After going through this horrible economic downturn (which we’ll be feeling the effects of for some time) companies have learned different ways to survive.

The companies making it through the economic crisis are going to be more efficient and more streamlined as they have learned to do more with much less, to squeeze more out of areas that they did not focus on before. Corporate resources are called upon to deliver more and work harder.

Budgets have been cut back and marketing spend has been reduced, so savvy companies are learning that their websites need to deliver the goods. It used to be that if you wanted more leads or sales, you just turn up the dial on the adspend and get more.

Now there are ways to increase leads and sales from your website even amidst the budget crunch and ad spend cutbacks.

1. A/B and Multivariate Testing – If you have not done this, then you are not putting your best foot forward or at least you are not putting your best website forward. Why settle for a poor performing website when you can tweak it for maximum performance.

2. Segment optimization- Not every visitor to your site is the same. There are questions you should be asking yourself about your visitors. Where do they come from? What keyword brought them in? What time of day do they visit the site? Are they coming from your advertising? Once you know this information, you can take action that will increase the performance of your website. Find the right combinations that work for everyone coming from Google for example. Closely related to Personalization below.

3.Personalization- Almost all websites are showing one message for every visitor. But what if you could show the right message for every visitor? Blue widgets for the people who found the site through a blue widget keyword, red widgets for the red, North American widgets for those who came in from Seattle and glow in the dark widgets for those who came to the site in the middle of the night. Well you can and you should, this increases conversion rates above and beyond what testing can do.

Living through the furnace of economic trials will make stronger companies who are smarter with what they have. Don’t be surprised if your competition has a website that doesn’t seem to rank well or they don’t spend much to promote it, but it seems to be kicking your butt. They’ve probably figured out how to make the site work for them.