Website Must-Haves
Not only do you need a good website as a foundation of your marketing, like I posted in my previous blog HERE, there are some website must-haves if your site is to give you a good return on your investment of time and money. (Because we delegate and pay professionals to design good websites, remember? So you can go back to doing what you do best and make more money!)
Many of my clients tell me, “Sandee, I just want more sales.” But since I don’t have a magic wand to make that happen overnight, much as I’d love to do that for you, let me teach you what you have to do in order to get more sales. The best, high-performing websites convert site visitors into paying customers. Does your site do that? Yes? Great! No? Then you might be missing one of these key elements.
Blog
You’re reading my blog post right now. (Thanks for that, by the way!) A blog is a way for you to add value to site visitors, teaching them things they need to know, sharing interesting information, letting them get to know you, and positioning you as someone who is an expert in your field. Good blog posts explain and help, speaking for you about why you are the person or business whose products and services they need and ranks high as one of your website must-haves.
A blog offers another important advantage: increased SEO. I know there are plenty of people pitching you that they can raise your SEO for you. Hire them if you want, or just blog consistently. Google loves to see a site that is consistently updated with new content. I don’t mean stuff you copy and paste from other sites. I mean you write up your own new content, your take on what you’ve learned or about your expertise. That’s what this blog post is. I have been working with my clients to develop and design their websites and marketing plans and blogging has ALWAYS raised their SEO.
You can hire a copywriter to do the actual writing, if you don’t feel comfortable writing yourself. Make sure it has YOUR “voice” though, not that of your copywriter. The easiest way to do that is to provide content to your writer. You could also do an audio recording of what you want to say so that the content sounds like you. Your copywriter can transcribe that to the blog post.
Here’s an example. One of website clients recently sent me a Word docx with content and pictures. I used the content, edited it for grammar and tweaked it for higher SEO, added the pictures, and posted her blog post for her on her website (copywriting and blogging is a service we offer to our website clients).
Call to Action
One of my favorite branding experts, Don Miller, uses something he calls the “grunt test” on the home page of websites he reviews in his webinars. (You should try to catch one – you’ll learn a lot!) He says that the top of your home page, whatever site visitors see first, needs to tell people within 3-5 seconds:
- What do you offer?
- How will it make my life easier?
- What do I need to do to buy it?
You want your site to cause people to want to move towards you, to say, “Yes, this person gets me! They understand my situation and have a solution that will make my life better/easier.”
Then each section on your home page as you scroll down should have headlines that cause people to want to continue reading your content. Keep it short and sweet. Bullet points are great. Remember what it’s like to read a site on your smart phone.
In fact, here’s an idea
Check out YOUR site on your smart phone. How easy is it to navigate? To read about you? Would it draw you in and convince you that you provide transformative help? If not, contact your website developer because you have work to do!
You need to provide frequent “call to action” buttons as people scroll down the home page. Buttons vary depending on the action you want them to take. It might say, “Call Today” or “Buy Now” or “Book an Appointment” or whatever action you want them to take. And you can have them take different actions. Just have these call to action buttons frequently for viewers to see and click as they scroll down the home page.
Don says, they came to your website for you to pitch them, so pitch them! Ask them to take action to do business with you.
Lead Generator
We’ll dive deeper into email marketing later, but for now, the most important thing you can do is create a lead generator that allows you to collect email addresses from anyone visiting your site. Why do you want those, you say? Because email marketing is one of the most effective methods for increasing sales today. It only works if you have email addresses, of course. That makes a lead generator one of the top website must-haves.
You can have an opt-in form, yes. But that call to action really only works for someone who’s pretty much already rich and famous and people want to associate with them. For the rest of us, we need to offer them something in exchange for their email address. And it has to be something of good value. Don’t just give them a short list of “Five Ways to Brush Your Cat Without Getting Scratched” sort of thing. Think about your target client. What information can you share with them that would be of great value to them?
Here’s an example
As a promotional products professional, my clients often ask me to provide them with products and suggestions for trade shows. Having a free “Trade Show Planner” on my website is something that would add value to those clients. They give me their email address, and in return, they get the free planner to make their trade show planning easier and their return on investment higher.
Don rightly calls this an irresistible offer. Not only do you want your lead generator to have value, but you want it to offer so much help that people can’t resist signing up to get it, even though they know that means they are also, by default, opting into your email newsletter. That’s where you want them to be so that you can stay in front of them and top of mind when they need your products or services. Do the work and make your lead generator irresistible.
Looking for a small biz strategist who can help you grow your business? Sign up on my calendar HERE for a Discovery Call to see if I’m a good fit for you.
Do you need a website developer and designer to set you up with your website must-haves? Contact Domenic HERE to discuss what his team can do.