6 things to avoid & 6 things to do differently
“You should hire us… after all, we are the most average consulting firm in our industry!”
“Want a lawyer? We don’t win the most cases, but we don’t lose the most either. We kind of fall right in between both of those!”
“Our business is what you could call ordinary. There isn’t anything special about us.”
No one brags about being average.
However, they settle for average when it comes to their marketing and websites.
Here’s what’s on most average websites:
Company Name
Company Logo
A list of things that are offered
Claims to be the best quality, best service or best prices
An offer of a “free quote”
Contact details
Yawn. 🥱
Average. Status Quo. Just like everyone else in your industry.
At best you hire a good designer who gives you something aesthetically pleasing to look at.
But guess what?
A nice looking website doesn’t bump you above average.
Anyone can make a great looking website. Hop on over to Squarespace and check out their templates. Some of these templates are more compelling an offer than many websites of businesses we work with! In fact, Squarespace is a great tool to build a nice website. But design alone might bump your website up to a B. Still average.
Here’s the good news, there are few in your industry who stand out above the rest. That’s why we call them above average. They aren’t like the rest. This can be your website too.
So what needs to happen to make your website stand out from all the others?
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#1 – DON’T view your website as a business card
People who say “my website is just a business card” have a short-sighted view of the potential their website holds. By the way, business cards just get thrown in the trash and are quickly forgotten. I’m guessing that’s not how you want people feeling about your business.
If you want to leave a lack-luster impression then go ahead and slap your info down on a webpage. Hopefully, you didn’t pay too much for the design….
But if you do want to stand out crowd you’ll want to do the following:
DO see your website as an integral part of your marketing strategy
A properly tuned website becomes an incredible tool to reach more people, grow your audience, and warm up cold leads.
If your website is working for you and not against you, when someone hops on your website they will see your clear and compelling selling proposition. Of course, if you are just a business card then your browsers won’t see what’s unique about you.
Second, your website should have a way to capture email addresses of “warm leads”. People come to your website for a reason, to get their problem solved. However, 99% of people do not buy the first time they land on a website. You need a way to connect with them and build a relationship with them over time.
A website that is working not only sells but captures emails of warm leads and nurtures those leads through email marketing. (Skeptical of email marketing? Read more about its effectiveness here.)
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#2 – DON’T make your website all about your business
This might be a weird concept, but in the story that your website is telling your business should not be the main character of your website. Your customer should be the main character.
Let that concept sink in. Now open up the average website. You’ll notice that the story on the website is all jacked up. You’ll see something like this:
We provide {insert solution}.
We have {insert award}.
We drank {insert number} cups of coffee.
We, we, we, we all the way home.
Etc.
DO make your customers the focal point of your website.
Of course, you need to talk about your business. However, your business is a supporting role to the main character of your website, your customers.
They are the leading character with hopes and dreams and aspirations. And they have major problems that are keeping them from getting what they want. Your business is there to help them overcome these problems.
Your website copy takes a major shift when you realize who is the hero of the story. Pull up your website now, show it to a stranger and ask “Who does this website talk about more, the customer or the brand?”
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#3 – DON’T create content that you think “should” be on your website
I use the word “should” here because that’s what many businesses do, they create their website on built assumptions vs. actually working off of a proven plan.
So you hop on your competitor’s website and copy all the ideas you think look good and then start mapping out your website. It’s ok to grab inspiration from others, just be careful. You have no idea why and how they came up with the info on their website.
This approach is called the ‘random acts of marketing’ approach. You might say a few things that matter, but there’s a high chance you’re going to miss the mark and have a site that provides disjointed information that doesn’t really follow the journey your customer is on.
DO include content that takes your customers on a journey
A great website effectively enters into the conversation that’s already going on inside the heads of your customers. They are on a journey and you meet them exactly at the point they are at emotionally when they happen to click on your website.
For this to happen you need a plan:
First, what is their state when they first show up on your site?
What are they feeling?
How aware are they of your product or service?
What roadblocks are keeping them from buying?
What questions do they need answered immediately?
After you answer those questions, what are they looking for next?
Then after that and so on?
When you answer these questions you begin mapping out a website that not only meets a customer where they are at, but also is able to take them to a desired destination.
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#4 – DON’T be passive
Many websites have vague and unclear calls-to-action. The main buttons on their websites say things like “Contact Us” or “Learn More”. Contact us and learn more aren’t necessarily bad to have on your website somewhere, but are very poor primary calls to action. Both of these fail to communicate clearly what direct step needs to be taken to do business.
On top of having passive calls to action, many websites have a different message on every button on their site. With so many messages happening at once, it becomes unclear to the user what exactly you want them to actually do.
If you were in a relationship with a person that never communicated clearly and gave you many different possible paths to take to make them happy, you’d soon become frustrated with this person. This is what we often end up doing with our website visitors.
DO make it clear what you want your customers to do
On your website, you need to have one clear call to action button. Make sure this button stands out clearly from every other button and always says a direct and clear action.
What is it that this person actually physically needs to do to start doing business with you? If it’s scheduling a call say “schedule a call” not “get started” or “learn more”. If they need to book an appointment say “book an appointment.” If they need to buy something say “buy now.”
Once you determine what the button should say then put this button all over your website. You want your website browser to be super clear about what a successful next step looks like for them.
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#5 – DON’T overuse insider language
Paul Sorenson who is a Particle Physicist studying Quark-Gluon Plasma with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory explains his job in this way, “Where I work, we slam together small things to break them into even smaller things until we have the smallest things possible. This is how we know what matter is made of.”
If this guy can simplify what he does to the average person, so can you!
The problem is most people are so close to their product or service they just assume other people understand what they are talking about. So they fill their website up with language that makes no sense to their user.
Now I know what you might be thinking, “Well my user is sophisticated. They come in expecting more.”
While that might be true, I’d ask you to assess the purpose of your website. Your website is meant to begin the conversation with a prospective customer. It is not meant to say it all. You can send them the white paper, maybe in exchange for an email address, but know if your site is full of overly complex language you will lose the opportunity to ever send that white paper.
DO simplify your message
When I say simplify I don’t mean your message is simple. What I mean is you’ve done the work to layout your message simply.
It takes work to craft a clear website. Lazy or insecure businesses put every piece of information that comes into their head on a website. But a great website has taken the time to delete and only leave what’s essential.
Placing the most essential words on your site communicates confidently your product or service. It also creates confidence in your potential customer. Any type of confusion on their end diminishes trust and lowers your chance of having a sales conversation.
You’ve probably heard the quote from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal: “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
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#6 – DON’T rely on your web designer to write your copy
Unfortunately far too many people hire a professional design firm to build their website and overpay for something that just doesn’t work for them. Sure their website looks good, but why isn’t it getting them more business?
The problem is the people you hired to build your website are really great at designing websites. However, they haven’t spent the time studying human psychology and buying behavior to know the words that are needed to get someone interested enough to click your “buy now” button.
The design firm reaches out to you and keeps harassing you about getting them website content. You keep pulling your team together to write website content. All you end up doing is copying what other people in your industry are doing.
The whole process ends up being terribly frustrating to both you and your designer.
DO hire a professional (Caution! Shameless plug… sorry!)
Would you hire a dentist to do heart surgery? Probably not.
Would you hire a veterinarian to be your kid’s pediatrician? Umm… no.
If you understood the power your website could have you also wouldn’t write your own website content or leave it to your web designer to give you content tips.
Michelle Kaufman of Prioritas Financial had this to say after we launched her website, “After only 3 months of having the website up, I have already reached my year-2 client goals, so now I can dream bigger!”
You’ll have to do the math on what ROI would look like for your business, but we believe you get what you pay for in a website. If you pay pennies you’ll probably blend in with all the other sites out there, but if you invest money into professional content writers and web designers you’ll pay off your investment in no time and start thinking about saving for your next vacation home!
Hire us to help you take your website from average to extraordinary:
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