Lead generation is an important part of doing business, even if you’re not the greatest at finding leads. Actually, the worse you are at lead generation, the more important it probably is to your business. If you really want to grow your business and find new contacts who’ll bring in jobs to bid on, you’re going to have to learn how to generate new leads.

On the plus side, lead generation can be a lot easier in the digital age than it was in years past. That’s assuming that you know how to do it effectively, of course. Here are some tips on how to generate leads in the modern world, as well as advice on what to do when your lead gen efforts don’t seem to be paying off.

Master the Search Engines

When most people need a contractor, the first thing they’re going to do is hit Google or some other search engine and look for the type of contractor they need in their area. If your business isn’t hitting those top results, you just lost that potential lead. Take advantage of business tools in search engines such as Google My Business and Bing Places for Business to help you build your business profile – and develop a website that’s optimized to help you place well in local searches to really help you capture that search engine traffic.

Build Your Yelp Profile

Review sites like Yelp also play a large part in helping people find your business. Those same potential leads who found you in a local search for contractors will use these sites to decide whether you or your competitors are the best contractors to meet their needs. Encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews on Yelp and similar sites to help you build your presence there. Just be careful when it comes to offering incentives; that can actually hurt you since it might look like you’re trying to bribe customers for positive reviews.

Paid Generation

There are a lot of sites like Houzz, Angie’s List, and HomeAdvisor where you can create a profile for your business and then pay for the leads that are generated by the sites. This can be a decent way to generate new leads since these sites have big userbases that frequent the sites because they know that there are good contractors to be found there. Be sure to compare different platforms to see how much leads will cost you as you try to find the options that are best aligned to the needs of your business.

Social Media Mastery

One great way to build more leads is to have an active social media presence for your business. Encourage customers to leave reviews, answer questions, host giveaways, and otherwise provide a business presence for potential customers to engage with on social media. Not only will this help you to grow organic leads and increase the likelihood of repeat business, but it will also help you to capture those leads that check social media for local recommendations instead of search engines.

Bringing in Some Help

Lead generation can be difficult, and sometimes the best way to handle it is by bringing in someone who specializes in lead gen and marketing. This will give you an expert opinion on how to go about lead generation and help you to get more potential leads than you were getting previously. More importantly, it will also free up more of your time and let you focus on running other aspects of your business.

What’s the best advice you have for someone who’s new to lead generation?