There are many ways of making money online. The most popular way without selling products or services is through affiliate marketing and pay-per-click advertising like AdSense. A lead generation website is yet another way of making money on the Internet. It needs more work than just putting up a website and making it popular but lead generation websites are very rewarding once they get going.

The basics of lead generation websites

Lead generation is a process whereby you collect enquiries for a product or service by using an opt-in form on lead generation websites. The visitors who give the information are aware that the details they give will be shared with third parties to provide them with offers related to their requirements. For example, people looking for insurance policies or loans will benefit from such lead generation services to find the optimum products meeting their requirements at the best rates.

Lead generation websites then share this information with businesses which will then contact the prospect and offer their products or services. In exchange for the lead, lead generation websites are paid commissions or marketing fees, which is how they earn their revenue.

Unlike affiliate marketing where a successful sale is required to earn a commission, the revenue of lead generation websites is not necessarily dependent on the outcome of the sale process.

What kind of businesses should lead generation websites target?

Only businesses that place a high value on leads and are confident of converting a significant percentage of those leads into customers are likely to benefit from lead generation websites.

Businesses that have high transaction values like real estate businesses are likely to pay well for leads because they make significant amounts of money from each successful transaction. The other type of businesses that could be perfect for lead generation are businesses that sell renewable products or services and get repeat revenue from the same customer such as insurance. For them, the value of leads and customers gained from such leads is very high because they are looking at significant long-term revenues from the deal.

How is lead generation better than other traditional online methods of getting customers?

Traditional online internet marketing methods like pay-per-click are turning out to be more and more expensive for companies because the keywords that are likely to bring in relevant traffic have a lot of competition and are usually priced very high. The conversion rates from leads produced by lead generation websites, where the prospect voluntarily submits an enquiry, is much higher than PPC traffic.

Who should venture into lead generation websites?

Lead generation websites are not really recommended for beginners in internet marketing or those who are not yet experts in generating the right kind of traffic. This is best for someone who has been doing internet marketing successfully for some time and has been generating significant revenue in the process.

How should one go about building a lead generation business?

The first thing to do would be to check out what businesses you can tie up with. Local businesses work well because you will be able to keep in better touch, understand their needs well, and respond faster to changes in requirements. However, any business for which you can generate leads, and which is willing to buy your leads at an acceptable rate, is good enough.

Next, you need a good quality, interactive website. You may need to outsource the development if you don’t have the knowledge, time, or resources to develop one yourself.

Sending traffic to your new lead generation website is the next step, and this is where your expertise in SEO and online traffic generation will come in handy. Once the basics are in place and your traffic increases, you will find your revenue steadily increasing as you are able to send many quality leads to your partner businesses.

There are lots of businesses that want to take the online route to lead generation but do not have the expertise or SEO knowledge to do it themselves, so for those internet marketers who want to enter this field the time is ripe for setting up lead generation websites and adding yet another lucrative revenue stream to their portfolios.