With a huge number of business website availability and market saturation online, it is important that your company website stands above your competitors. Your website has just seconds to give the user the ‘wow factor’ before they lose interest and move on to the next one. Here are our top 10 things to have on your website to ensure that customers are contacting you over your competitors.
- Optimised content for search engines
- Easy to use navigation
- Unique brand and brand values
- Trackable telephone number
- Data collection
- Contact form
- Testimonials and reviews
- Videos and multimedia
- News blog
- Strong call to actions
Optimised content for search engines
Having a fantastic website without any visitors is pointless. Why spend money on something that no one can find? To ensure that your website is performing well in website search engines you need to make sure you have a strategy in place in terms of what you want to be found for and in which geographic locations. Having a strategy will save you time, money and effort sourcing any customers from far and wide rather that your actual target market. Another thing to remember with SEO is not to loose your identity, it’s also about conversion. Don’t sacrifice the look of your website to reach the top spot. A well designed website ranked number 2 or 3 will get more enquiries than a website filled with unnecessary links, repetitive copy and looks untidy and untrustworthy. They also get high traffic and high bounce rates.
Easy to use navigation
Over complicating the simple things can often have the reverse affect. Navigation needs to be to the point and easy for the user to interact with. Our experience has taught us that the user will look for key services and contact methods before wanting to learn more about the business so it’s a good idea to have a service led experience in the forefront of your website navigation.
Unique brand and brand values
The main USP’s you have over a competitor that they can’t change are your brand values and brand personality. If you fill your website will stock imagery that everyone else will be using you are not selling yourself, you’re selling the same services as everyone else. Take photos of your team, your business premises, products and clients and add these to the website. Visitors to your website can then distinguish your business from all the others as unique and professional and it gives prospective clients a feel for who you are.
Trackable telephone numbers
A great way to distinguish the success of your website is to use a medium in which to monitor the source of your enquires. Using a telephone number you can track will give you the opportunity to have a dedicated telephone number on your website which varies from your actual business number but forward calls to your reception. Using this method allows you to see how many calls have been made from the website number and therefore you can understand the traffic through your website. If you don’t get many enquiries using the number, you know it’s time to put more effort into promoting your website and increasing your online marketing.
Data collection
The majority of visitors to your website will not make an enquiry, therefore ask yourself are you wasting an opportunity?
Data collection is a valuable tool for marketing. Collecting your website visitor data will give you a self made database of potential client information. In our experience, we have found that offering something free is the best way to get data. Pop up forms offering a free download of top tips or a voucher for money off encourages visitors to submit their details. Provided it’s done properly, the shorter the form the better as visitors won’t mind completing it and also only ask for key information like their name, telephone number and email address.
Contact forms
Enquiries are the main purpose of a business website. Giving the customer the opportunity to contact your business by completing a short and simple email contact form can boost the number of enquiries you receive. People often don’t have time to pick up the phone or send lengthy emails to find the answers they require, so giving them the option to complete a quick and simple form is a great way to get a response. It also doubles up as a data collection medium.
Testimonials and reviews
The best business reputations are built on recommendations and good customer service. We have worked with all types of testimonials and reviews from typed up text and photographs of thank you cards and letters through to video reviews and client case studies and all of them have had great results. Think about when you are looking to buy online. You look at star ratings, read product reviews or customer service experiences and make an informed decision based on these before committing to invest. If you have a website bursting with great reviews on your products and services from your existing clients you are more likely to attract new customers wanting the same experience.
Videos and multimedia
Multimedia websites are fast becoming the preferred option for visitors to learn about your content. In many cases the same information can be put across using a video instead of lengthy sections of text on a web page. From our experience and research into user activity on web pages, there is an overwhelming response to videos and feeds over copy and text links. It’s also a more attractive and engaging way to share information. You can design and personalise your professional You Tube channel and stream your video content from there.
News blog
A news page on your website not only gives you a specific place to share your latest ideas, services and offers but also ensures that your website is kept up to date and visitors will see continuing activity. Having a news section on your site also has SEO benefits as you can include relevant keywords and tags in your posts. If you have other social media outlets in which you want to share the same news, you can save time by linking them all to your news feed for automatic updates.
Strong call to actions
The main benefit of having a business website is that it is a platform to showcase your services and to allow customers to contact you easily, so making sure they can and do is key. Always keep your business telephone number visible in the header of the website and repeat it throughout the website pages. Teaming contact information with an offer is also a proven way to get more enquiries. Use bright colours, boxes, pop up forms for quick and easy contact recognition for your visitors.
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