Is Your Website Ready to Sell?

website-ready-to-sell

In the online world, it all starts with your website. You will need a professional looking website that displays your skills and creates trust within your target market so that people will want to buy from you. That starts with the copy on your website, the look of your logo, and the copy in your tagline. Take the work here regarding your website seriously. If you don’t project a professional image people will be unlikely to hire you.

How your website looks will depend on what services you’re offering. If you offer Graphic Design services your website should reflect awesome graphic design and show a portfolio of work that you’ve done. This will give your clients a good idea of what your style is. If you provide copywriting services, the copy on your website should be above average and demonstrate what you can do. Showing some before and after rewrites would be a great idea too.

 

A few tips that will help you create a great website:

 

A Great Layout

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Your website should have a pleasing layout. Try not to be old fashioned with the way your website is laid out. Gone are the days with the top banner, two side bars, and middle content but try to avoid flash and strange entry pages.

There are fabulous layouts to chose from that look beautiful and allow the content to be presented in its best light. The best system to use is WordPress.org, there are a variety of free and premium templates and themes that you can use that will offer perfect layouts to choose from.

 

Informative Content

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Still the lifeblood of your website, your content should be informative, interactive, instructional and inspire your reader to act. When writing content for your website never forget to have a purpose for the content, and a call to action for your readers.

 

User Friendly Navigation

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When a potential client clicks through to your website if they cannot figure out how to get around your site they will leave. You have mere seconds to impress them, so don’t make it confusing. Have navigation above the “fold” as well as at the bottom of very page.

 

A Telling Domain Name

Site Review

Try not to choose hyphenated domain names, and also choose domain names that are full of keywords. It will make it easier for your potential clients to find you if your domain name has keywords in it.

 

Revealing About Page

About Nicole

People like to buy from those they know, like and trust, and your about page is the place to encourage these feelings. Be honest, be clear, include a nice picture of yourself, and be professional.

 

Contact Information Clear

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Nothing is worse than going to a website and never being able to figure out how to contact the owner. Ensure that not only do you have a contact page, but you have links to the contact page on every page in the bottom navigation.

 

Newsletter Sign Up

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One of your best marketing efforts can happen via your newsletter. Offer a free give away such as a report, or a checklist in exchange for collecting email addresses. You can send out newsletters as well as new product announcements.

 

Sitemap

If Your Website Was a Piano…

A site map isn’t only for the computer bots to spider your site, it’s also for the human. If you create an excellent sitemap some people will click on “sitemap” to find everything they need. But, it’s also for general indexing for search engines.

 

Search Engine Optimized

SEO

You want organic traffic to your site, so use the tools you have such as all of the above, “on page SEO” and include some off page SEO by guest blogging, article marketing, and creating social media accounts.

 

Mobile Friendly

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Today, you never know where someone is looking at your website from. We are a mobile society and it’s rather easy today, especially with WordPress to build a mobile friendly site.

 

Analytics

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This is for you, but install analytics on your site so that you can see what pages and what content are working best to keep readers reading, and to attract organic search engine traffic.

How to Set Up a Professional Website? Follow These 10 Steps to Get the Results You Want

website

Your website is the most important marketing tool in your arsenal. It’s what clients will use to determine your credibility. It’s what they’ll use to find out your rates. It’s what they’ll use to learn about you. It’s what they’ll use to learn about your services. In many cases, it’s the primary way your potential clients will interact with you before they actually try your service.

So how do you make sure your website is top notch? How do you use your website to inform and sell? These tips will help.

Tip #1: Use a Professional Theme or Template

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Choose a theme or design template that looks professional like Sticky Branding. Make sure you not only choose a professional theme but one that you can personalize. Choose one with a changeable banner or with customizable columns or colors.

You want to make sure your site doesn’t look like a hundred other sites out there that share the same theme. But you also want to make sure that you have a professional theme that’s already proven its merits in the marketplace.

Tip #2: Use a High Quality Photography

Have a professional photographer take a photo of you. A great photographer will be able to get the lighting, the posture, the angle and everything else right to give you an image that really shines.

Nicole Munoz

Use this image on your website to demonstrate credibility. You can use it as part of your banner if you can make it look artistic, or use it on your “About Me” page or on your sidebar.

Marketing researchers have long known that showing a face builds trust and credibility. In fact, on Facebook Ads, pictures of someone’s face generates more clicks than just about any other kind of ad.

 

Tip #3: Get Their Email Address

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Get the email address of the people who land on your website. Not everyone’s going to buy on the first go around. They might come to your website, be very impressed with what they see – But intend to buy later.

If that’s the case, you’re much better off getting their email. That way, you can follow up with them again and again, even once they’ve already left your website and forgotten about your service.

Give them something in exchange for signing up for your emails. For example, entice people to sign up with a free gift or free report. I offer the Small Business Success Kit.

Tip #4: A Personality Driven “About Me” Page

Your “About Me” page should help people get to know you. Not only should it be factual and informational, but it should be personality driven. People should get a sense of who you are, what you stand for and hopefully for a sense of your personality.

Talk about your background. Talk about the results you get for your clients. Talk about your credentials and what qualifies you to do what you do. Try to write in a personal, free flowing way. Avoid writing in corporate language. The goal is for your potential clients to feel like they know you a little bit once they read your About Me page.

Marie Forleo has a great about me page that now only shows her personality, but is very focused on the visitor to the page.

 4-Personality-Driven-About-Me

 

Tip #5: A Crystal Clear Service Page

Your service page should have a crystal clear outline of all your services and product offerings.

If you’re just getting started, you should probably put prices for your services on your website. If you’re in a higher end market and you’ve been doing what you do for a while, you might ask people to contact you for a quote instead.

In either case, people should have no uncertainty about what you offer. If you’re a graphic designer for instance, you want to have packages for your logo design, your banner design, your website design and your flyer design services all clearly laid out on your website.

Tip #6: Have Samples

Your samples or are one of the most important parts of your online sales efforts. As great as your site is, as great as your testimonials may be, as great as your packages page may be, ultimately what clients will use to determine if they want to work with you is your past work.

Put up as many samples as you can on your website. Make sure you put your best foot forward by putting up samples that showcase the best of your capabilities.

If you don’t have any samples because you’re just getting started, consider doing some pro-bono work or just doing the samples for imaginary clients. The idea is that you want to have something to showcase, even if it’s not paid work yet.

Tip #7: Call to Action

call-to-actionOne big mistake that a lot of service providers make is not having a call to action. A call to action is simply a request for someone to take action.

If you’re selling a service that can be purchased on the spot, then you should have a purchase button right on your page. For example, if you sell 30 minute consultation calls for $100, then you should have a $100 buy button right on your services page.

On the other hand, if you do more custom work, your call to action might be a form. The form gives them the chance to tell you what they’re looking for and to give you their contact information.

Tip #8: Run a Quality Blog

blog2Having a high quality blog is a fantastic way to drive more traffic to your website, but don’t expect your blog to pay off for at least 3 to 6 months. In the beginning, it’s going to feel like a lot of effort.

But once you have a website that’s stuffed full of useful content, you’ll start to get a lot of traffic from search engines. That traffic will very quickly turn into more sales and more business.

Furthermore, having a high quality blog will help you build credibility. People who see your blog are going to immediately feel that you’re a credible person to work with.

 

Tip #9: Optimize for Search Engines

Put some energy into optimizing your website for search engines. Make it your goal to have your site come up in the search engines when people type in keywords related to your niche.

Start by making your website search engine friendly. Make sure you use relevant keywords in your title tags. Make sure your archives and category pages are noindexed and nofollowed. If you’re using WordPress, use a tool like All in One SEO to handle all your on site SEO.

Then build backlinks back to your website. Have other people in your industry link back to you. Ask past customers or fans of your site to link to you. Host contests, run classes or do publicity stunts that get a lot of people to link to you.

These two things – On site and off site SEO – Will quickly get your site to rank for relevant keywords in Google.

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Tip #10: Buy Paid PPC Traffic

PPCIf your average customer value is high enough, you should consider buying traffic for your services. For example, if you’re a child psychologist and on average a client is worth $1,500 to you, then it may very well make sense for you to buy paid traffic in your local area to bring in more clients. Even if each client is worth a few hundred dollars, you can likely recoup your investment.

If you offer a service locally, make sure you target geographically and not globally. Only buy keywords for extremely targeted keywords in the beginning to make sure you can get a positive ROI. Once you have a positive ROI, then broaden your keyword base to include higher volume keywords.

These tips will help you setup a great website that impresses clients. They’ll also help you generate new business through increased website traffic.