7 Best Ways to Get More Web Design Leads

Finding new clients for web design services is rather difficult today. There are more competitors, and customers are more picky. You just need to know the best ways to get clients and how to use them right.

We'll tell you the 7 best ways to get web design leads and bring in customers. These are the methods that have been tried and tested in real life and shown to work best. We'll discuss how to turn your website into a great tool for attracting customers, why quizzes are important for web designers, what tricks to use in content marketing, and how to avoid common mistakes in cold sales. And of course, we’ll share with you how to make AI do half of the work for you.

What is Lead Generation in Web design?

Lead generation is the process of converting visitors who are interested in your web design services into potential buyers. A lead is someone who has left their contact information and is ready to reach out to you for further work.

A lead in web design could be an online store owner who wants to update their store, a startup with a new idea for a project, or a business executive who needs a corporate website. Successful lead generation web design strategies focus on turning these visitors into qualified potential customers who are ready to talk about their projects.

1. Optimize Your Main Page on Website

A person searching for web design services might come across your website. You have only a few seconds to get them interested before they close the tab and decide to search further, just because they didn’t find what they were looking for or didn’t understand that you can solve their problem.

Most designers talk about themselves instead of highlighting the value they can bring to their clients. You need to understand the difference between "I've been designing cool websites since 2015" and "I increase sales through designs that make people want to buy.”

Convincing offer

A good offer on the homepage of your website can work as an attention magnet for visitors. Instead of vague phrases like “I make turnkey websites”, try to give users exact and measurable information. For example, you could use something like “I help my clients create online stores that make 50% more sales.”

Marquiz Pages for Web Development Studio

Simple structure

A simple page structure is also important. Remove everything that doesn’t matter: prizes, awards, diplomas, your origin story or long text about your design philosophy. All of that is unnecessary. Keep only things that can help visitor to make up their mind. You can add information about your services, examples of your work, testimonials and contact information.

Clear navigation

Navigation should be intuitive. A client goes to the web designer’s website with three main questions: what services do you offer, how much does it cost and what’s the process of working with you. If they can’t find the answers to these questions in a few clicks, they’ll just leave for another specialist that gives more clarity.

CTA Buttons

Clear CTA buttons are the best sales assistants. Use action verbs like "Discuss the project", "Calculate the cost", "Request a call". And don’t be afraid to add a good CTA button several times on the same page.

Template for app cost calculator

2. Use Marketing Quiz

A quiz for web design services is a great sales tool that helps to solve several problems at once. It helps collect contact information of potential clients, learn about their needs and budgets, and at the same time, show expertise.

The concept is simple: you ask a series of questions to determine what type of website the client needs. During the process, the person talks about their business, plans and expectations. In the end, they receive personalized recommendations and leave their contact information to get results.

How to create your quiz with Marquiz

Let's take a look at how you can create an effective quiz to attract clients in the web design field using the Marquiz builder. This tool is perfect for creating interactive quizzes without having any programming skills.

Start page

The first impression means a lot. The start page should clearly explain the value of taking the quiz and motivate users to take the action. For example, the heading "Find out which website fits your business" immediately indicates the benefits. The subtitle further explains exactly what user will receive. It's important to specify the time frame for completion to help reduce barriers. Additionally, you can offer a lead magnet bonus such as a "mini design concept" to provide extra motivation for users to complete the quiz.

‍This is how the client will see the Start Page

Questions

A successful quiz is based on the funnel principle: from general questions to specific ones. The following logic is used in this example.

First, you need to divide the audience based on the type of business and the main goal of the website. The second question "Who is your target audience?" should help to understand who you are creating the website for, and also it will affect the design and functionality of the site.

The question of style is particularly important for web designers, as it reflects the client's preferences immediately. Visual examples can help clients understand the differences between these styles:

Questions about the functions and brand identity of the project help to determine its complexity and approximate development costs:

Lead form

The final page collects contact information and offers personalized recommendations and price estimate. The headline clearly conveys the value to potential customers:

In addition to (or instead of) standard email and phone fields, you can ask users to share their contact info via messenger apps.

Integrations and ways to embed a quiz

The quiz can be easily integrated into your existing work tools. Marquiz supports over 150 different integrations, including popular CRM systems, email services, and analytics tools.

There are 6 ways to add a quiz to your website:

1. Pop-up Overlay
2. Marquiz Button
3. Your own Button
4. HTML Block (Displayed in body)
5. Pop-up Banner
6. Widget

💡Learn more about website installation formats — 6 methods with examples

If you don't have a website or you want to maximize your focus on the quiz, you can create a separate landing page directly in Marquiz. A landing page is suitable for quickly testing hypotheses, for small and medium-sized businesses, and for specific promotions. While the main focus of a homepage is the offer, a landing page can provide more information, immerse visitors in the context, and warm them up. Notably, a landing page defaults to including a quiz button.

💡Learn more about Marquiz Pages

And see a visual example of how such a landing page works.

You can link quizzes to your own domain or use a subdomain of Marquiz. It turns out to be a full-fledged page that is convenient to use in advertising or social networks.

3. Use Lead Magnets and other Interactive Tools

Lead magnets are very useful as a tool that you can give to your customers in exchange of their contact info. They’re work really good for web design lead generation since the customers always have a lot of questions about creating a website.

Checklist

Checklists are really popular because they give a structured plan for solving client’s problem. A checklist “20 steps for testing your website before launching” will be downloaded by hundreds (if not thousands) of entrepreneurs and marketers and you will have a chance to show expertise.

PDF guides

Another great format of lead magnets is detailed PDF guides on relevant popular topics. “How to find a web designer and not burn out” is a great example. In these guides you can add evaluation criteria, examples of interview questions or some red flag signals that are worth paying attention to.

Templates

Templates also work great. Many businesses order website design for the first time and don’t know how to draw up terms of reference or contract correctly. A ready-made template is perfect solution for them.

Design cost calculators

But the most effective lead magnets are interactive calculators. Classic example is Design cost calculator. User chooses type of website, amount of pages, necessary features and gets approximate cost with recommendations on realisation.

4. Build Trust with Case Studies and Testimonials

In web design customers can’t see future result beforehand, asses the quality or try out the product. That’s why their choice for choosing web designer is based on other people’s results and thoughts.

Case Studies

Trust is built on the proofs of your competence. Successful stories of your clients with specific results is the best proof. A good case study starts with the problem that your client had, what was your suggested solution for it and what results you’ve achieved in the end.

Template for web developers with case studies

The more specific and detailed results are, the more convincing your case study is. Instead of “We’ve made a beautiful website for a restaurant” say “We’ve increased daily online orders by 200% thanks to new website design and convenient navigation”.

Testimonials

But not only case studies are important to the customer for making a decision. Testimonials and customer reviews bring real emotions and humanity to your work. They allow potential clients put themselves in the buyer’s shoes. When the read that web designer have helped someone with the similiar problem, they  start thinking “What if it could help me too?”

Case studies and testimonials help to reduce risks in the customers’ eyes. They help to sell expensive services by showing the true value. They also attract similiar audience — if you have a successful case for a restaurant, other restaurant owners will be more open to reaching out to you for advise or help.

5. Invest in SEO and Content Marketing

Content marketing is about providing valuable information to people, not about direct selling. When you help people to solve their problems, they memorize your brand and most likely will contact you when they need your services. The main advantage of this content is that it has a long lifespan. A well-written article can attract customers for month or even years.

Articles

Business owners often have a lot of questions when it comes to creating a website. What CMS do i need to use? Do i need a mobile version for my website? How not to overpay for development? You can cover all these questions in your articles and give examples and explanations on every topic.

For example, “How to choose a CMS for your online store?” would be a great topic for a deep dive. You could compare popular platforms, show their costs and main features, pros and cons and make test pages on each of them.

Target pages

Target pages for popular queries work really well too. You can create pages for different directions like “Creating website for a restaurant”, “Landing page for IT startup” or “Redesign online store”. Each of them will describe your services, show case studies and costs.

Social Media

Another example of a working channel for attracting clients to web designers is YouTube. Videos with reviews of other people’s projects where you can analyze mistakes and give recommendations for improvements can gain thousands of views, and each view is a potential customer. You can also use Pinterest as a platform for sharing your projects, trends and graphics. People are searching for inspiration there and if you catch their interest, it can bring traffic to your website.

6. Leverage Outreach and Paid Ads Strategically

Inbound marketing can be effective, but sometimes you need to take the initiative. This is especially important when you want to quickly attract new customers or want to check the demand for your new services.

Cold outreach

Cold outreach in web design needs a special treatment. You can’t just take the list of the contacts and send them the same email, it will only harm your reputation. Instead, you need to research every lead individually and write a personalized message.

A good cold outreach should start with showing that you have knowledge of the customer’s industry. For example, you can write something like this: “Noticed, that you have a great product, but your website doesn’t reflect this” and not just “I offer web design services”. You can use cases to show similiar projects with great results. Your message can offer something valuable for free, maybe consultation or audit with recommendations.

Retargeting

Retargeting is much more effective than cold traffic because it’s targeted for the audiences that already know about you. It’s also easy to setup. You need to install pixel on your website, collect list of visitors and then show them ads with special offers.

Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences on Facebook and Google Ads allow you to target people who are similar to your existing customers. You can upload a list of contacts from clients who have purchased expensive projects, and these systems will find similar users to show ads to.

7. Use AI to Qualify and Nurture Leads

Artificial intelligence is no longer fiction from movies, but a powerful tool that helps web designers attract and engage customers more effectively.

AI chatbots

Modern chatbots are capable of engaging in complex conversations, they’re like personal sales managers who never sleep or take a break for lunch. They can ask for clarification about the type of business, discover which features are necessary for a website, explain your services, and even showcase relevant examples from your portfolio. For instance, take Intercom's chatbot. It's easy to set up and integrate with most CRM systems.

Imagine a customer visits your website at 11 pm, when you are asleep. The chatbot greets them, finds out their needs, shows relevant case studies, and makes an appointment for a convenient time for them. By the next morning, you have received a qualified lead with all the necessary information about the project.

Email segmentation

Email segmentation using AI allows you to send each potential customer the content they are most interested in. The system analyzes their behavior, such as which pages they have visited, which emails they have opened, and what they have clicked on, to generate personalized mailing lists. Clay is excellent for automating this process, as it can collect data on potential customers and create customized email sequences.

Dynamic personalization

Another powerful AI feature that allows the system to show different blocks of content to different users based on their behavior and characteristics. For example, IT companies can display cases of technology startups, retailers can view examples of online stores, and manufacturers can see corporate websites. Optimizely is a platform that works well for these tasks, allowing users to A/B test different content options and automatically display the most effective ones.

How to Measure Results of Web Design Lead Generation

How can we figure out which methods are working best and which are just waste of time and money? Its essential to set up analytics from the very beginning and track key metrics.

CPL (Cost Per Lead) is one of the most important metrics for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign.  It is calculated as the ratio of the total budget of an advertising campaign to the number of leads received. The metric reflects the cost of attracting one target lead.

Conversion Rate shows the percentage of people who have performed a certain action on the website or other ad campaign platform. This action can be purchasing an item, subscription for a newsletter or filling the form. For example, if 100 people visited your site, and 10 of them made a purchase, then the website's CR is 10%.

Not all leads become actual customers. When working with web design sales leads, it's important to track Lead Qualification Rate. It is a percentage of leads from each channel are actually ready to purchase the product or service and have that budget.

FAQ

How long does it take to see results from these strategies?

It really depends on the method you choose. You can get your first lead in 1 or 2 weeks with advertising and cold outreach or in 3 months with SEO and content marketing. For the best results you should use both short-term and long-term strategies.

What should I do if i have a lot of leads, but not many customers?

The problem could be with the quality of your leads or with the way you are selling your services to them. You should look at where your customers come from and focus on those channels.

Can I use more than one method at the same time?Sure. But if you’re trying to do everything all at once you can get no results at all. It’s better to focus on several directions and bring them to perfection.

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