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Here are five quick wins to keep your website rolling in the customers! (I’ve picked these as they are low or no cost to implement – a nice change.)
#1 Digital Real Estate
Think of your homepage as real estate – every square inch has value. And the further towards the top of the screen the information is, the more valuable space because it is the first thing your visitors will see.
So my first suggestion would be to give some thought to ensuring that what’s on your homepage is prioritised. If you have a big hero image across the top make sure there is some accompanying text which gives the visitor a clear understanding of what you do and how you can help them.
Another question to consider is whether your navigation is prioritised so that the items most relevant to your visitor are visible first. One method to help you work out what your visitors are finding important is to use “In-Page Analytics” in Google Analytics. This will tell you how many visitors have clicked on what, enabling you to get a stronger sense of what your prospects are looking for.
#2 – Phone a Friend
Make sure your telephone number is ultra, super, hyper-visible! It can be an enormous frustration to visitors if they have to search for contact details. So it makes sense to put them on every page of your website because you simply never know when somebody is going to make the decision to get in touch.
If you'd prefer people to get in touch by some other means then make that the most visually prominent part of the header. You can see in the example above that Live Chat is the preferred contact method with telephone and email coming in second and third.
If you really want to get into the science of this then here’s a tip – most people scan webpages in an “F” or “E” shape so the top left or right-hand corner of your website will almost always be seen.
#3 – Headline Heaven
Having a cool design is all very well but ultimately your visitors will make their decisions to buy based on what they read and the first thing they’ll see is your web page's headline. So, it’s probably worth avoiding headlines like this:
"Old Business & Co have been established since 1977 and sell a wide range of widgets to suit customer’s needs”
However, visitors would probably find it more interesting to read:
“With over 30 years of experience, we can guarantee you the perfect widget. In fact, we know you’ll be so happy with our service we’ll..."
Remember, most people don’t read the article before they buy the newspaper, they read the headline first. So, if you are asking your browser to invest time in reading your website give them a headline that will compel them to read on. After all, if headlines can sell newspapers they can sell your website.
#4 – Action!
If your visitor takes the trouble to read to the bottom of your webpage they have already part-qualified themselves as being interested in what you have to offer. This means that you can capitalise on their interest by telling them what you’d like them to do next – get in touch, download a PDF, watch a video, etc.
Make sure that at the bottom of all your webpages is a clear action for your visitor to take. The best action is the one that leads them to become a customer, so offer them something that enables them to take that step; an enquiry form or live chat facility, for example.
#5 – Become a Mad Professor
At the heart of improvement lies testing and experimentation. If you want to improve your website then you really have to test things out to see what works and what doesn’t. So, if you have a big graphic at the top of the page try making it smaller and moving the copy next to it. If you’ve got a video, test it out at the top of the page. If your webpage has minimal copy on it, try lots of copy. The fact is you will only know whether you have made a positive impact by testing but above all don’t be afraid to try.
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