10 Need-To-Know Tips for Building a High-Converting Website
I’ll be honest, when I first launched my business, I didn’t have the most cohesive website plan - and between you and me, I'm still constantly tweaking my website {big changes coming in the next couple weeks, ya'll}.
In fact, my “plan” was to agonize over it for several months before having a firm talk with myself in the mirror that went something like: "Renee, it just needs to GET 👏🏼 DONE 👏🏼already, girl, come on", and then rushing it into existence within the week.
While I’m a firm believer in the principle “Done is better than perfect”, if I’d known then what I know now about effective website marketing, I’d probably have a much more robust savings account {what can I say, ya live and ya learn}.
Over the years of trial and error, I’ve learned a lot about the most effective ways to make my website work harder for me and my business. And what kind of a friend would I be if I kept all that juicy information to myself, am I right?
So, after many long hours of researching, implementing, studying - and wash, rinse, and repeating - here are the top ten things you need to implement on your website today to start capturing more leads, gaining maximum industry mindshare, and making your ideal client say “Gimme, gimme!”.
1) Place Your UVP Prominently
Your UVP, or "unique value proposition", is an articulation of the specific approaches, traits and benefits of your business that shows potential clients how your product or service is rare and relevant. This statement or combination of statements should answer the following six questions:
1) What product/service do I offer?
2) Who do I provide this product/service for?
3) How am I different from my competitors?
4) How is my product/service more valuable than the average joe’s?
5) What specific problem or pain point does my product/service solve?
6) What benefits will my audience receive by working with or purchasing from me?
Once you have a quality UVP put together, display it prominently on your website. Your website visitors shouldn’t have a scroll more than once or twice to find clear answers to these questions on your website’s home page.
2) Identify Your Best Call to Action Points
One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners make on their website is not planning their site structure around effective call to action highlights. This makes me feel sad inside, because it means they’re not leveraging the full potential of their site to grow their business. The three keys {aka: minimum} places your site should house a call to action are:
1) Your site header
2) Your main banner
3) Your site footer
If you’re looking to grow your email list, include additional opt-in spaces throughout your site by creating valuable lead magnets that encourage visitors to share an email in exchange for a deliverable {I share five mega-effective lead magnets I use in my business in my “Dominate Your Database” cheatsheet, which you can get FO FREE here}.
If you’re looking to book appointments, schedule phone consults, or sell a product, place prominent buttons throughout the page - remember, some site visitors might be ready to take action right away and some will want to read or learn more before committing.
3) Offer Multiple Avenues To Important Pages
Not all site visitors will navigate your site in the same way. Some will click directly to the tabs they’re most interested in and others will scroll your entire home page before making a selection. To ensure you’re retaining as many potential customers as possible, it’s best to give your visitors multiple avenues to reach the same location.
For example, if you ultimately want people to land on your services or products page, give them the option in both your header menu and via a highlight section on your home page.
Another way to increase retention and lead visitors to conversion/sales pages is to cross reference pages, blog posts or offers on your site.
For example, if you run a business selling all-natural hair products and someone clicks on your blog post entitled “Tips for Eliminating Split Ends", convert their interest in that topic to a sale by linking your product page within the blog post.
Pro-tip: When you cross reference other pages of your site, make sure it’s genuinely relevant to what the consumer is currently reading or it will look like spam-city, and nobody wants that.
4) Use Clear, Easy-To-Understand Language
While using your authentic voice and personality in your website copy is a powerful tool, it’s equally important to craft straight-forward, non-flowery copy that’s easy for your consumers to understand and relate to.
Your copy should get to the point as quickly as possible, be well organized, and be laid out in a digestible way; this prevents a disjointed reading experience and text overwhelm - two BIG conversion killers.
Tackling website copy is a big frustration for many of my clients and after hearing this same pain point from business owner after business owner, I created the Sales Copy Mastery ebook, which details the five main formulas and principles I use to write copy for my clients - you can find it here if that sounds like your jam.
OR..if DIYing your website copy is the last thing you’d ever do voluntarily, I highly recommend using a trained professional {like myself or anyone else you jive with} to help you leverage this vital piece of your website marketing plan.
5) Understand the Importance of Imagery
Photographic-quality, high-resolution imagery can mean the difference between a site visitor leaving your page within the first 10 seconds and clicking through to other pages. Swap out cliche stock photos for modern, aesthetic choices and make sure your selections are aligned with your industry and the copy that accompanies them. {Images of beaches do not belong on a construction website - talk about confusing.}
Pro-tip: One of my favorite high-quality photo resources is www.pexels.com. And it's free, so win-win.
6) Optimize Your Site For Mobile
Since a majority of consumers interact with a webpage for the first time via a mobile device, your website needs to be optimized for this medium. That means choosing a design platform that's automatically responsive or can be edited separately from a desktop view. Some best practices for mobile web design include:
1) Hide purely decorative elements that display on your desktop site but distract from a streamlined mobile experience.
2) Use responsive imagery that resizes to fit any screen size.
3) Standardize buttons and opt in links.
4) Consider adding a contact bar to make reaching out to you easier.
5) Change your navigation bar to a clickable “hamburger menu”.
6) Ditch the popups. {Statistics show users find mobile popups more distracting and annoying than useful, so only include popups for clickable links your audience voluntarily opts into or for things like time-sensitive special offers.}
7) Cater Your Site’s Vibe To Your Ideal Customer
Your website should aim to attract your ideal customer avatar - the DREAM client/customer you’d love to work with/sell to. Planning both your copy and the look and feel of your site for this purpose greatly increases your chances of working with more “YES!” clients.
If you run a coaching business and want to work with 7-figure earners, take some time to think about the kind of website that would attract that person. What kind of imagery would appeal to this person? What pages or features would they appreciate? What information would be most important for them to know in order to work with you? To attract 7-figure earners, you’d likely want to keep your messaging highly evidence-based and your website's design sleek, modern and straight-forward.
As a personal trainer looking to work with new mothers, you’d want to have a softer look and feel to your website with warm, motivating colors and messaging that uses a supportive, conversational, and encouraging tone.
Not sure what your ideal customer avatar looks like? You can learn more about how to create one in Item #1 of this blog post.
8) Establish Complimentary Color and Font Styles
A common way I can tell the difference between a DIY website and a professionally-designed one? A whack color palette and confusing font styles.
Your color palette should contain between 4 - 7 distinct shades with at least 2 primary shades {one you use more frequently} and your font set should contain between 2 - 4 complimentary font styles {I use a minimum of three when designing for my clients and personal website has four}.
Your color palette and font styles should work well together and have great back and forth play throughout your site; this creates a professional look and inspires higher click-through rates.
When it comes to these basic website design elements, your consumers will absolutely "judge a book by its cover", so knowing what works and what turns your customers away is vital to your website’s retention rates - something I talk more about in the “Looks Matter {Formatting 101}” chapter of Sales Copy Mastery.
9) Be True To Your Personality
Part of the value I offer my clients is helping them dig deeper into their authentic approach, skill set, and voice, and then articulating that to their customers - something that can’t be stressed enough as an essential piece of great branding.
Your audience is inundated all day long with ads trying to sell them this doohickey or that thingamabob. At some point, they simply become desensitized to the same old messaging.
Luckily, your ability to stand out in this over-saturated, noisy environment lies in something no one else has - your "you-ness".
Your unique personality traits are the proverbial breadcrumbs that lead your ideal clients to your doorstep. Using this special superpower in your website’s messaging and design is the most effective way to start attracting more clients you love and less you want to chuck out the window {not that you would...but you’ve thought about it}.
10) Incorporate Video
While it's possible to have a high-converting website without this technique, video marketing is one of the fastest growing and most effective advertising methods on the market today.
Your consumers are looking for someone they can relate to and put their faith in, which means the more your customers see your face and hear your voice, the more they’ll grow to trust and like you. If you’re in a service-based business, this is a relatively easy way to take your website conversions to the next level and grow massive influence with your existing audience.
But what about product-based businesses {you say}? Well, according to recent studies, consumers are TWICE as likely to purchase a product after watching a demonstrative video. That’s gangbusters, ya’ll. Think about what doubling your product sales could do for your life in 2019 {I’m betting nothing bad comes to mind, just saying}.
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