Diagnosing problems on a lead generating website

Posted on by Pedro Silva
On a typical lead generating website there are 5 situations where visitors can be running into obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals, thus leading them to abandon the persuasion process.
Scenarios
Common Problems
Preventive or corrective measures
Finding
Visitors can’t find the right area of the site where the product is described.
Search engine ranking is not effective
Internal search engine is not accurate
Website navigation is confusing
Improve Search Engine Optimization
Improve internal keyword search to highlight products
Simplify navigation. Merge similar functions together. Group related items together.
Selecting
You aren’t giving visitors enough information to select the right products for them.
They can’t tell the difference between your offerings.
Similar product images
Similar product descriptions
Too many options to choose from
Product descriptions are not well formatted
Reduce distractions, remove distracting elements on the web page
Provide a product comparison feature
Reduce number of options presented
Write clear descriptions with good text formatting (one-column mode, paragraph breaks, bullet points, …)
When showing multiple offers, emphasize a product suggestion
Deciding
Visitors can’t decide if the selected product is going to meet their needs or desires.
Unclear unique value proposition
Describe benefits of using the product instead of product features
Provide trust, security
Show examples of product usage or product application
Use testimonials from other customers
Try telling for who is the product appropriate instead of targeting everyone
Submitting

Visitors don’t know how to manifest they are interested in a product.
Confusing or unclear Call to Actions
Clear, distinctive Call to Actions
Repeat Call to Actions but be careful not to clutter the interface
Checkout
Visitors can’t complete the submission process to place an information, quote or demo request.
Complex form filling
Long forms
Lack of trust
Reduce friction in forms, improve clear and non-blocking error messages, …
Question if each form field is really necessary and remove as many fields as possible.
Improve form usability
Do inline validation instead of delaying error messages