Gated content

Most website visitors never buy on the first visit and never come back. A gate turns a share of that anonymous traffic into a contact. The trade has to feel fair, though. If the content is not worth an email address, visitors leave at the form, and the traffic that brought them is wasted. If too much is gated, people never see enough to trust the business.

• Gate things that are used, not read: templates, calculators and checklists earn an email address more readily than a long guide.
• Keep the form short. Each extra field loses some people. Progressive profiling can ask for more later.
• Leave plenty open, so a visitor trusts you before they meet a form.
• Tell people what happens next. In the UK and EU, check the consent rules before adding anyone to a marketing list.
• Send a short follow-up sequence, so the download becomes a conversation.
• Judge each asset by the customers it produces, not by its download count.

A gate is a form between a visitor and a piece of content. The visitor gives an email address, sometimes a name and company, and receives the download. The business gets a named lead it can follow up with. Typical gated assets are templates, calculators, benchmark reports and webinar recordings. Blog posts and product pages are usually left open.

• Gating the page that would have ranked in search. A gated page cannot be read by search engines, so it brings no traffic.
• Treating every download as an MQL. Some people just wanted the template.