part of a bigger sales funnel, click funnel is a super powerful and there's so much you can do with it. I also really love on the search engine optimization side. I love a keyword research tool called Ubersuggest it's by Neil Patel who's, if you know, search engine optimization you've probably heard his name before. He is sort of like my go to source of all things SEO. And he came out with this keyword research tool. It's super powerful. He has a a Google Chrome extension. So you can just be, you know, looking around the web and get tons of information on keywords that different websites are using. You could use that to check out your competitors and see what sorts of keywords they're using. And it's a tool that has tons of great functionality, even in the free version, which I always love, because if you're just your average business owner, you don't need to be spending a ton of money on a keyword research tool.

Andrew:
Yeah, and there are loads of free tools that cover all these different things. I mean, even I mean, you can get a free CRM from Hubspot, for example, can't you? You don't necessarily have to be digging deep into your pockets to to sort of fund all these things. In fact, I'd argue that that's something you desperately want to try and avoid because otherwise $20 here, $30 there, you can very quickly end up by spending $150, $200 a month on all these things that do little bits, that in isolation feel like they're going to add something. But actually you can become overwhelmed, can't you? Then you've got this huge monthly subscription bill that you're paying and you're not really using any one of the tools to its best value. You're making use of the feature set.

Danielle:
Absolutely. I always recommend people start with free tools to sort of get the hang of it, figure out what's working for you first and then down the line as it's as it's working really well and you're getting a lot more leads and all of that, then maybe upgrade to to a different solution if it's going to be more powerful for you. One actually touching on the free side of things. One tool that I love is Zapier. So Zapier, they do have a paid version, but you can you can use it with a free version as well. You can use that to connect all different kinds of different software and tools that you're using so you can use it to connect a website contact form to MailChimp if there's not a good integration, you know, simple things like that. It's a really powerful tool.

Andrew:
Sounds good. Brilliant Danielle well we're about out of time. So before we wrap up, where can people find out a little bit more about you and what you do when people look you up online?

Danielle:
Yeah, thank you. So my primary Website is Elevatevirtualmarketing.com, same name on Facebook. And then I'm elevate_marketing on Instagram. If people are interested in search engine optimisation and that side of lead generation, then I have an online program called the Content Cash Machine. That's pretty straightforward, turning your content into a cash machine right?

Andrew:
That's a great name for an online course.

Danielle:
Thank you. So we head to that website contentcashmachine.com. There's information on that there.

Andrew:
No doubt a good landing page as well. I really appreciate your time. I know you've had an early start this morning to join us here on the Clientside podcast. So thanks very much for joining us today. Thank you.

Andrew:
So there can be quite a bit involved in the lead generation on your website, but as we heard from Danielle there, there are also some great tools to support your lead capture, many of which are freely available. For me, the key with lead generation is to have a process in place. And anyone can do this. You don't need technology or tools. You just need to plan out how you want people to engage with you and how you can best serve them. So grab a sheet or flip chart paper, draw out the routes that you expect people to follow to get to your site, think about their pain points and how you can direct them to find relevant guidance or information that they can then access or download online. I have a saying that technology is never a fix for the whole process. So identify a process by which you can engage with your audience and then test it out in small numbers. You might then be able to use some of the free tools that Danielle spoke about, gradually introducing them over time. And as you get better, you can then scale up and automate more of the process, perhaps adding in some bells and whistles that can then really help you stand out and connect with customers who have increasingly high expectations from the way you present yourself online. Remember, a lead is nothing more than an opportunity to start a conversation so the process doesn't have to be perfect from the outset. But knowing how are you going to deal with leads? So the conversation actually happens is key to getting started. Danielle made some great points during our conversation. So do go and look her up online. We'll also add details of the links and resources that we spoke about during the show to our show notes page, which you can find by going to adigital.agency/podcast.

Andrew:
Thank you again for checking out today's episode of the Clientside podcast. I really hope you found a useful conversation with some actionable steps that you can apply in your business if you can spare just a few minutes of your time then please do look us up on Apple podcast, search for the Clientside podcast by A Digital and leave us a five star rating. And if you can, leave us a quick review. I'd love to hear your feedback and would really appreciate your support. If you're interested in learning more about A Digital and how we might be able to work together, head across to our website, to adigital.agency and complete our online scorecard so you can benchmark your own digital performance. You'll get a free personalised report sent you by email. And I can learn more about you and your business and the particular challenges you're facing. We can then follow this up with a free call to map out your priorities, either on the phone or over Zoom with absolutely no obligation. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm really grateful for you tuning in. If you have any comments about this episode or any previous episodes of the Clientside podcast, then drop me a line to Andrew@digital.co.uk. Or head across to our website at adigital.agency/Clientside.

Andrew:
See you on the next show. Cheers

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