Brace yourself. I have to ask you a really tough question. Are you prepared? Here goes: Is your website really working for you?
Is it bringing you a steady stream of the perfect clients you’re meant to serve?
Is it collecting leads and building your list 24/7?
Is it engaging visitors and compelling them to stick around and discover more about what you can do for them?
Is it creating income for your biz?
I know these are tough questions. But if you’re not getting the results you want from your website, someone’s got to ask ’em! The good news is that you can get a great website working for you, without shelling out big bucks. This guide will walk you through the 10 essential elements to building and maximizing your website. As a bonus, most of these ideas are really easy to implement. And if you’re truly awesome, you’ll take things a step further! But first things first, let’s look at what pages you’ll need on your site…
A.Design and Layout
Clear and professional design does not necessarily mean having everything laid out neat and orderly. In this case, simplicity is king. Having too much stuff cluttered onto a web page is often overwhelming and confusing for the visitor.
This mishmash of information is difficult to read and can be an eyesore. Having a clean, visually stimulating, and efficient design will allow visitors to focus on the content and the message you are trying to convey. By providing sufficient white space and a simple consistent page layout, you can make your content easier to read and increase the likelihood of return visitors.
A professional design transmits trust and leads to more sales. A study by Stanford University has reported that 75% of users admit to making judgments about a company’s credibility based on their website’s design. The design is the first impression, and first impressions are very important. Whether your business provides the best service or the best quality content, when a visitor comes to your site, their eyes will, in a split second, make a mental judgment on what they see.
The design and layout of your website are the first things that visitors will notice. The first impression they get of your site will be from the design, and studies have confirmed that the first impression is very important.
If your website looks professional and is easy to navigate, users will trust you and more likely to become your customers. Alternatively, if you make it hard for them to find what they are looking for or if your site looks unprofessional, they will leave and you will lose a potential customer.
With many businesses having their own website, there is a huge amount of competition. Having the ability to stand out from the rest and creating a positive lasting impression will lead to more success and growth for your business.
A.1. Clear and Professional Design
The website should have a custom design and not look like a free template.
It’s worth the investment to hire a web designer or design firm to create a professional image. A higher quality product will lead to better results. A professional designer will also be able to create a design that will be unique to the brand. If the budget does not allow for a custom design, an option is to purchase a template. There are many professionally designed templates available that are a more affordable alternative to a custom design. A business could potentially make a template work with their brand, but it is much better to have a design that is unique. A business is going to have a tough time standing out from the competition if they have a similar-looking website.
A small business is going to look professional if their website looks professional. The website is their storefront and is the first contact that many consumers will have with the business. Web users are quick to click away from a site that isn’t professional, and you only have a few seconds to make the impression. The design of the website should be clean, uncluttered, and tasteful. Text should be easy to read, and the page should be simple to navigate.
A.2. User-Friendly Navigation
Create a site map. It sounds simple, but many people don’t do it. Before you get into the design of your site, map it out on paper. This will help you define your site’s goals and keep you on track. A page hierarchy diagrams the page layout of your site and shows how you intend to navigate between pages.
Site architecture is the quintessential functional aspect of a website. The way in which it delivers information can either help or hinder your efforts to attract and retain customers. Intuitive navigation shortens the time and increases the satisfaction customers experience when accessing information. Logical and clear navigation also helps search engine spiders to index your information, which can help improve your search rankings.
B. Content
Relevant and Valuable Information This is what makes you stand out as an expert.
Think about the problems and questions your potential customers bring to you. They are trying to evaluate whether you are the right person to help them. Your website needs to make this evident.
A guarantee is a value proposition – you state what problems you solve and who you solve them for. Then, discuss the common issues your clients face. You can provide this as a list, but it is better if you describe a story or paint a picture. This will reveal the depth of your understanding. Finally, discuss the solutions you provide. This can lead to another list of solutions, but the best way is often a description of the process you would engage a client in. This legitimizes your services and shows you have a clear plan – very important to a customer seeking assurance.
If you want to see your site visitors turn into clients, then your site needs to consist of engaging copy. Website visitors are different from readers. Visitors to your site are searching for two things – something about you and whether you can help them.
That means you need to include a picture of yourself and some personal details on your web page. Do not remain in hiding! Inform people about your life. It could be when you were backpacking in Europe, or it could be that you have three kids. Let your visitors know that you are genuine and not a machine. And secondly, write in such a way that it is clear you are speaking to someone and not a crowd. Good copywriting can be the difference between someone signing up for your services or getting in touch for a consultation, and clicking away to a competitor’s site.
B.1. Compelling and Engaging Copy
Since most visitors are in a hurry, you won’t be winning any popularity contests with long-winded, self-indulgent prose. Your message needs to be delivered in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. And with the limited attention span of the average web surfer, copy that’s easy on the eyes increases the chances of it being read. Use short sentences and paragraphs, and objective language. And use lists to break up long blocks of text.
Aside from the visual voodoo, what’s most valuable to your website visitors? It’s your expertise put into words – and offering a solution to whatever problem led them to you in the first place. Your professionalism and competency must be reflected in all the verbiage on your site. So show ’em what you know! High-quality copy demonstrating your expertise is a critical component in creating a high level of trust in visitors to your website.
While good copy can make the difference on even the worst-designed page, it’s important to implement good copy in conjunction with a good design for optimal results.
B.2. Relevant and Valuable Information
Your content should educate your readers in regards to your niche. If you are a life coach who is looking to build a professional practice, you want to make sure your website is an outstanding resource for life coaching. You would want to give a comprehensive explanation about what life coaching is and what it can offer to potential clients. You might want to offer insight on the difference between life coaching and therapy. All of this is relevant information that can educate your readers and answer any potential questions they may have. By doing so, you become an informative resource to your visitors. When they are seeking information about your niche in the future, there is a good chance they will come back to your website looking for more or to seek your services.
Relevant and valuable information is what makes your website truly remarkable to your readers. When someone visits your site, you want to capture their attention and keep them there. Your goal is to have them read your whole website, absorbing your relevant and valuable information. The longer you keep them on your website, the greater the chance of making a connection.
B.3. Testimonials and Success Stories
Testimonials and case studies are particularly crucial for service-based businesses.
If you’re selling the ability to make a positive difference to someone’s life, task, or situation, there’s nothing more compelling than a real-life story that illustrates how you have done this for someone else. If you don’t believe this, look at the way toothpaste is sold. People don’t buy toothpaste because they believe in and understand the features of a particular product; they buy it because they want teeth as clean and white as the ones depicted in the advertisement.
Testimonials or accounts of success are an important addition to any website, particularly a small business site. A good testimonial serves two functions. Firstly, it offers a detached, third-party evaluation of your goods or services. Secondly, it provides you with the chance to “blow your own trumpet” without seeming to do so. If you’re a new business or a solo trader, it’s unlikely that you’ll have many puff pieces written about you in the media. A well-written testimonial can be just as effective in developing a positive perception of your brand.
C. Functionality and Features
The last element, and one that is often overlooked, is the ability to add a blog or news section to the website. This will keep the website “fresh” in Google’s eyes with regular updates of new material and also gives the client something to look forward to upon return to the website. It also provides an opportunity to display one’s expertise in their field. This can be done by writing articles on topics that are relevant to the services that are provided. If the articles are well written, there is also the possibility of a random visitor to the website seeking out the services of the provider. This is due to having found the website through a Google search on a topic related to what was written in the articles.
Integration with social media is also a very important element. This step is vital to online marketing, with the present so heavily involving the use of social media to market a business. Any SEO efforts must be validated, and any new material that is put onto the website can be easily displayed via social media. This element is also great with the connection that it provides the client with the ability to follow or like the service provider’s page and also to share the page with friends who may be in need of the same services.
When considering the functionality of the website, these 3 elements are most vital for a service provider or coach. The contact information must be clearly visible at all times through the use of an information box on the right or left side of the website, links/buttons at the top of the page, or preferably both. It is suggested to also have a contact page on the website. The more contact information right up front, the better. Many clients will not invest the time into looking for contact information. If the information is not attainable, a missed client may simply move on to another service provider with the same services. So the easier it is to get in touch with the service provider, the better the chance that the client will utilize their services.
C.1. Contact Information and Forms
Provide a FAQs page as a useful means of deflecting phone inquiries to web-based solutions for clients’ issues.
Providing phone numbers seems glaringly obvious for a brick and mortar store, but it’s crucial for an online store as well. Frequently, customers will still ask questions about your product before making a purchase, and many customers feel more comfortable talking to someone straight away than looking for the answer themselves.
Email addresses are a typical method of getting in touch and can be combined with email management solutions to ensure emails are distributed to the correct person and administered effectively. One way of enhancing your email facility is to provide customers with email access to things such as a note of previous communications and saved drafts, to an enhanced form of the standard email services.
Contact forms are nice, of course, as the queries are usually emailed directly to a specific email address. This usually makes it easier and quicker to administer a more knowledgeable response.
Supplier contact information is majorly crucial. Clients use various contact methods, and it is dire that you cater for many various ways in which to allow them to do so. Examples of in-style contact ways include contact forms, email addresses, and phone numbers.
C.2. Social Media Integration
An excellent way to facilitate automated content sharing is by importing your social media page feeds or creating activity-based auto-posting to and from your website. When a visitor pushes content, an automatic action such as updating a Facebook page status can create a pull back to the site by yielding comments and likes from people viewing the post in their news feed. The idea is to create so much push and pull that a visitor will simply need to visit the social media page to continue reading the same content that they would find on your site, thus strengthening the business-consumer relationship.
Social media is one of the fastest growing marketing tools, and no business today can ignore it. Social media has changed the way business building is done, and websites play an important role in these changes. Integration with popular social media websites is now a staple in modern web design. For a business to ignore social media, it would be like ignoring email a decade ago, or a phone twenty years ago.
C.3. Blog or News Section
A good blog section should have an introduction to the blog, and then list the blog articles in date order, with the ability to click on each blog article to read it in more detail. A search feature can also be useful for allowing visitors to find blog articles about specific topics. The blog articles need to be written on a regular basis for this to benefit your website. Writing one or two articles and then abandoning the blog will give customers a negative impression of your site, and the last thing you want to do is show your potential customers that you cannot follow things through to the end.
Starting a blog or news section on a website has become standard for businesses over the past few years. Blogs have many benefits to businesses, one of the main benefits is that they are an effective way of telling your customers about your expertise. Other benefits include an increase in search engine traffic (particularly if you are writing about keywords in your field), they are a way of keeping your site fresh and up-to-date, and they are an effective way of building relationships with visitors.
