You want a website that gives you the edge, right?
Do you remember visiting a website, only to leave within a few seconds? Visitors abandon websites all the time. Websites are abandoned because they are missing key elements.
The hardest thing about websites is most of them fail to stand out.
If you have an average website, it won’t help you grow your business. There is so much competition that you can’t just have an average website and expect to make money with it.
If you are serious about improving your website, think about the following questions:
- How can you make your website stand out in this environment?
- What is it that your website is missing, that your competitors’ aren’t?
- What elements are crucial for users to spend time on your site?
- What will get visitors to call you?
- What does your website need to have to help visitors make a purchase or hire your business?
The primary factor customers want is ‘Authenticity’. People want to know that who they were buying from is trustworthy and credible.
Another key factor is that many businesses are not taking advantage of simple ways to improve their websites and create the authenticity sought by their customers.
Listed here are the elements that many business websites are missing. It’s useful to know, when you’re trying to get an edge on your competitors.
Contact Information.
Prospects want to see “thorough contact information”. It is very off-putting when a website doesn’t show detailed contact information. “No Contact Information/Phone Number” will cause visitors to leave your website.
Today, it’s vital that buyers know a website belongs to an authentic business with a physical address they can locate easily. Displaying an actual address, contact telephone number and email address is an incredibly simple way to achieve this and could be a key feature that your business website is missing.
Visitors might need to contact you if something goes wrong, so it’s imperative that it’s simple to find contact information. If they find that the information they need appears hidden, it sends out a strong warning signal. Businesses that don’t list contact information are untrustworthy. It’s as simple as that. So make sure your contact info stands out and is easy to find.
Ideally your physical address should be located on the footer of each page, and on a dedicated contact page. Your phone number should be listed in the header area of each web page within your site.
About You
Information about the business and its employees was also found to be crucial for helping to establish a sense of authenticity. Website visitors tell you that “About / Company Information” is what they would most like to see on the website. This will surprise many people, but it goes to show just how important credibility is, when marketing a business.
Therefore, it’s vital that you provide information about your business and your employees in an easy to access part of your web space. You may even consider including links to your employee’s professional profiles on sites like LinkedIn. Furthermore, it might be a good idea to have high quality snaps of your staff taken that present them in the best, most professional light.
Another great way to establish authenticity, is to list who you have worked with proudly and publish testimonials from satisfied clients. There is no greater factor in demonstrating value and credibility than the proof of satisfied clients.
Appropriate Content
A strong social media presence is an important credibility builder, but you need to do more than that. Your website should also include blog posts, articles, white papers, case studies, independent studies that show your business to be an authority in the field. Make sure you keep content updated and encourage your visitors to find out exactly the kind of information they are searching for. What is the information that your website is missing?
And if you do list this type of content, then make sure it is free to access and doesn’t require personal information to be “unlocked”. Make it available to all website visitors.
Simplicity
The current trend is for business to adopt a mobile-first strategy, this is a direct response to a recent search engine update from Google that will prioritize mobile ready sites.
If your website isn’t mobile friendly, you will get less visitors, less leads, and less customers through your website. It is that simple.
Everybody that is active online has a smartphone. That means your prospects want a simple way to view your website, using their smartphones. Making your website mobile-friendly simplifies the user experience which will result in higher conversions.