Wish your website landed you more work? It’s the most visible part of your business. Pay attention to it! Here are 5 ways to turn more of your clicks to enquiries:
Own It
Using a facebook page? Or a free portfolio website like Contently? That’s better than nothing.
But the biggest selling point of these web properties is also their biggest drawback: they’re so easy to sign up to, just about anyone can do it.
How does that separate you from the crowd? It doesn’t.
Having your own website is so much better for your brand. Even before potential customers click through to your website, as soon as they see you have your own domain, they’re already taking you more seriously.
And it’s cheaper and easier to set up a great looking website than you might realise. If you can figure out how to post on facebook, you can figure out how to post on WordPress. Off-the-shelf design templates and managed hosting plans make the rest of it easy!
Use Social Proof
Social proof is more or less the idea that when you see enough people doing something, you figure it’s probably working for them or they wouldn’t keep doing it.
That might not be a 100% flawless form of reasoning – Kool-Aid, anyone? – but most of the time it’s an easy way to solve our problems, and it serves us well enough.
We all rely on social proof, whether we’re aware of it or not. We more or less have to, because we’re busy. And besides, as social animals it’s hardwired into our brains.
So make it very visible on your website that you have customers.
The obvious way to do this is with things like testimonials, and case studies. They’re both great ideas.
You can also embed social proof into your feature content – by making passing mention of the work you’ve done and the clients you’ve had.
On paper, this sounds easy to implement.
The trap that’s easy to fall into is that we tend to work on our websites when it’s quiet. But when we have the best social proof to refer to is when we’re busy. Then when we get to the end of that marathon busy period, we’re so happy to have a bit of time for ourselves that we happily postpone writing up that social proof.. indefinitely.
(Confession time: I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone.)
So make some time at the end of every big project to write up a case study, collect a testimonial, or mention it in your next article.
Use a Contact Form
Email hyperlinks worked nicely at the dawn of the web. Back then, if you had an email account, you had a desktop email client to use it.
That’s not the case anymore – so many people use web mail and phone apps for all their email – GMail alone now accounts for nearly a quarter of all email clients.
What many of your customers see when they click an email hyperlink is a window opening for their operating system’s default email client – one that’s never been set up, because they never use it.
This is bad user experience. Some customers just aren’t going to go through with it.
You might protest: “But customers can just right click and copy the email address!”
Well yes. But not everyone knows that. Even when you do, it’s still a hassle.
Don’t put your customers through it. A good contact form is just nicer.
Customer Focused Copy
So many business websites are only about the business. How long you’ve been around, your product offering, that sort of thing.
And obviously it wouldn’t be your website if it said nothing about you.
But if it’s all about you? Then you’re selling features, not benefits.
It’s much more powerful to identify the problems you can solve and the ways you can improve your client’s life or business.
I specialise in web copywriting and content marketing services – so the benefit I provide is more website traffic and more sales from that traffic.
Other businesses will offer different benefits: an electrician might talk about the peace of mind that comes from raising children in a home with no faulty wiring. A wedding planner might talk about how much more fully you can enjoy your most special day knowing that all the details and stress are in the safe hands of an accomplished professional who does this every week.
For more ideas on improving your website’s message, check out these website copywriting resources.
Check Your Website on Other Devices
Had your website for a while?
It’s worth double checking how it looks on tablets and phones. A lot of templates that looked great five years ago now look ugly or are difficult to use.
And then there are those little tweaks and changes. It’s so very easy to make a small improvement using a desktop or laptop – and totally not notice that it doesn’t work so well on a narrower screen.
Be sure to check the inner pages and see how they present too.
