Does your website consistently attract qualified visitors who spend quality time looking through your site before contacting you or subscribing to something? Or do visitors just ‘bounce’ off the home page after a few seconds never to return?
If you think of your website as a plot of land, then your home page is THE prime plot, the most expensive plot and one where critical decisions are made.
On average new visitors will spend about 30 seconds reading your site before making the decision to find out more or go elsewhere. Sometimes just changing the structure and copy for your home page can ensure a huge increase in your conversion rate.
Here are some top tips for engaging your visitors and ensuring that they stay with you and not your competitors:
- It’s not about you!! Well of course they’ll want to know about you at some point, but in the first instance they’ll want to know if your company can help them and that you understand their problems or challenges. Imagine meeting a prospect for the first time, would you immediately launch into a description of your qualifications, passions, life-history etc or would you want to know more about them?
- Know your target audience. This means you can speak to them personally on your website.
- Niche is best for online marketing. For online marketing to be most effective you really need a clearly defined niche. Or if you have more than one target audience with different needs, problems and aspirations then you may need to consider having more than one website.
- Build Rapport. Use your copy to build rapport with your visitor, speak their language and show that you understand their needs.
- Ensure your copy flows. Have a structure to your copy so that as you build rapport with them you lead them to where you want them to go next.
- What next? Be very clear about what it is you really want your visitor to do as a result of landing on your site. It can be easy to try and get absolutely everything on the home page and end up totally confusing your visitor
- Well structured site. Ensure your site is structured so that it’s easy to follow and easy for visitors to know what’s behind each page before clicking on it. Sometimes people can try to be too clever and creative with page labelling and their visitors just have no idea what their services actually are or how to get the specific piece of information they are looking for.
- Look professional. Ensure your site looks professional. You don’t have to spend thousands of pounds to create a great site but it must look professionally designed, be well laid out and reflect your brand as a whole.
- Do your pictures tell a story? It can be tempting to add lots of lovely inspirational photographs to your site just because you like them. If your business is naturally very visual and the photographs really help to sell your services then it makes sense to utilise them fully. For other services such as coaching, consulting, holistic therapy, use photographs wisely and ensure that they really do enhance your copy and help to tell your story.
- Think Benefits, Benefits, Benefits! What is it that’s going to encourage your visitors to part with their money? Ensure the value and benefits of your services are obvious to them – what can you help them with, what problems can you solve, how will they feel after using your services? Are you helping them to become fitter, happier, healthier, richer, calmer, have more time, energy, profit or confidence?