September 16th, 2022

Four things every website needs

Website not converting? Try these four tips

If you’ve ever stared in resignation at a woeful month’s website stats, you might be wondering if an online presence is actually worth the time and money. The short answer is yes – you definitely do, as several studies have shown. Websites build brand credibility, they increase your visibility and – unlike a Facebook page (which is very definitely an “as well as” and not an “instead of” when it comes to your online footprint) – you have control over metrics, algorithms and display format on your own site.

​So, what can you do if your website doesn’t seem to be earning its keep? The answer is very likely that one or more of the key pages aren’t doing what you need them to do. And that’s not always as obvious as you might think…

1. A functional homepage

A homepage and a functional homepage are in no way the same thing. The former is what every website has by default. The latter is what’s going to help you convert.

In the words of good old Hubspot, “Because it commonly gets the bulk of site traffic, it’s crucial for the homepage to convert as much of that traffic as possible into leads – and, eventually, customers.” 

As I’ve written elsewhere, you have an alarmingly tiny window to make a positive impression on a casual visitor to your website. The chances are very high that they’re going to land on your homepage. So, that page has to give them a reason to stay. Your homepage is the welcome that you offer your potential customer. Ideally, you’d like it to inspire them to explore further. At the bare minimum, it needs to lay out exactly what it is that your company has to offer. Many homepages do not. Does yours?

2. An About page

Honestly, this is a website element that gets overlooked far too often. For some reason, it’s the page that seems to get filed under “nice to have” or forgotten about, and when it does make an appearance, it’s focused on the company itself. Which, fair enough, is an easy mistake to make – it’s called an “About” page after all; stands to reason that it ought to be about the company behind the website. And, yes; yes it should. But very often the motivation behind that particular bit of corporate storytelling is misplaced. Yes, your About page should tell a customer about you and/or your company – but only inasmuch as that background underscores why you’re an excellent, reliable choice to help them with whatever they need. It’s only “about” you in the most basic sense – at a fundamental level, your About page is “about” what your customer needs.

3. Contact details

It’s a little old now, but a 2015 web usability survey from Boston-based online branding organisation KoMarketing found that one of the most important elements of a successful website is how easy it is to find contact details for the organisation it represents. “When asked what causes them to leave a vendor website,” the report states, “44% of survey respondents indicated ‘No Contact Information / Phone Number.’ When asked to rate website elements that annoy them, more than half (54%) of respondents indicated that the lack of thorough contact information reduced a vendor’s credibility and thus would cause them to leave a website.”

The Information Age has chipped away at our ability to wait for things, and we are super impatient with websites that make us work for what we want. If a customer has to search your site for how to get hold of you, the chances are really good that they’re not going to do it. It might be a little thing, but it’d be a shame to lose customers because of it.

4. Clear and easy purchase options

Do you need an online store? Not necessarily. If you’re a service-based company, an online store might not even make that much sense, as service-based sales are very often configured to the customer’s needs (which is why there’s no product page on this website, by the way – there is no “one size fits all” option when it comes to copywriting solutions). But at the very least, your potential customer should be in no doubt about what it is you’re offering and how they go about taking the next steps towards making a purchase.

And, again, that’s not always as easy as it seems.

Product descriptions are an unsung hero of the online sales world, and getting yours wrong might well be costing you conversions. Particularly in a crowded marketplace, you need to find a way to persuade a potential customer that your product is superior to a similar (or even identical) product on offer from a competitor. You need to spin a story for them, a story about a problem, a solution to that problem, and the joy – the relief – of having that problem solved. You need to speak directly to the heart of your target demographic, to find the answers to the questions they haven’t consciously articulated to themselves, to overcome their objections, and to gently but firmly insist that the time to take the plunge is now. 

Oh, and you’ve got about 150 words to do all that.

Product descriptions are an artform all of their own (and one that I particularly enjoy working with, by the way), and when they’re working well, it’s almost impossible to see the effort that’s gone into getting them just right. That might be why they’re so often neglected. But if yours aren’t converting for you, then maybe give me a shout.

Your company website is the sort of thing that seems as though it should be straightforward but, as with anything sales related, there’s an art and a science behind it that, most likely, your customers will never notice. If you’ve done it well, they’ll feel seen and nurtured – hopefully, without even realising it – and it’ll be easy for them to take the next step into making a purchase. If you’ve neglected any of the pages above, they’ll likely navigate away, again without realising why, but they’ll almost certainly remember that your brand didn’t meet their need. If your web copy could do with a bit more customer-focus, drop me a line, and together we’ll get to the heart of why your brand is exactly what your customers have been looking for.

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