When it comes to running a small business, you tend to wear many hats and it can be difficult to turn some of those hats over to other people, especially if you are in the startup phases and haven’t hired employees yet. So what if there was a way to convert some of those cold website visitors into warm leads without you having to constantly chase a sale?
Well, the good news is, you have an employee that you only have to invest time into every now and then and they will work day and night for you, 24/7, and never complains. That employee is your website. We are going to dive into a few key elements on your website that can help drive those prospects to follow you on social media, give you a call, enter an email, and other methods to get them to engage with you.
Push Their Pain Points
When a user comes to your website, many times it’s because they have done a Google search where they are looking for something. That something is usually a solution to a problem they are facing in their business, commonly known as pain points. They have a problem and they are hoping your product or service can solve that problem, or at least reduce the pain they are experiencing with that problem.
When it comes to pushing the pain points, you are looking to connect with them on an emotional level. Let them know that you understand what they are going through and that you’ve gone through it, too. In fact, that’s why you have this product or service, it’s because you know the problem so well that you were able to create a solution to it. Your product or service can solve their problem without them having to invest the time or the money into figuring out the solution themselves.
Once you connect with them on this emotional level, you are then able to give some logical reasons why this solution is the key to solving the problem. However, you must lead with the emotional side first, otherwise, there will be no connection to the brand’s story and the user will often bounce back to the search results to find a company that does connect with them.
How Do We Cover Users After The Connection Is Made?
Once you show the user that you understand their problems, you want to make it as easy to do business with your company as possible. There are a few key items you can add to your website to help users quickly convert into a prospect and allow them to reach out to you. Once you have them contacting you, then half the struggle of a sale is already over because they have gone from a cold lead to a warm prospect.
Here are a few essential items every small to mid-sized business should have on their website to help drive more conversions which can ultimately lead to more sales.
Schedule or Contact Button In The Header
First, the website header is the section at the top of the page. It’s the area you will commonly see the logo and navigational menu. By adding a large, often colorful button into this menu, it helps the user quickly see how they can contact you, schedule a call, make a purchase, or any other type of call-to-action you want to place there in a simple to understand button.
The reason you want to go with a button here instead of just another text-based link here is so it stands out. Just because you know your website and how to get around it doesn’t mean a user that has never been there before will. Make it blatantly obvious how to get a hold of you or the other activities you want to encourage.
Phone Number In Header
While we are on the topic of the header, another great element is the phone number of your company. Now, this may sound like an obvious solution to allow a customer to contact you, but you would be amazed how many websites we see that don’t have the number listed in the header, and by simply adding it, you can drastically increase your conversion.
If you run an emergency company, this one tip can be a game-changer. A disaster cleanup company, emergency dentist, or anything else where users need a fast solution without having to dig through pages of the website to find the contact form. Make this a click to call and it can often perform even better.
Also, just because you add this to the header, make sure you keep it on your contact page as well as Google and other search engines refer to this page for the name, address, and phone number.
Social Media Icons
Are you on social media? You should be! Social media has changed the way businesses get customers, not only to sell but to also build a following. There will be users that will often check out your social media pages for news, updates, events, and just to see what the business has been up to. Because of this, you want to allow users to easily be able to follow your business and share your updates.
When it comes to following your business, we like to add social media links in the website header and footer to make it simple for them to bounce over to your social media page and click follow. That’s not all though, on your blog or internal pages that make sense, also make it easy for users to syndicate your content on social media. These social signals are great for SEO and also allowing for user engagement.
Large Call-To-Action
Do you have a call-to-action? If you don’t, you should make one, or two, or three! A call to action is just that, you are asking the user to do something like schedule an appointment, make a purchase, make a phone call.
After you have given the user plenty of value, make sure you include some form of a call-to-action on the website. How we like to do it is to make small calls-to-action throughout the page. In fact, if you’ve followed this guide, you should have some on your site by now but you can also add them into the page content in the form of links and images.
For the large call-to-action, we like to place it near the bottom of the website right after the content completes. They can be highly effective when created to take up the full width of the screen. You can do text on a solid color, on a photo, anything really that entices the user to contact you to get more information, get started, or make a purchase.
NAP in Footer
Lastly, the NAP, known as the name, address, and phone number. This is commonly found on the contact pages for most businesses, but for small businesses that are relying on SEO, the NAP in the footer can make a big difference when sending those citations out for Google. You can place this anywhere in the footer, just make sure it matches what you have on your Google My Business listings.
We hope you’ve received great value from this article and we would love to hear if any of these tips have helped you drive more conversions to your website. Please feel free to share this article with anyone you know that may find use in it as well (<- text-based call to action, right there). But really, if it helps them, why not share.