How to Make Your Website a Business-Generating Machine

One Decision

A website should be designed to do one thing → turn visitors into customers. Ask yourself this question: “what one thing do I want my visitors to do?”. This is also called a call to action.

Once you know the answer, it becomes easy to make sure the design and copy serve the purpose of guiding visitors to the desired outcome.

I get it, you’re excited about showing off your products and services. Keep in mind however, that you will get better results by focusing on funneling visitors down to ONE DECISION.

Examples include booking an appointment, making an order, phoning you or purchasing a product.

Action Steps:

1. Does your site give a mixed message? What can you simplify?
2. Relabel buttons with a clear call to action. For example, instead of “Submit” or “Click Here” say “Order Online NOW!” or “Get Your $50 Spa Coupon” or “Plan Your Visit”.

Good Copy Sells

The bottom line is, clear and persuasive copy sells. After you have defined what you want your visitor to do, it’s time to help them get there. Here are some tips:

1. Attention getting headlines.
2. Lead with the benefit.
3. Connect on an emotional level.
4. This customer first.
5. Storytelling.
6. Subheads.
7. Bulleted lists.
8. White space.
9. Short sentences.
10. One idea per paragraph.
11. Avoid inside terminology.

Action Step: Does the copy on your site emphasize the benefits that your product or service brings to the customer?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The truth is no one really knows exactly how Google ranks websites. Here’s what we know for sure: Google is looking for quality content that answers people’s questions. Here is a proven tactic to boost your site rankings:

Create quality content. This involves blog posts and/or videos that address the questions your customers have. Inspiration can be found everywhere such as podcasts or news related to your industry. Once you start listening to what your customers are saying, write about it in your blog. It will make you look professional and up to date on all trends.

Action Step. Use Googles free Keyword Planner tool to see what people are searching for in your industry and create content on those subjects. Use keywords within the content to help with SEO rankings.

Tricks to Getting Attention

You only have 15 seconds or less to get your message across before a visitor clicks away. That means you have to grab and KEEP their attention. How?

Keep the biggest benefits at the top of the page. Here’s a helpful guide: write down all the benefits that your business brings its customers.

Put the biggest benefit in the headline at the top of the home page, followed by the next and so on. Most people won’t scroll down the page so capture their attention early!

Action Step:

What does your business do that helps your target audience the most? Put that at the top of the page so that your visitors can find it without needing to scroll.

Design

Good design immediately signals to your visitor if you are trustworthy and professional. It doesn’t mean you need to hire a professional, although that helps. There are some amazing templates that you can buy on online and free resources for high quality images. Whatever you choose, here are some things to consider:

1. The F Pattern. Research shows that we read a website starting at the top left of the page then read or glance across less and less as we move down the page — like an F pattern. This means the most important information should be across the top left.
2. Consistency. If people notice things like typos or capital letters out of place, they will trust your site less. Also, make sure branding and colors are consistent from page to page.
3. Mobile Friendly. It’s no longer optional to have a site that works on all screen sizes. It’s a must. Google will penalize your site for not being responsive.

Email Opt-In

Collecting emails on your site means you can warm up leads with a newsletter and is PERFECT for small business. There are many free services out there to do this. You can even automate it.

I would suggest creating an email automation system that delivers compelling, interesting emails about yourself and your business.

You can use it to promote your services and encourage people to visit your social media page.

Action Step: Sign up for a free service like Mailchimp, create and email opt in and embed it on your page. It’s easy!

About Us, Team, and Testimonial Pages

This is a great way to build a relationship with visitors and convert them from cold to warm leads. Create an About Us, Team and Testimonial pages. I’ve made some suggestions on what to include below:

About Us

• Why you went into business — tell a story!
• How long you have been in business.
• Pictures of yourself and/or your family.
• What your mission is.

Team Page

• A list (with pictures) of team members.
• Their specialty — tie that in to how it helps your customer.
• A short bio.

Testimonials

• Put the best ones first
• Make the layout easy to read
• Include images
• They can also be added on to other parts of your site

Action Step: Add or update your About Us, Team and Testimonial pages if needed.

Track Visitors

Google analytics makes it possible to track where your visitors are coming from, what they are doing and why they are leaving. Once you have these metrics in hand, you can test different pages and tweak your site until you arrive at an optimal result. Are you tracking and analyzing?

Action Step: Add Google Analytics tracking to your website.