The 3 Smart, Simple, and Sexy Things That Your Website Needs

We’ve all seen it before: your fantastic new website that was supposed to “draw in the crowds, make you rich and flood you with new business” hasn’t brought in a new customer.

Just because your website is “built” that doesn’t guarantee customer engagement.

The vast majority of websites are designed to look good; nothing more than a digital brochure or flyer. Unfortunately, what happens to most brochures and flyers? They get chucked out. While the visual aspect of your site is indeed important, it MUST function as a sales tool. A lead and/or sales generator for your business.

To switch from ‘brochure site’ to ‘lead generating powerhouse’ requires investing time into developing a property strategy and digital ecosystem that supports your entire online platform and business blueprint. However there are also three key elements that are generally massively overlooked and extremely easy to implement.

If you have even one or two of these smart, simple and sexy things in place already, then you’re ahead of the game. Put the last pegs into the blocks here, and you will be able to fine tune what it is that you are doing.

1. “About Us” is not just about you

Make it about them. Both your “About Us” page and your “Contact Us” page. The key to your customer’s success is not that you are awesome and amazing; it’s that you are solving their problems.

So address this; what are their problems? How are you solving them?

While your credibility is important, don’t forget to tell them about what is important for them. Not why they should hire you because of you’re awesome credentials, but what’s in it for them.

There are some more brilliant tips on how to make a great About us page on this Unbounce Article.

2. Free Gifts, because yes, you care

Want to incentivise visitors to your site to actually care about you? As I mentioned, most business websites are treated like brochures and flyers… and simply trashed. But a gift does wonders.

Do you know why people love food samples at your local grocery store? Besides being hungry, it’s because it’s free.

But despite being free, if you liked the sample, you remember it, maybe even get a taste for it.

What kind of gift? Well, first rule of a gift – it doesn’t need to break the bank. Something that is simple and appeals to your customer’s sense of knowledge and discovery.

What issues are you solving for them? How can they source you? What do they need to watch out for? How can you get your customer to better understand their problem? What are some mistakes and problems that they might encounter in their journey in finding the best solution?

Become the expert and increase your credibility, awareness and relevance by providing your knowledge on the core topic of you and your business. SOLVE their problem with your ideas and expertise. And don’t be scared to ask for their email to receive their “7 Mistakes most people make when buying [insert your business topic here]…”, as this will now be the opportunity to continue to stay in contact with them.

You can also combine these first two tricks together. Put the form for your free gift download on your About Us and your Contact Us page. Make it more about your customer, and how you are trying to help them out.

3. A Local Business Says What, Exactly?

Local. Not crazy local. Just local. That means that you have all of the tools in place to actually be part of the local community. When your customer Google’s a specific service, it will also show all of the local-based services that are nearest to them. And yes, that includes all of your competitors. Go on, Google it now, if you haven’t already.

If you are not showing up, then people are missing out on the opportunity to know that you exist – even if you are physically right around the corner from them.

There are a lot of factors that still may prevent you from showing in the Google listing, but having a proper Google Local set-up will definitely help you, or rather, help your customers find you. Your address of your business becomes an integral part of your website and your new business listing on Google. Now at least you can start to be competitive.

Set up your Google Local account and then add the map and details to your site, you can do that here: https://www.google.com/local/business

If you want to take it to the next step, allow for Google ratings and reviews on your site, to further build your trust and credibility.

What else can you do?

Use Social Media to get more traffic to your website by “syndicating” all of your blogs, stories, photos, videos and everything else that you produce. Don’t post directly to your social media feeds first. Post first onto your own site and then share all of your new content across all of your social media channels.

Why? Google will become your friend, as you are creating original thoughts and ideas, and generating traffic back to your own website – not just to Facebook or Linkedin (or whatever social channel that your audience is on). Google loves new content, and that is exactly what you are creating by doing it this way.

And finally, a cool tool to give your site an extra boost: Woorank is a simple tool that generates a report on what you can do to improve your site. It’s perfect to dive through the clutter and confusion of what you’re ‘supposed’ to be doing and get a definitive list to work on.