Your website exists to get you results. Not many businesses are happy for it to simply sit online and just look pretty. It’s about results, you want your website to generate you leads, sales and enquiries.
If this is not the case for your website, then here are some simple steps you can take to help your website became an enquiry generating machine for your business.
1. Proof of the pudding
People expect you to shout about how good your business is, that is only natural. What your website needs to do is contain plenty of room where others shout about how good you are. Your website needs plenty of proof of your work from your happy customers. Examples of this are:
Your website must be full of your raving fans shouting about you. This certainly needs to be the case on your home page. This is the page that most people visit so make sure you create plenty of space for your fans to let people know how great it is to do business with you.
2. Improved and strategic call to actions
Too many websites don’t include the big ask – what do you want people to do next?
Your website must include call to actions which are clear steps that you want your website visitors to take. Examples of this are:
Every page on your website must include at least one call to action. A simple step that you want your visitor to take when they have digested the information on that page. Your home page in particular must have at least one call to action. Make it easy to find, clear as to what it is and simple to complete. Making this one change can drastically improve your website results.
3. Value for visitors
Gone are the days where websites are simply about selling. Your website is your window to the online world, and it needs to add value to your visitors.
Adding value is about three things:
Your website needs to include areas where you add value. This can be through the form of a blog, videos, a knowledge centre or giveaways such as eBooks. It’s a dedicated space on your website where your visitors can dig deeper and learn from your experience and knowledge.
Who is your potential client going to buy from? You, that has a website full of knowledge and proof that you are an expert or a competitor’s website that just sells what they do?
Ensure your website demonstrates that you are the best at what you do.
4. Organic SEO
For any website to be a success it needs traffic. You can have the most attractive website in the world but if no one ever visits then you are wasting your time.
If you want your website to attract visitors, then it must be optimised for Google. This means it needs to have had SEO work done on it. For many this is an overwhelming subject and can be quite complex, however, there is a foundation of SEO that every website needs to have. You would be amazed about the number of websites that exist that have no or very little SEO in place.
As a starting point you need to ensure that your website is optimised with the following:
This is the very basic that needs to be done. On top of this we would encourage you to have a trusted SEO company produce a report on your website highlighting what improvements can be made. This is the starting point but of course there is so much more than can be done but you have to start somewhere.
5. Live Chat
Giving your potential customers quick and easy access to answers to their questions is an easy way to improve your results. Live chat is one of the simplest and cost-effective ways to do this.
Most people that arrive on your website have questions and if those questions can be easily answered without picking up a phone or writing an email then people will utilise this. Live chat is the solution.
Be adding a simple live chat feature to your website (as long as it can be manned) you can improve your website results. Most options are free to use for a basic service so why not test it out on your website? We use Tawk but there are many options you can look into.
6. Simplified Navigation
One of the biggest mistakes we see on websites is the overwhelm. Many businesses tend to overcomplicate their website by filling it full of endless pieces of information that frankly most people are not interested in. It’s vital to the success of your website that you have simple navigation. In other words, people can find the information they want and find it quickly.
This means you need a simple menu structure where each visitor can find what they want with ease. Don’t feel the need to overwhelm people and always ask yourself, can I simplify this? Always choose to keep it simple so all your website visitors can easily find the information or product they are interested in.
7. A focus on speed
The speed of your website is more important than ever before for two reasons:
We live in a society where people want what they want, and they want it now. People will not stay on your website if your pages are taking an age to load. Your pages need to appear within seconds. Google are looking for your website to load within 5 seconds but ideally 3. If this is not the case, then we would suggest you have this looked at.
If you are not sure on the speed of your website, then you can do as a simple speed check here.
8. Free content
Many of the people that appear on your website may well buy from you but not necessarily right now. If that is the case how do you keep them in your sales funnel?
One of the best ways to do this by giving content away in exchange for their email address. That way you can add them to a mailing list that regularly sends out interesting and engaging content that keeps in contact with them till they are ready to buy.
Simply create one or two pieces of engaging and interesting content that would be of interest to your target audience. Examples of this are:
If you then market this on your website as a free download and then link it up with email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, your website visitors can then download the free piece of content whilst you get their email address. This way the visitor gets value and you get the chance to keep them in your sales funnel. They call that a win-win.
9. Personalised imagery
As much as possible we would encourage you to have personalised images on your website. We understand that this incurs extra costs but the difference between this and stock images is huge. Such imagery really does make an impact and gives a more transparent and personalised feel to your website.
Photos of your team, pictures of completed projects and your office environment all give your website the edge.
10. Focussed next step forms
Gone are the days where a simple ‘contact’ form cuts it on a website. Yes, have a ‘contact us’ form but you now need to go one step further.
When people come on your website you need to give them an option to make contact with you in a specific way. Once you have decided on your call to action you then need to link that in with a focused form. Let’s say that your chosen call to action is ‘request a call back’ you then need to ensure you have a focused form for this. Don’t just send them to your contact us page.
Create a form on the website that is focussed on that call back. Include such factors as when they want the call back, what number do they want the call back on and so forth. Make sure all the wording on that page is specific to the call to action.
The same applies to such actions as ‘get a quote’. If you want to offer this option, then make sure the form is geared towards this. Get information from the potential client on what service they are interested, what is their budget and more details on what they are looking for. This means that when the enquiry comes through to you, you are armed with the information you need before you even contact the client.
Always remember that your website exists to generates results for your business. By applying these 10 steps you can turn your website from what it is today into a lead generation machine.
Choose Purple are a website design agency located in Worksop near Sheffield. If you are looking to make improvements to your website, why not contact our team here or get a quote here.
