Solved: Feedback Needed on Website for AI Consulting Services

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. I understand your situation, it's pretty common for referral-based businesses to see the well dry up eventually. It's definately a good idea to build out a more predictable way of getting leads before you're in a tough spot. I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance based on what you've said and my experience running paid ad campaigns for B2B services.

Tbh, before you even think about spending a quid on ads, you need to make sure your house is in order. That means your website.

We'll need to look at your website first...

You mentioned wanting to have a "web presence" before getting your outbound rolling, and that's exactly the right way to think about it. Your website is your digital shopfront. If it doesn't look professional, trustworthy, and clear about what you do, any traffic you send there, paid or otherwise, is just money down the drain. You'll probably see very low convertion rates and a really high cost for any leads you do get.

For a consulting business like yours, selling high-value AI projects, the website's job is to build a huge amount of trust and clearly articulate the value you provide. It's not an eCommerce store where someone adds a £20 t-shirt to a cart. The sales cycle is longer, the decision is bigger. So the site needs to work harder.

First thing to pin down is your sales process. What do you actually want someone to do when they land on your site?
-> Do you want them to fill out a detailed form to qualify them?
-> Do you want them to book a 30-minute 'discovery call' or consultation directly into your calendar?
-> Do you want them to request a free 'AI Readiness Audit'?

Whatever that one action is, your entire homepage should be geared towards persuading a visitor to take it. The copy needs to be spot on. It should speak directly to the problems of your ideal client (e.g. "Struggling to integrate AI into your workflow?") and present your service as the clear solution. I'd seriously consider getting a professional copywriter who has experience in B2B tech. It can make a world of difference. Your current website might be 'enough' to exist, but for paid ads, you need it to be a lead generation machine. This should be your first prioirity.

I'd say you need to define your ideal customer...

This flows directly from the website copy. Who are you actually trying to talk to? Since you've been working off LinkedIn referrals, you probably have a good idea already. But it's worth properly formalising it. Who are the comapnies that get the most value from you? What's their size, their industry?

More importantly, who is the decision maker inside that company? Is it the CTO? The Head of Innovation? A Project Manager? The CEO?

The messaging that resonates with a hands-on technical Project Manager will be very different from the messaging that a bottom-line-focused CEO wants to hear. Once you know exactly who you're targeting, you can tailor your website copy and, crucially, your ad targeting to reach them. This step is fundemental. Skipping it means you're just guessing, and guessing is expensive in paid advertising.

You probably should focus on Google Search ads to start...

You asked about advertising without using Meta, which is a good instinct for your kind of business. While Meta can work for some B2B, it's often not the best place to start. Your best bet, especially when you're trying to replace a source of high-intent leads like referrals, is Google Search ads.

Why? Because you're reaching people who are actively searching for a solution to a problem they already have. They are literally typing their need into Google. This is the digital equivalent of a referral. They have intent. Most B2B services are difficult to sell to someone who isn't already looking. You're not trying to convince a casual social media scroller they need a technical migration plan; you're showing up for the person who just searched "AI project consulting for logistics company".

You'd want to do some proper keyword research, but you could be targeting keywords like:
-> "ai implementation services"
-> "expert ai consultants"
-> "outsource ai development project"
-> "technical migration specialists uk"
-> "how to manage an ai project"

The goal here is to capture that existing demand. It's the most efficient way to get high-quality leads flowing again. The traffic will be more expensive than social media, but the lead quality is usually much, much higher.

You'll need a solid LinkedIn strategy for outbound...

Since your business was built on LinkedIn, you shouldn't abandon it. You just need to supplement your manual efforts with a paid strategy. LinkedIn Ads are built for exactly what you need: precision B2B targeting.

This is where defining your ideal customer pays off. On LinkedIn, you can target people with incredible granularity:
-> Job Titles: Chief Technology Officer, Head of Data Science, VP of Engineering.
-> Company Size: 50-200 employees, 201-500 employees, etc.
-> Industry: Financial Services, Software & IT, Manufacturing.

You can even upload a list of target comapnies you want to work with and show ads only to the decision-makers within those specific organisations. For B2B lead generation, it's incredibly powerful. I recall one campaign we ran for a B2B software client targeting very specific decision makers where we managed to get their cost per lead down to just $22, which for their deal size was a massive success.

For the ads themselves, you'd likely want to test Sponsored Content (an ad that looks like a normal post in the feed) that points to a landing page on your website (the one you've optimised!). You could also test Lead Gen Forms, which pop up right within LinkedIn and pre-fill the user's details. These usually get a lower cost per lead, but the leads can be less qualified as it's so easy to fill out.

You'll need to look at testing your CTA...

Your question about testing a CTA before placing traffic is a good one, but the short answer is you can't, really. The only way to know if a CTA works is to test it with real traffic from real potential customers. You can't test it in a vacuum.

What you can do is set up your tests to be as efficient as possible. This is called A/B testing or split testing. Instead of just having one landing page, you create two versions that are identical except for the one thing you want to test. In this case, the Call to Action.

But remember, the CTA isn't just the button text. It's the whole offer. So you could test:
-> Page A: Offer is a "Free 30-Minute Strategy Call" with a button saying "Book Your Call".
-> Page B: Offer is a "Custom AI Implementation Roadmap" with a button saying "Get Your Free Roadmap".

You'd then use Google Ads (or LinkedIn Ads) to send 50% of your traffic to Page A and 50% to Page B. You absolutely need to have conversion tracking set up correctly to measure which page generates more actual leads (not just clicks). After a statistically significant number of visitors (say, a few hundred to each page), it will be clear which offer and CTA resonates better with your audience. That's your winner. Then you test something else against it (e.g. the headline) and keep optimising.

This is the main advice I have for you:

As you can see, getting this right involves quite a few moving parts. The strategy above is a solid foundation, but the real work comes in the execution, the constant monitoring, the optimisation, and knowing which levers to pull when a campaign isn't performing as it should. It can be a real minefield and a full time job in itself.

This is often where working with a specialist can be valuable. We can handle the entire process for you – from helping refine the strategy and messaging to building out the campaigns, writing the ads, and managing the day-to-day optimisations to ensure your budget is spent as effectively as possible. It helps you avoid the costly learning curve and get to the results much faster.

If you'd like to have a more detailed chat about your specific situation, we offer a free initial consultation where we can have a proper look at your web presence and discuss a potential strategy in more detail. It's a great way for you to get some direct, actionable advice and see if we'd be a good fit to help you grow.

Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh