Many business owners want a website that looks visually appealing and is attractive to their potential clients, and why not? After all, your website is your online business card, plus it portrays both the level of client you deal with and your overall professionalism – but does it actually say what it needs to say about you?
Your website needs to fulfil a specific function
New businesses often make the mistake of spending a lot of time and money on making their site aesthetically appealing, but forget that it actually has a more important job to do – it needs to grow your business.
How? By attracting your niche audience, keeping them interested in you and illustrating what you can do for them.
It’s about you – but isn’t about you…
Your website needs to illustrate who you are, who you work with and what you do. It has to illustrate why someone would want to work with you and why you’re the best person for the job.
However, a common mistake business owners make is to list their credentials and explain how they work or what they do. Yes, these are important facts that need to be portrayed to your clients – but your clients aren’t really interested in these things – they’re really interested in what that those things mean for THEM.
Instead of just listing this information, explain how having this qualification, background or experience better enables you to do what you do. Illustrate what benefits your clients can expect from you, because of those experiences and qualifications.
Be clear on who you are and who you work with
Your website serves as a starting point for building a relationship with your ideal clients, so use it to give them an indication of the person behind the business. Show them there’s a personality behind the business face, use the tone to set the relationship standard and give them a glimpse of your ethics and beliefs.
You need to be clear about who you work with and what that work involves and/or looks like. Use testimonials to illustrate specific types of problem you can help overcome and give examples of the typical results they can expect from working with you.
Be clear on their next step
Another mistake website owners often make, is to give you all the above information, but fail to explain what you expect clients to do next. Your website needs a call to action. Whether you want potential clients to schedule in a discovery call or fill out an online form, make sure you’re making that next step clear to your potential clients.
Make it easy for them to get in touch
Finally, make sure you’ve made it easy for potential clients to get in touch with you. Have an obvious contact page – whether that’s via a link in your navigation menu or a big widget in your sidebar – and make it accessible from every page on your site.
Having a good-looking website is important – but it needs to serve a function too. You can work on the visual aesthetics of your site, once you have the basic (and essential) elements listed above, in place.
What does your website say about you? Have you taken an objective look at your website and ascertained whether it’s functional AND pretty, rather than just pretty? Maybe you’ve got the functionality there, but now need to work on the visual appeal? Why not share your big a-ha moments from today’s post, in the comments box below?
Image courtesy of designsoliman/DollarPhotoClub