You may have spent a lot of time and/or money in getting your website up and running, yet customers cannot find you, and those who see your site spend seconds on it rather than minutes. These 5 things are a sure fire way to identify that you have a brochure website and you need to do something about it.
- Just ‘Contact us’ – The crucial call to action for your website is a simple contact button or form
- Not specific enough – Your website serves a wide audience rather than the interests and needs of your specific customers
- Selfish content – The content on your website talks more about you than your customers
- No FREE downloads – You are missing a lead magnet. It’s that compelling high-value content which gets the best leads and sales
- Hits but no leads – Your website doesn’t really generate many leads apart from the odd email per week
Fortunately, a few tweaks of your website can make a lot of difference in its effectiveness, but the complete cure may take a bit more.
HOW TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR WEBSITE
- Define your customers firstÂ
Take some time to figure out your different types of customers. If you know your ideal customer, then your website will connect with them - Structure your website around your clients
Don’t just settle for a list of your services on your website. Plan out an organised structure that will lead your customers to a solution to their problem. - Plan out your core pages
What is the objective of your core service pages? Open with a strong value proposition explaining exactly how you solve their problem - Explain your value to your customers
- Tell customers what you do, and why it is important to them
- Show potential customers how you can solve their problem
- Capture the essence of how your company provides value to its customers
- Customer focused content
- Good copywriting is one way of giving customers value for their visit to your site
- Show customers, rather than telling, why they can benefit from your services or product
- Provide information that your customers really want to know
- Answer customer questions in an updatable FAQS section making sure that you have fresh content on a regular basis
- Show social proof
- People attract people and the proof is in the pudding, so make sure you add testimonials from past customers saying how good you are
- Also show a gallery of work or a case studies / projects section
- Where possible, include an image of the customer that relates to the case study or testimonial
- Create an effective call to action
Nothing says effort more than CONTACT US! Think about what you can OFFER a potential customer to solve their problem. Package it up and make it enticing. - Offer valuable content for FREE
You will want to write regular blog posts, updates, and offer relevant and informative articles via your site. The more you can make your website a resource for your customers; the more often potential customers will return. - Add an email opt-in for extra special content
This is used as a way to connect with the visitor where they provide an email in exchange for something of value.- Your own special knowledge of your business is a great way to attract customers
- Create a help guide, tip sheet, or e-book of value to show your experience
- Track your websites vital stats
- Install website tracking / monitoring on your site
- Make notes on which pages are clicked most often, how many visitors you have over a period of time, how long page visits last
- You can use this information to compare when giving your site a tune-up, and this way you will know more about your audience as well as whether or not your new approach is having the desired effect
Keep in mind these tips when redesigning or having your website designed, and always, always, think about your customers first if you want them to take notice of your offerings.