10 Proven Strategies to get sales leads

We all know that sales leads are the lifeblood of any moving company. Movers need leads to get appointments to generate quotes which hopefully can be converted into sales and monthly revenue. As the industry has grown, movers have proliferated. In a market like Los Angeles there are literally hundreds of movers. How can you get your fair share of the market? Here are some proven strategies that have worked for dozens of moving companies and can work for you too if applied properly.

Follow these strategic steps:

1. Create a website.
   Build it on WordPress. It is the most used platform today because it’s easy for developers to use and is ubiquitous… about 23% of all sites in the world are on WordPress. This will give you lots of flexibility so if you tire of your web developer for any reason, you can easily hire someone else and move the site.
2. Insist on ownership.
   This is very important. You are paying for the site. Make certain that you have it in writing that you own the site and that you have the FTP, registrar and cpanel login information if you need to take over the site from your current web developer if you should need to. Also, never give up the ownership of your domain. A web developer can build a site without ever taking control of the domain. You must retain this. Register it yourself on GoDaddy, Network Solutions or the like. We prefer them to Web.com.
3. Hire a web developer who has a portfolio of sites that he or she has actually designed.
   This is critical because once they start in on your site you are obligated to pay. In fact, most web developers will want 50% down before they even start. You should feel very confident in their work BEFORE they get started.
4. Who will be designing your site?
   Are they in-house or is the work out-sourced domestically or abroad? This makes a huge difference when it comes to reworking and updating the site. Hunting files down in foreign countries can be fruitless.
5. What does the Home Page of your site say about your business… above the fold?
   It is very common for more than 50% of all visitors to a website to stay less than ten seconds. It sounds like such a low number, but it isn’t. How long do you stay on a site if you don’t see what you are looking for? It’s also very common for 50% of them to never look at the page if they have to scroll down for important information. So, the Home Page must be simple and concise.
6. Only buy a site that is designed “responsively.”
   This means that it will respond to the device it is being read on based on that site’s screen viewing size. Google will penalize your page rank if your site is not “mobile friendly.”
7. The Main Menu should list your most popular and profitable services.
   Rank them from the left of the Main Menu to the right. These are your bread and butter. Make them easy for the visitor to find and click to read.
8. Put a form to get a quote on the Home Page.
   Link it to a page with a complete, albeit short, form with very few fields. You don’t need to ask all of the questions the nationwide van lines ask because you will not be reselling your leads. The less questions you ask the more forms you will get submitted. Don’t need the phone number? Don’t ask it then. However, with a separate page you can add incentives for people to click and read to become more familiar with your company. We call it dating before you propose marriage. Many visitors may not be ready to buy today. Use tactics to get some information and stay in touch with them digitally.
9. SEOed content on the Home Page.
   Remember, it’s as important for Google to be able to read and understand the page as it is for any visitor. In fact, it’s Google that probably sent all of your visitors to the site in the first place. So, be sure to have written, legible content on the Home Page and write it using bullet points. Google likes that.
10. Animation.
    Engaging the visitor is of prime importance. Give them something interesting to read AND see. A slider or moving images of some sort will do this. The longer the visitor stays on your site, the better chance that you have of converting them. Make it interesting!

Of course, this is just the beginning of getting your site seen and generating profitable sales leads for you. However, all points are vital in getting your site to be competitive for the sales lead generation process. We have over ten years of experience in designing websites that sell. This is a compilation of some of our most strategic initiatives. Good luck!