With June 30 now in the rearview mirror, many businesses are starting to look back on this last financial year and ask themselves the hard questions:
- “Did we achieve what we set out to?”
- “How far did we miss the revenue/profit targets?”
- “What should we have done?”
- “What did we plan but not get around to?”
Turn your website into a story worth sharing
With so many buyers and users spending more time online, your website could be missing the mark when it comes to hitting your targets. At every stage of the buying decision process and customer loyalty loop, your website should be set up to be:
1. Your loudspeaker
2. Your storyteller
3. Your best salesperson
4. Your most valued customer manager
5. And your most accountable employee
A new financial year means a fresh start and a chance to improve. Our team of web design experts has put together this handy checklist to help your website meet your market head-on and deliver real results.
Quick checklist for success
Does your homepage banner have a strong USP?
Does your website tell your audience the reasons why choose you?
Does your website actually make it easy for the user to buy?
Does your website show you as a real business?
Does your website have a steady update of content?
Does your website show the human side of your business?
Does your website deliver value for data exchange?
Does your website look professional?
Is your website secure?
Does your website have click-to-call and quick-to-access contact details?
Does your website rank well on Google?
Let’s break down each of these items to understand why they’re so important for building an effective website.
1. Be clear about what you do and for who. Does your opening banner have a strong USP?💡
This is probably one of the toughest things to get right. Many businesses list everything they can do, instead of focusing on how they help. It’s like meeting someone new, and they spend too much time talking about themselves—you start to zone out, right?
Your unique selling point (USP) tells visitors, first, that they’ve found the right place, and second, why they should stick around and do business with you. Ideally, it’s a competitive edge you have over the rest of the market. But if you’re in an undifferentiated market, at least answer the user’s first question: “Am I in the right place?”
Imagine you’re looking for aged care solutions for your parents. You land on a website like A Home For Mum or Dad, and right away, you see they’ll help you find the best living option for your senior Mum or Dad.
And if you’re looking for a business accounting firm on Brisbane’s southside – you’ll know you’re in the right place when you find Ignite Accounting.
2. Prove it! Does your website show users why they should choose you?💥
Now that you’ve gained access to your users’ world, it’s time to show them they can trust you. This is where many websites fall short. “Sure, I see you claim to do everything I need… but I’m just not sure how credible you are.”
As the internet has grown and users have become more savvy, security and trust have become even more important. Consumers and businesses have felt the sting of a bad choice, and they won’t let it happen again.
For me, it was the hoodie my son desperately wanted from his YouTube music hero that set me back $167AUD and hasn’t been seen in almost 9 months, along with the unanswered emails seeking a refund. I share this story to remind you of your own personal online fails.
Building trust is key, and it comes in the form of a pyramid of user content.
Here are three ways to use social proof to back up your why:
- Reviews are the star ratings from third-party platforms like Google, Facebook, and Product Review. While you can’t stop customers from sharing bad experiences, you can definitely work hard to ask happy customers to share their positive ones.
- Testimonials are client quotes or comments you’ve collected directly and published on your website.
- Case studies or client scenarios are really extended testimonials that also share details on the problem faced, the solution you provided, and the outcome you achieved.
This type of social proof is often the hardest for our clients to gather because they’re so focused on the day-to-day operations of their businesses that they forget to ask. If you need help capturing and collecting social proof, we’ve got a few tricks to make it easier for you to get feedback from real customers about their real experiences.
3. Does your website actually make it easy for the user to buy? 🎯
Using images, short descriptions, and call-to-action buttons throughout each page, you need to guide your users to take the actions you want them to—discover key information, request more details, leave their contact information, and, of course, make a purchase or place an order.
Great websites always keep the organisation’s key outcomes in mind and guide users on the journey to achieve them. Much like a good storyline, your website needs to deliver messages in the right order, address objections as they come up, and close the deal by wrapping it all up neatly. If your website is always talking and never listening, you’ll make it tough for anyone to buy from you.
If your key messages can’t be picked up in just a few seconds, it’s time to take a good hard look at your copy. Using bullet points, lists, and icons can help boost ‘skimmability’ and reduce friction in your user’s journey.
And enjoy white space… it really does give your message the right room to be seen.
4. Get real. Does your website show you as a real business? 🤔
While not all businesses exist offline, if you do, having a Local Listing on Google Business Profile is essential. It shows users that Google has verified your existence at the address you’ve listed. With a link to Google Maps, users can even check out Street View and see (and find) the outside of your building.
Taking that one step further, you can get Google photographers to take 360-degree panorama views inside the building. This is a great option if your premise is part of your customer experience. It signals to potential customers what they can expect if they visit you.
When it comes to showcasing reality, nothing beats video. It’s the perfect way to show who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Filming a day in the life of your business is just one great idea to present your best, authentic self.
5. Keep it fresh. Does your website have a steady flow of content? 🌱
Keeping your site updated keeps both visitors and search engines happy. An integrated news section or blog is a great way to do this, but it requires your commitment to regularly publishing new content. When browsing a new website, it’s a real turnoff to see that the last blog post was from 2017.
If you can’t update your site every few months, don’t worry—there are other ways to keep things fresh. Add new client feedback or case studies, update or rewrite existing content, and include new photos or videos. These are just a few ways to showcase the best version of your business and earn some bonus points in Google’s eyes.
6. Be you! Does your website show the human side of your business? 👤
Whether you’re in the B2B market selling to companies or a B2C eCommerce brand, you’re still operating in a fundamentally P2P (People to People) marketing environment. Having a team page with profiles, including photos or videos, is a great way to add a human touch to your website and make your brand feel authentic.
When we talk with new clients, they often mention how much they enjoy our Excite Team photos. Hovering over our pictures reveals the quirky sides we each bring to the job, and the profiles offer a glimpse into what makes us tick. It’s always a great conversation starter and gives you the chance to showcase what makes your brand (and your people) genuinely unique.
Back to the “Keeping in Fresh” point – it is a commitment to keep this up-to-date. Make it a priority when someone new starts to grab that great photo and get their details up online. It makes the new employee feel excited and shows you support the people who work for you.
And finally, pick a date that is important to your company, and on that date each year, get everyone to write their updated profiles. It would be a great team-building activity to do this together or make some kind of game or competition out of it for your team.
7. Two-way street. Does your website deliver value for data exchange? 🚦
Often, the most important thing a website can do to deliver ROI for your business is identifying and educating prospects and capturing enquiries or leads.
Today’s consumers know their worth and aren’t throwing around their personal data.
As we all get swamped with a flooded inbox that is hard to control, we are often quite cautious about letting brands know that we are interested in what they have to say in case they start ‘over-communicating’.
Welcome to the lead magnet. Knowing that we need to deliver a value exchange that works in the user’s favour, a simple solution is to package up information, processes, checklists, templates, or tools into an easily downloadable format.
If you know your audience, then you will know that they are often overwhelmed by information (in my terms, we are all suffering from infobesity). Giving them material that helps them make a brand or buying decision is seen as ‘good value’ and will often be the thing that tips them just over the line into the data capture form.
You will find a lot of information online about lead magnets and how they work. Here is our checklist for what makes an effective lead magnet:
It solves a real problem.
It focuses on a quick win.
It gets super specific.
It is quick to digest.
It offers a high degree of perceived value.
It provides instant gratification.
It demonstrates your expertise or UVP (unique value proposition).
8. Look great!!! Does your website look professional? 🖊️
Just like you expect your sales reps or service staff to be presented in a way that reflects your brand, so too should your website. Users are savvier than ever before, and while they like clean and easier interactions, they still want it to look good. They can sniff out homemade clipart with a single click, which is never a good look.
“Good design is good business,” Thomas John Watson, Jr., the former CEO of IBM
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Steve Jobs
9. Be seen as safe. Is your website secure? 🔒
Our view on this is pretty simple: whether you are an e-commerce store taking payments or a business coach giving advice, you really should secure your site with a padlock shown by the address HTTPS.
This will:
- Help support lead generation by providing users with confidence
- Help support your Google rankings
- Present positive perception
What’s HTTPS?
If you see a little padlock in the address bar of your web browser, that means you’re visiting a secure website, which means the data you’re sending to or receiving from that site is encrypted. A non-secure website has a URL that begins with “HTTP” in the address bar, whereas a secure website begins with “https” — with the “s” standing for “secure”.
Did you know? Starting in July 2018, Google Chrome displays a “not secure” error on any website not using the HTTPS protocol — regardless of whether users are filling out a form. So, if you depend on your website generating leads and sales inquiries, your site needs to use the HTTPS protocol so users don’t freak out and abandon your site due to “non-secure” warnings.
10. Make contact easy. Does your website have click-to-call and quick-to-access contact details? 📞
How often have you found yourself frustrated – trying to call a business on your mobile phone and battling with copy-and-paste functions? Today’s users are on the move, and if they want to talk to you, they want to do it now, not tomorrow.
Offering a one-touch way to contact you will bring you more enquiries and better customer satisfaction.
Not all your website visitors will be new customers. Many existing customers will be coming back to find your phone number, check your address and see the nearest side street. So, having a simple, well-presented contact page with links to Google Maps will make for a better customer experience all around.
11. Get noticed! Does your website rank well with Google? 📈
Even the best website is useless if it can’t be found. That’s why SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – is so critical to having an effective website. Truly effective SEO can seem daunting to most business owners because it requires a detailed strategy, constant analysis, and time. However, a good way to start is by adding some basic SEO elements that every website should have:
- Add an XML Sitemap
This is a background file for search engines (not humans) that helps them easily understand the structure of your website. If you have a WordPress site, the Yoast plugin is a great SEO tool that automatically generates an XML sitemap. - Optimise Images
How quickly a website loads can play into Google’s rankings, and images with large file sizes can slow down your site. A good plugin for WordPress sites is WP Smush, which can reduce file sizes without reducing image quality. - Remove Broken Links
Sites and pages with broken links do not make for quality content or a good user experience, which is what search engines want to see. - Add a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use/Service
Google considers how legitimate and trustworthy a website is when considering ranking, and having these pages plays into this. - Add Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
This information, added to the back end of your web pages, is often what appears on search engine results pages and is a direct ranking factor.
If you’ve made it this far, I’m sure you’re feeling a little overwhelmed about where to start. Your website could be the thing holding you back from reaching your potential—whether it’s not getting the traffic you need or not converting the opportunities out there. The big question is often, “Where do I start?”
If you can see that change is needed for the new financial year and you’re ready to put your business back in the driver’s seat, we’d love to hear from you. We’re working every day with brands looking to gain an online advantage.
We dig into what your challenges are and how your business operates to put together a program of website enhancements and digital marketing activities (like SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising) to drive performance improvements. And if that old website simply can’t handle all the changes that would be required, we can work with you to build you a beautifully designed, customer-centric website that works – and by that, we mean one that has been designed to focus on the specific things that are important to your customers.
Is your website in need of a revamp?
You can book an obligation-free chat with our sales team. They’ll uncover loads about your business, your target market, and exactly what we can do to ensure your website makes the right impact.
