Why Your Website Matters

Remember the day before the website when you needed something for your home or business and you just grabbed the yellow pages and there were a thousand pages of ads and listings?

When was the last time you saw a yellow-page book?

Today the search for help has shifted to the Internet. What was thousands of printed pages is now millions of pages with a quick Google search. Yet many businesses have not shifted their viewpoint to the importance of their company website.

Today the single most important asset of your business is your website. Your company website is the first impression a new prospective customer will have of your business.

Hiring a web designer is easy.  Communicating what you want to the web designer is often impossible for a business owner or management team to do. Why because it is overwhelming. What do I say? What do I include on the site? What pictures, graphics?

The purpose of this article is to simplify the process for you.

1. The purpose of your website is to cause a prospective new customer to call you. The vast majority of businesses have to have a live conversation with a customer to sell something. Your website has to be geared toward making that phone call happen.

2.  Looking at your business from a 3-foot back view, what do you do? Or more importantly, how do you help the customer?  How you help has to be put in a 5 – 6 word sentence that communicates instantly.

You see when a new visitor comes to your website they will make a decision literally in 2 to 3 seconds to stay and look more for what you do.

3.  They need to see easily where to go on your website to get information on your key products or services.

4.  When they go to a specific product or service page there should be enough information to get them interested enough to call. You should not use endless lines of copy. The page should answer the following questions:

• What is it?
• Why do I want it?
• How will it help me?

Depending on your industry and market you should not put prices. You can and should however use a special offer, with a discounted price.  If you are selling a larger ticket item you probably will need to have a conversation with the prospect in order to provide a price.

5.  Use pop-ups with special offers and call-to-actions. If you were fishing this would be the proverbial bait on the hook. Special offers are a way to increase interest level to action.

6.  Make sure whoever designs your website puts your phone number everywhere. People should not have to look for your phone number. People who call are your hottest prospects. They have a question and want an answer. You want to make it easy for them.

To sum it all up your website is your communication method to the outside world. Rarely today will you get a new customer who has not researched what he needs on the Internet first before they call you.

A website design is not something most business owners should try to do on their own for 3 reasons; you don’t have the time, the know-how, or the tools to create an effective website. Just like with your business there is specific technology and tools you use to do what you do. Your website is too important to your business success today.

I hope this article helps you. If you need more information on creating a custom website for your business please call us. We can help.