5 Easy Steps to Turn Your Website Into Your Online Reception
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Most websites are lifeless brochures. This article explains 5 easy steps to bring a website to life and use it to gain control as a source of sales leads.
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Is your website like a beautifully decorated but unattended reception area? Do people arrive, look around and leave without anyone ever knowing they were there? That is such a waste. Window shoppers who do not enter do not buy, any intention of returning later is in fact a really unlikely event. Have you paid for search engine optimisation to get good search results or paid per click to get visitors to your website, what a waste! All the hard work done and your receptionist was out to lunch. You would never tolerate leaving your office unattended so why is it OK on your web site?
If you are like most businesses, perhaps 5% of your business inquiries will come from visitors to your office whilst, on average, 85% should come via your website. Accordingly, by my calculations, you are 95 times more likely to take proper care over only 5% of your business inquiries. You will ignore 85% of your company's visitors and let them chase you for information and attention. Something must be wrong. What can be done, what will you do?
It is important to check out the page people will see first. For most businesses that is the home page, in most cases that is probably the wrong page. Great websites arrange for a focused and totally relevant page to welcome people that varies according to the route of their arrival. These are known as 'landing pages'. Good pay per click advertising delivers respondents to a different landing page according to the subject of the advert, such that the visitor always arrives to see relevant content. Responses to email advertising, e.newsletters, article links should all point at the relevant page and only rarely to the home page. Grab your visitors attention in 4 seconds or they will be off to your competitor. So don't risk bringing them to a general home page, an empty reception desk, 95% of visitors will just go away.
You got their attention, what next. I'd want to know who they are. If they are first time visitors then the easiest way to get most visitors to tell me is to offer them something desirable for free, usually a booklet or guide that can be downloaded, occasionally something to be mailed, or some future benefit like a ticket or voucher. In exchange for your Free material visitors simply give their name and contact details on a 'squeeze page'. I now know who they are and what they wanted, I can follow up and not just wait and hope they might contact me. The truth is, most won't. Returning visitors will be encouraged to log in and announce themselves, most returning visitors will automatically log in if they use the same computer as they registered with.
You can be more welcoming than just the written word, a flash clip of a short podcast loads really quickly to you page. Inside that 4 second window you have to grab attention you can speak to your visitor. "HELLO, WELCOME TO OUR WEBSITE. MY NAME IS TIM MEADOWS-SMITH AND I'M THE MANAGING DIRECTOR. I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT YOU WANT, IF NOT HERE'S THE NUMBER OF MY OFFICE WHERE WE ARE READY TO HELP YOU - 0123 456789". Your voice will tell them you mean to be helpful and can be trusted. They might not call but they will feel wanted and that YOU care.
The podcast can just as easily be a video clip inset to your page. A good idea is to use a podcast to announce the availability of chat help. The operative, types a message like 'feel free to look around, if anything is not clear or you need some help, please just type me a message'. That chat can evolve into drawing the attention of the visitor, perhaps to some current special offer.
To encourage users to revisit keep adding new interesting material to your website. A blog feature will make that very easy and can allow visitors to give feedback. You can even allow your visitors to subscribe and get alerted to new information on the blog.
Before you give up and think all of this is too complicated, do remember, the dominant method of looking for new products and services, needs and wants is now through an online search. Do not expect your rivals to hold back. You need to engage and communicate with your customers online to survive.
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