Making Your Website Work – 5 Point Checklist
Having worked with hundreds of small business owners over the last few years there is one thing that I hear again and again …
My website is NOT working!
As I travel around the country doing my Attraction Marketing Seminars I always ask ‘Who has a website for their business?’ and nearly all the hands go up. Then I ask … ‘Who gets more business than they can handle from their website?’ … and of course very few hands go up.
What this means is they are simply not getting the RESULTS they had hoped to get from their website. By results I mean … MONEY IN THE BANK!
Now there are a number of different reasons to have a website such as providing better customer service, training etc … however I am talking here to the small business owner whose primary FOCUS should be on getting the next paying client … so in the context of this article that is what we will focus on.
I have been marketing online via websites for a number of years now and have experimented with many different types of sites. There is always one consistent factor …
YOU HAVE LESS THAN 30 SECONDS!
As scary as that sounds you literally have around 30 seconds to engage the visitor to your site or they are gone forever. When ever I look at my web traffic stats I find that 85% of visitors are gone again in 30 seconds or less. It is almost always the same with my clients sites.
What this means is that people have a very short ATTENTION span online … so if your website is not set up correctly then visitors to your site will be bouncing off again as fast as they land on the site. Could this be the reason you are not getting the results you had hoped for?
Knowing that we have less than 30 seconds in most cases we must consider what our primary goal is for having the website … for me that primary goal is simple …
BUILD A DATABASE OF PROSPECTS!
That should be your primary goal for your website. Now there are a lot of secondary goals for a website of course, however first and foremost you MUST focus on leading every visitor to your site into a database (PERMISSION DATABASE) so that you then have an opportunity to build a relationship with them over time, establish your credibility, and create rapport and trust with them.
So how do we achieve this?
Lets look at a simple five point checklist that you can apply to your website:
1/ Focused – Your website needs to be tightly focused on a your target market. If your site is to general, or not conveying a specific message then people will bounce straight off your site. When people land on your site the only thing they are really intereseted in is how can this help me. Most people will look at your site because they are looking for a SOLUTION to their PROBLEM. So make sure the key message is FOCUSED on this.
2/ Irresistible Offer – As our primary goal is to have visitors to our site enter themselves into our database so that we can build a relationship over time, the easiest way to do this is make them an IRRESISTIBLE OFFER! This can not be just ‘Subscribe to my Newsletter’ …. that is not irresistible enough. You have to be prepared to giveaway something of VALUE first. Check out the Profit Minute Web Site where we give away a FREE CD & Report talking about the SOLUTION to the PROBLEM of our target market.
3/ Obvious – This may sound obvious BUT your website needs to be obvious. What I mean is that I have coached many business owners whose websites did not even make it obvious what it is they do and how they can help me. Use simple language to spell out what you do and the end benefits to your potential clients. There is some really great technology out there however that funky new button on your site that links to your BLOG may not be obvious to the average visitor to your site. Make it obvious!
4/ Direct – A good strategy is to structure your site with a number of specific steps that you want to lead your visitors through. In my example again when someone lands on the Profit Minute site my first goal is to have them request the FREE CD. After that I want them to then try out our Business Growth Calculator, watch the Webinar, and then finally to request the Marketing Audit. These steps are very clear in my mind and as such the site is designed to lead people through these steps. What steps do you want to direct visitors to your site to take?
5/ Limit Options – Finally … most websites have way too much information to be of any real value. Remember we live in a world were visitors to your website have the attention span of a nano second. So limit down the options available to your site. Once they are in your marketing funnel you can then direct them to other information at that point … not before.
If you look at your website now and compare it to these five key points. How does your site stack up? If you are not getting enough business from your site then consider rebuilding your site in alignment with these five keys.
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