What is the difference between buying leads and building your own lead generation website?

A lot.  However, this does not have to be a decision.  If you are buying leads from a lead generation company and making a positive ROI on the purchases, then you should never stop buying leads from them.  It is all about if you are getting quality leads and if you are successfully converting leads to customers.

However,  just because that works does not mean you should not build your own lead generation website for your company.

The good thing about building your own lead generation website is that you can generate free leads that are exclusively yours.  Again, this should not mean that you turn off your other lead generation efforts.  The disadvantage of building your lead generation website is that it takes time to get going, it takes some regular effort of writing some articles and getting links, and it requires some time and expertise to set up.

The Buzzoodle lead generation system does make it faster, easier and more effective because it has video on how to set things up and publishing tools to help you improve your publishing, linking and social media integration that will increase your inbound marketing effectiveness.

The good news is that generating leads on the web is not difficult.  But it does take a few months to get set up and to start seeing results – and most people give up before it kicks in.  That said, it is not going to usually produce large numbers of leads a day usually.  When executed properly, online lead generation can produce highly targeted leads that are likely to buy your product, but how many depends on your market and your competition.

Because of the low cost of building a lead generation site, every business serious about growth should have its own lead generation website, but they should also consider other lead generation strategies as well.

What are the best practices for blog lead generation?

I hope you do not question whether a blog can generate leads or not.  It can and does every day.

However, it is not the fact that it is a blog that makes it a lead generator.  It is because it is the perfect tool to develop a content marketing strategy to attract buyers and generate leads.

The first thing you need to do it to decide what your blog lead generation strategy is.  There are two very different strategies, and you can pursue both, but you should do so on two different blogs.

#1 is developing your expert status. This is when you build relationships with your readers and write interesting things frequently.  This is hard and takes time, but the payoff can be big.  People like Chris Brogan have leveraged a blog into a speaking career, author and more.  However, this is a bit of a crap shoot and I do not like to encourage this approach unless someone understands it will probably take years and will take a very steady effort over that time.

#2 is utilizing WordPress as an SEO and lead generation tool.  In this approach, you set up a blog targeting niche keywords and work the system to rank well in search for those words.  When people land on the blog from search engines they get the article and also see your clear call to action and some will become leads for you.

The good thing about #2 is that you can expect faster results normally and you do not have the pressure of writing extremely unique articles several times a week.  This is especially important for people that want leads in areas that are not so flashy.  For example, if you have a steak restaurant or a roofing company, do you really want to become an industry expert or do you just want some targeted, local leads?  Obviously the second option is the best for those kinds of businesses.

The problem with many marketers and Internet consultants is they think one size fits all.  They keep beating the drum of relationships and expert status, when all someone really wants is 10 more inbound leads per month that are worth $200,000 per month in new sales and cost $100 to generate and took about an hour of their time in the month.  (example)

The social media consultants that are selling relationships need to start taking their own advice and listening to business owners.  Most want results, not fluff.  Blog lead generation works if you understand what your goal is up front and focus on it.