Okay so you have your website setup and are open for online business.
Use a Contact Form to fulfill your site goal. You have decided you key goal is to have site visitors contact you. You spent a lot of time, energy and money getting potential customers on your page so achieving a completion is crucial.
You need to make it clear what you want them to do. Giving people options is great but if your business doesn’t have someone to answer the phone then don’t feature your phone number so prominently. Include the number on the page of course but you decide how you want to be contacted.
If you want to be engaged via email it’s crucial to feature an online contact form that interested potential clients can fill in.
- Make it easy to find on your website.
- Don’t ask for too much information.
- Include an enticing call to action.
A sad but common scenario.
A family member or friend has referred an interested prospective customer to your business. Like everyone, this prospective client visits your website to learn more about who you are and what products and services you offer.
They like what they see however they don’t call for an appointment or send an email. Why? There are many possible reasons but one is that they don’t see how they should engage with you. You have images sliding in and out. There are testimonials from other customers extolling your service levels. There are pop-up windows begging people join up for a newsletter they don’t need. Where is the easy way for them to ask a question?
Rather than giving them the confidence that you know what you’re doing and you can help them, your website did the opposite. It created doubt, uncertainty and a general feeling of confusion about you and your business.
So they go to their search engine to look somewhere else. More than likely they land on your main competitor’s site who will provide what they need – a clear method of contact. Getting clients is hard enough – don’t make it even harder by ignoring a basic website function.
Other things to get right on your website
- Absolutely proof-read your content to make sure it’s free of errors and typos. Nothing screams amateur like misspellings and grammatical errors. Have someone else read it all as well if you are not 100% confident.
- Have your website professionally designed. It shouldn’t look like it was built by a teenager between playing computer games.
- Make sure your content is organised and easy to navigate.
- Remove superfluous content and other distractions that don’t lead your site visitor towards your goal.
- Keep your site’s content relevant and up-to-date.
- Personalise your content by including images of your staff (for goodness sake don’t use stock images of random people). Also include a short profile of them.
