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3. Evaluate Your Website as a Customer Would
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make when they create a website is that they make it too focused on them and not on what their customer wants-"We Have This" and "We Do Such and Such." Another mistake businesses make is not making their sites easy to understand and simple to use.
Customers are looking for a reason to stop searching. Your website should convince them to do business with you rather than someone else. Here are some ideas for doing this:
- Use a headline-To a potential client, your business name probably doesn't mean much. Yet on so many websites (as in so many Yellow Pages ads), the business name features most prominently. Instead, minimize your business name and use a large headline which highlights your greatest benefit to the customer. For example: "Your project will be finished on time and on budget-guaranteed."
- Evaluate your entire website-Look at it from a customer's point of view who has never heard of your company and is looking for any excuse to leave the site. You'll be amazed at what you find.
- List the benefits-Phrase your capabilities as benefits instead of bragging rights, focusing on what the customer gets rather than what you provide. Instead of saying, "We don't make you pay until the job is finished," say, "You don't pay until you're satisfied with the job."
- Add credibility-If you belong to local and national trade organizations, use their logos and link to them on your site to let customers know you're part of a trusted community. Use before-and-after photos or testimonials to show that you've provided good service. Do anything you can to allay potential customers' fears.
Bottom line: Evaluate your website from a busy customer's point of view who could care less about you and is just looking for a solution. Create a website that helps the customer decide you're that solution.
4. Implement Best Practices
Have you ever visited a website that instantly started playing an annoying song that you couldn't turn off? This is a classic example of what not to do. Here are some "best practices" for your website:
- Keep your website concise, with bullet points, so it's easy to scan.
- Avoid turnoffs and distractions. Don't play music or use lots of bright colors and animation. Focus on what you want the customer to know or do on your site.
- Keep your website up-to-date. Nothing kills credibility like an out-of-date copyright year or an offer that expired three months ago.
- Encourage connection-collect names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers.
- Your website is as good as you are. Before a customer meets you, your website is all they know about you. If you're a professional company, make sure your website looks professional. If you're not sure what a professional website should look like, scan the sites of your largest nationwide competitors, and see what their big website budgets have bought them. Then recreate that on a smaller scale.
Bottom line: Customers evaluate websites in just a few seconds-follow best practices so you don't distract them or make them leave your site. You'll have a better chance of getting them to connect with you.
5. Make Your Website Work for You 24/7
You don't answer your phone during the night when you're asleep (if you do, you should seek help from a qualified professional). But your website can be working for you every hour of every day, collecting leads while you're doing something else. In fact, your website should encourage those who visit to connect with you. The best way to get contact information from a busy person researching on the Internet is to offer something in return. Here are some ideas of what you can offer a potential customer:
- A free evaluation of their needs (or, if it's not possible to offer it for free, a "web discount" or something similar)
- Offer information or ideas in exchange for contact info...for example, put together a digital booklet of before-and-after photos and ideas from customers that prospects can download if they give you their e-mail address and phone number. Get inside your customers' heads and understand what information you have that they want-and offer it to them. They receive valuable content, and you get contact information necessary to begin a relationship.
- Send regular newsletters to keep your company in the forefront of your customers' minds. Set up an automatic e-mail to go out the minute a customer submits their e-mail address thanking them for giving it to you. Then, at regular intervals, send them information you think they'd be interested in. In a low-pressure way, remind them that they have a friend in the business and they should direct any questions about the industry to you. Remember to include a way to unsubscribe in every e-mail so they don't feel trapped.
Bottom line: Your website should encourage customers to contact you. The more automated the lead-collection process is, the less you have to think about it. Put your website to work!
Donald Carson is creative director for QualitySmith, Inc. He can be reached by phone at 509.522.0222 x1247. Visit www.qualitysmith.com.
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