Your website has to be about your business – the products/services that you provide. That comes first. When visitors land on your website (however you drive them there), they’ll be looking to check they’ve come to the right place. So Step 1 is to provide whatever it is that lets the visitors know that you are a potential match for whatever they are looking for.
But then what? We have someone who’s confirmed that you are potentially able to provide the solution required. S/he has seen enough to think it’s worth pursuing.
Here is the 2nd Most Important Thing your website should have. The fabled “Call To Action“. In other words, don’t leave the interested visitors hanging – guessing what the next step should be. Do they phone you? Email you? Fill in an online enquiry? Can they buy it there and then? It’s up to YOU to tell them – and the easier you make it, the more likely it is to happen.
Don’t ask for a long form to be filled in with lots of deep-thought answers, unless it’s important to you that they do. On this website, I have a quick and easy Contact form (see that “Contact” link up in the menu). But I also have a much more involved form for potential clients that may want to work with Winch Websites, in the Project Enquiry form – this is an essential pre-qualification to see if the business owner knows enough and cares enough to be able to clearly set what the project is to achieve. It saves time on both sides if we both know what we’re doing, why, who for, and for what objectives.
So look through the home page on the Winch Websites site – you’ll regularly see a big orange button asking for the visitor to get in touch. These lead to a short and easy form – and the less a form asks for, the better (less ‘friction’ = more submissions).
Make sure ALL your webpages include a Call To Action (or CTA, in marketing-speak). Each page, at the top, the middle, the bottom, tell your potential clients exactly what you prefer they do next to go to the next step. Then make that action as easy and simple as possible (and make sure it runs on both desktop and mobiles!).
Is your website working for or against you? If you’re missing CTAs and you think it’s time to get a website that is effective and pays for itself, get in touch. (See what I did there? CTA again!)
