Usually when I ask clients “who are you building a website for? I get a blank look. Everyone knows their business needs a website, but why? What’s the purpose? Most people don’t consider it and this article explores this subject in detail.
Who are you building a website for?
You are building a website for you potential clients! Most people don’t consider that when they are starting a website design project. Once you understand who you are building your website for, it kind of begs the question: What do they want to see?
Many of my website design clients want to include a long feature list of everything they think is great about their product or service and the whole history of why they are such a great company. However, when you consider the average person spends less than 30 seconds on a page you understand that no-one is reading 500 words of text on a page. They SCAN. They are basically looking at the titles and the pictures. But, what are they really looking for? I can assure you they are not looking for your company’s history or a list of product features.
They are looking for a solution to a problem they have.
For example, if a client is looking for a plumber, they want to know right away that you are a plumber and can help them and, secondarily that you are reputable. They will then contact you. Your website needs to be clear and on message to maximize your leads.
I get many clients say, “well what about that my plumbers (for example) are certified and we have WSIB, and that our company mission is……” and my answer is always the same. Once you convert a visitor into a lead and have their email address and phone number you can send them any information you want. You can call them and explain in minute detail anything you want them to know. However, until to you get a person to take an action on your website like contacting you, all the pages of information will go unread.
Why are you building a website?
To get new customers of course! The focus of the content needs to be to convert a visitor into a lead (i.e.: that you have contact information for) so that you can progress your sales efforts to the next step. A visitor to your website that comes and goes provides you zero value.
So how do you build a website that gets leads?
Ten Tips for building a Successful (lead gathering) Website:
- Talk in your customer’s language. Don’t baffle your visitors with technical information and industry jargon. I asked a client what they did once and they told me “we are in utility monitoring space” huh? What you do needs to be simple and clear to your visitors.
- Talk in terms of benefits. Forget the tag lines, highlighting your company name, etc. The client isn’t on your site for that. Remember, they are looking for a solution to THEIR problem. Make it clear the problem you solve and how you are going to solve it for THEM.
- Never say “WE”. Right of the bat, if you’re saying, “WE……” like, “We’ve been in business for 10 years” you’re not speaking in the customers language. You’re talking about yourself and not your customer’s problem. Always write like you’re talking to one client at a time and are talking directly to them. For example, “You’ll find an experience team of experts that will take care of you”.
- Show images of your product or service. I see so many website’s showing abstract images. For example, “We bend over backward for our clients”… picture of a guy bending over backwards. Unless you are a Yoga, studio, this won’t work. Show a picture of people using your product or service. Simple.
- Appropriately sized logo. One of the biggest requests I get from clients is, “Can you make my logo bigger?” Remember, the purpose of the website again and who your audience is. They are looking for a solution to a problem and want to know if you can help them. They are not there to admire your logo. Once you have their email address you can send them your logo 100 times if you like!
- Keep it clean. Too much styling takes away from the message. Your site just needs to be simple, clean and professional; and gets the message across of what you do and how you can help your clients.
- Calls to Action. Every page needs to be designed like a landing page. You never know which page clients are going to land on from Google search. If you want to collect leads, you need to have multiple calls to action and ways to contact you on every page. A contact form works great. Just anecdotally, about 80% of my leads come from form fills and 20% from phone calls. You have to make sure you cater to both types of visitors.
- Have an offer. If you want people to take you up on your call to action, you need an offer. I had a client that was getting a 4% conversion rate on website visitors. That is to say that 4% of visitors to the site filled in the contact form. I encouraged the client to come up with an offer. We added “Request a quote online and we’ll pay the HST”. Immediately, the conversion rate whet from 4% to 6.5% the next day. Just keep in mind a “Free estimate” is not an offer!
- Don’t encourage people to leave your site. Clients ask me all the time to have prominent social media links and link to their Facebook page or Linkedin Page, etc. Why? Why would you want to send your hard earned (or paid for) traffic to Facebook or Linkedin? That’s backwards; you want to get your clients FROM Facebook and Linkedin TO your website so you can convert them to a lead.
- Consider Speed. Having lots of bells and whistles on your website like videos, big images and content that slides in and changes does create interest, but it also slows your page down significantly. There needs to balance between all the fancy web design and speed. If your site loads too slow, clients will leave and you won’t get a conversion into a lead.
How can iGo Sales and Marketing Help Me with My Website?
If you’re not getting the conversions and leads from your website, we can help you re-design your website or build a website for you so that it’s actually generating business for you. In most cases the cost of the design pays for itself just in terms of new business within a couple of months. That’s a great return on investment. Contact us for more details. We’ll do an initial consultation and review for Free.