No matter the nature of your work, your business needs your website to boost sales, entice leads, or both. Essentially, to grow your business.
Do you feel like your website isn’t working hard enough for you? The key lies in having all your website elements (copy, design, and functionality) play their part in turning your website into a lead conversion machine.
How am I supposed to do that, you may ask? We’re giving you some practical tips in our Website Best Practices Checklist below.
Website Best Practices Checklist
CLEAR IS BETTER THAN CLEVER
People get bored quickly. Use short, sharp, punchy copy to invite them into a story and engage them long enough to take action.
Clearly state what you do or sell. Don’t use fancy jargon or make your copy so creative that it confuses people.
People take action when they feel pain. Find the problems your customers are experiencing and include them high up on the home page. Show that you understand what they’re experiencing.
Clearly outline the top three advantages customers would enjoy by engaging with your products or services; we call it the success value stack.
Make the customer the hero, not you.
TELL THE USER WHAT TO DO
Use a strong, clear call to action (CTA) that is visible in the header and above the fold (at the top of the website before the user scrolls). On the Natural Elixir site, there are two CTAs above the fold to service the needs of two different types of customers—the one who wants to shop online, and the one who wants to go into a store.
Always have a sticky CTA on the top right-hand side of the website so that users can find it no matter where they are on the site. Like the ‘Get a Proposal’ button on the THOHO Energy website.
Always have a sticky CTA on the top right-hand side of the website so that users can find it no matter where they are on the site.
The CTA must be the next step YOU want them to take, e.g. ‘Book a Call’ / ‘Get a Demo’ / ‘Buy Now’; not something more passive like ‘Learn More’ or ‘Contact Us’.
If your CTA is to book a meeting or demo, use an online calendar system to make it easy for potential leads to book instantly.
DESIGN TO DELIGHT
People scan websites; they don’t read them. Use multimedia, headlines, bullet lists, and other visual cues to optimise your content for quick comprehension and engagement.
Forget mundane landscapes and generic office snapshots. Your imagery should resonate with what your customers actually want, like the AFYA website. Photos of the actual products only feature further down the page; the primary images portray the picture of health which is the customer’s goal when buying the product.
Declutter the top menu so it doesn’t distract potential leads from clicking the CTA button. Put non-critical links in the footer instead.
If you offer a variety of services or products, you may want to categorise them and put them in the top header. However, I recommend using buttons on the home page that send people down different paths, like these: https://kohapet.com/.
BONUS: ADD VALUE
Include a helpful, value-packed PDF that users can download in exchange for their email address so you can keep nurturing them until they’re ready to take action. It’s a win-win: you gain leads, and they get valuable content.
EXAMPLE: My free guide, “5 things that are wasting your marketing budget and what you can do about it”, which you can download here.
What could your website achieve with a strategic overhaul?
At BrandHeart Marketing, we’re offering a free website audit to help you create a website that converts!
Book your discovery call, and let’s make your website a winner!
