Remember when you realised that your business needed a website. Why did you decide to get one?
Perhaps it was a sudden realisation that you needed to have an Internet presence because you’d seen a competitor’s site. Perhaps it made good business sense to have an additional marketing channel. Maybe the Internet is the perfect fit for your products or services and you can sell them directly off your website.
So you found a good web design company to build your site within a reasonable budget. You carefully worked out how to present yourself. You crafted the content about your company in the most attractive way possible. You put up pictures and product details and genuinely flattering testimonials from clients. You even took the plunge into the wild waters of SEO and your website is doing well on Google.
And yet – it’s not working. Your website isn’t living up to your hopes of bringing in more customers. It’s not even giving you a worthwhile return on investment.
Now think back…
As you sat down to plan your site, chances are some of the first questions you asked yourself were:
- “What information do I want to give my website visitors?”
- “What do I want to tell them about my company and my products?”
- “What can I say about my company that will make them choose us?”
And that’s where it all went wrong. Right there. At the very beginning. From that point on, your website didn’t really stand a chance.
Strong words, perhaps. Here’s why…
It’s not your website – it’s theirs
Look back at that list above. Those are perfectly reasonable, sensible questions to ask. After all, what else are you supposed to talk about on your website, if not your products and services and why you’re the best company to provide them?
Problem is, it’s all about you. You put yourself at the centre of the website, instead of putting your visitors there. A successful website has to give your potential customers what they need. Not what you want them to have.
Because of the power of the Internet as an information source, it’s a truism that by the time someone makes a buying decision – contacting you or walking into your store – about 80% of the sales process has already happened. They’ve already done some reading, some research, some online window shopping.
Let’s take a closer look at the process
When someone is deciding what and where to buy, they will usually have questions they want answered. Needs that have to be satisfied. In industry-talk, they will have barriers to purchase that need to be overcome. You know this.
So here’s the rub…
The main job of your website is to answer those questions, satisfy those needs, overcome those barriers.
Which means you must put the customers and their needs at the centre of your website. You must make it all about them. You must find out what questions they’re asking, what information they need to get to the point where they are ready to buy.
The website that gives them this information is the one they will trust. The one they will see as the authority in the market. And almost invariably, it’s the one they will reward with the sale.
Rethink your website
If your website is not doing this, change it. Instead of just presenting all your products with all their features, work the other way round. Present your visitors with the needs that they have, and show how your products meet those needs.
Instead of saying: “Have a look at our products”, ask them upfront: “Which of these needs do you have?”.
And then show them the products that meet those needs and tell them how.
In other words, go back and rephrase your own questions:
“What information are they looking for?”
“What do they want me to tell them?”
“What can I say about them that will make them choose us?”