Your website is just not working for you? It’s not bringing leads, visitors are dropping. You know you need to fix it, but you’re on a budget. Where do you start?
The good news…
…you probably don’t need to start with a clean slate!
You don’t even need an expensive niche consultant with a cool methodology and tools. You know your business, you speak to your customers, and it’s likely you made good instinctive decisions when you built the site.
Rather leverage all the work you have done over the years, and refocus it on what matters. Yes, you almost certainly will WANT a new look and structure, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
You can start thinking about it TODAY. Assess for yourself if there is room for improvement.
The first two steps are so simple
- Who is the prospect for this website – who do we want to attract here?
- Once we have them, what do we want them to DO?
Step 1: Who is your SITE really for?
It’s critical to get this right – who is your prospect. If you have a marketing expert on your in-house team, they will guide the conversation in the right direction from the start.
Most websites address multiple communications issues and over time the lines can get blurred. Sites grow organically and the squeaky wheel (the department head who has content and clout) gets the most oil. They end up dominating the website.
Who might visit your website?
- new business prospects
they found you online and you might solve their problem. - existing customers
for after-sales support and repeat sales*. - referrals
they’ve heard about you, and they are checking out your credibility. - distributors and agents
they need sales tools, spec sheets, partnering options*. - investors shareholders, supply chain partners…
Each of these visitors is valuable, but most of my clients are really interested in the first one – new business leads.
Why? The new business is easily lost. If THEY walk away without engaging, connecting or leaving their email address, you’ll never find them again.
Once you have identified them, you can start looking at what they want from you.
Industrial products
Business to business products are often straightforward. Commercial and industrial buyers are experienced, and they have a “bill of materials”.
Make your products easy to find. Use practical categorization and filters, based on characteristics buyers need. Use pictures, videos, specifications and quality compliance certificates. You’ll probably need to explain about logistics options. Commercial buyers aren’t daunted by detail.
Consumer products
Consumer products are never straightforward. Consumers believe they have done research, but many have only read hype on social media, or heard something from a friend. They struggle to make a good choice, or ANY choice. If you explain in too much detail, they hesitate.
Most countries have legislation protecting consumers from rash purchases, so you may be required to accept returns. Helping the consumer make sensible decisions is usually in your interests.
- See Websites that work: catalogs for advice.
Services
Selling services is more art than science. Services aren’t tangible. No specs or photographs. You’ll need to establish credibility – which is often built through your approach or methodology, and your track record.
- See Marketing for Solopreneurs for advice.
Step 2: What do you want them to do?
While it’s nice to be useful, show off your knowledge and entertain, that’s not enough. Your website has a tough job to do. You can’t go far wrong if you stay focused on what you want your website to achieve.
Step 2.1: Qualify the prospect
- Are they willing to pay for your services or just looking for DIY solutions?
- Do they come from a country that you service?
- Have they bought a competitive product but aren’t being supported? If the product has a short lifespan, perhaps they are a future prospect.
- Are they an existing buyer, through a 3rd party who isn’t supporting them?
- What’s their industry, what’s their budget, what’s their intent for visiting your website?
Step 2.2: Invite the prospect to engage
Websites rarely make SALES 🙁
Web clients are promised a low-effort, passive income – put any old product online and customers will throw money at you.
I’m sad to say, e-commerce websites aren’t effective unless you have a trusted bricks-and-mortar brand (so your website is really an convenient procurement gateway not actually e-commerce). People are suspicious. And those who get a thrill gambling on product quality and delivery, can easily find cheap knockoffs.
Without engagement, there is ZERO commitment. Anonymous traffic stats are gratifying, but not useful. You must have a call-to-action.
What call-to-action works best?
Contact information
Always put contact information at the top and bottom of every page. If the person wants to connect, make it frictionless. You at least get AN email address, even if it isn’t the primary one. If you provide a phone number, make sure the phone has an answering machine.
Quick Trick: WhatsApp is a good option if you sell outside North America.
Contact forms
One reason why a contact form is great for the website owner, is you can ask additional information. Which is exactly WHY visitors hate giving that information. Most aren’t real prospects, and they know it. They are shopping around, maybe just curious. If your contact form gets only spam, don’t stress – it’s not you, it’s normal.
Quick Tricks: Keep extra questions to a minimum, and offer a simple email address as an option in case they rethink half way through. Always use a captcha to prevent spam.
Chatbots
The reason for the popularity of chatbots, is their anonymity. Visitors can ask questions without being nagged for months afterwards. If your chatbot can’t give instant answers – live or FAQs – visitors get irritated with you. The good news is that people who use chatbots, often disqualify themselves as immediate prospects.
Beware of AI bots – bad answers are dangerous, good answers STOP them engaging further! Yes you want to be helpful, but engagement is the objective.
Quick Tricks: Add a “Support Request” to your chatbot – get that email address! Ask the visitor to bookmark an important “troubleshooting” page so that they can return to it. At least they will be able to find your site again, and will perhaps eventually engage.
Troubleshooting page
If you have products that need ANY level of support, offer a troubleshooting page and make it SEO-friendly with actual questions people ask your support desk. If possible, track this page in more detail. If you have multiple products, use multiple troubleshooting pages. You will learn which products need better help manuals.
Quick Trick: Yes, they are engaging, but you still don’t know who they are! Ask for feedback: what do you need help with, what question can we answer? Get that email address!
A subscribe button
It’s simple and it works. You may need to give away a desirable download, and you will certainly need future “blogs”, case studies and other content that make it worth their while. I recommend a quarterly newsletter, because that sounds less like spam.
Quick Trick: Carefully phrase both the call-to-action and the newsletter as support tools, NOT sales tools.
A self-qualifying “wizard”
I LOVE these. Because they work. Thinking through the quiz questions is critical – at the end, the visitor must feel like their learned something about themselves, about their problem. It’s quite an investment of their time so you have to find a wizard topic that delivers value or they will give up.
It can’t be so short it feels superficial, but not too long they feel you are fishing (which is exactly what you are doing). It’s a delicate balance, and must build YOUR credibility as the organization that has solutions to their problem.
Quick Tricks: Even though you can ask for an email address at the start, don’t! Almost no-one will complete the quiz, and the addresses you get will be throwaways.
*What if your sales website has turned into a support tool
Have you assessed your existing website, and discovered that 50% is about supporting existing customers.
Customer’s having support issues impact repeat sales and referrals.
If a whole chunk of your website devoted to tech support, it could be scaring off buyers and overwhelming your “sales” messaging. Maybe it’s time to keep prospects away from customers struggling with problems.
This is MY call-to-action! 🙏🏼
If you are looking to fix-up your website, please connect with me. I do free consultations for clients in North America. I’m a recovering people pleaser so I always give value.
If you aren’t quite ready, why not follow me on LinkedIn? I try to make all my posts positive and useful. If you click the notification bell on my profile, you’ll stay up to date with new posts.
