3 TIPS – Help Your Website Convert Visitors to New Customers
Your DESIGN is there to reinforce and support your content, not the other way around.
Power of Suggestion
Research shows that images prime visitors for certain behaviors. When choosing images for your website, think carefully about the message you are trying to send. Pick images that are meaningful and evoke a message or feeling your services will provide. Don’t put images on your website just to make it interesting, if your images are not doing a job, don’t have them there. Clichéd and humorous or stock photos can be dangerous because the image may not send the right message, so select images that will get the effect you are after.
Action Step: Feature a photo of a happy family or person on your landing page to evoke in visitors a warm feeling for your services and a desire to take care of their problems. Write a description of how a client will feel after hiring you.
Display Services Prominently
When you visit a brick and mortar store, perhaps a King Soopers, you can examine and sometimes even taste the products available. You make your selection based on the information you gather in the store. Are the apples ripe enough? Is the corn moist enough? How clean is the floor? Are the employees providing good customer service.
When you promote services online, you should do exactly the same thing. It is surprising how many websites don’t actually focus on their services. Sure, these are intangible goods, but they’re still services you can put a face to. People make judgments based on what services “look” like. Why? Because appearance is an indicator, rightly or wrongly, of a service’s usability. This is known as the aesthetic-usability effect. Stories are very important in sales because they get potential clients to imagine what it would be like to use your services. Now, this isn’t really a “design” element but it is important when driving conversions.
Action Step: Write some content, paint a detailed picture of your services, from start to finish. What sets you apart?
Attention, Interest, Desire and Action
AIDA is a well-known strategy in marketing. It is a relatively simple outline that describes a targeted sequence of events to get a sale. First, you MUST capture the attention of your potential client. Once you have their attention, you win their interest by explaining how your services will help them.
Now they are interested, generate a desire for YOUR services. For example, a story about how this services has helped other clients, can help them imagine what your services would do for them. Don’t forget to describe what benefits your services would bring. The benefit is key here because benefits, not features, sell services. The final but most important part of the process, is you need to get the visitor to act. This means getting them to either call your office or fill out a web form. So, provide multiple calls to action: Don’t forget – ALWAYS have CTA’s on the right side of the web page when possible. The design side is to reinforce that copy, make it stand out and drive visitors to read it.
Action Step: Write a great story about one of your client successes. (Anonymously of course) and post it on your website.
This will be easy if you have a WordPress site. If you are struggling contact us and we will walk you through it. Free of course! If you are REALLY struggling we can write your content for you – not free of course.
Good Luck!