Marketing & Selling - Web Designs that CONVERT!
1. Establish an Objective for your new Website:
Distinguish between what is a Website & what is a Landing Page?
Define your purpose & establish the Conversion Goal of your site or Landing Page.
Discuss 5 Conversion-Centered Design Goals with your Website Developer.
Review examples to see what you like the best & which meets your Conversion Goals.
Discuss other best practices you want include in your new Website.
2. Homepage of Website is the Gateway to your Website & has many Purposes.
All Web Pages are typically collected under a Single Domain Name & Address.
A marketing company such as PCF International (www.pcfinternational.com) can provide your company with SEM (Search Engine Marketing) which monitors the Website performance and Search Engine Activity and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on your Website. This assists your company in seeing who is coming to it and which pages they are going to.
The Homepage has your Navigation List at the top of your Website which shows the various categories within your company you want to highlight within your Website which guides the User on your Website where they need to go by clicking on the Navigation Links they want to see.
The Body of the Homepage usually promotes something about your company to establish immediate credibility as this will be the first page your customers see.
The Homepage needs to provide & target information to your new customers and it should provide a login or link to your new customers if you are selling items or services online.
3. The Importance of a Domain Name:
All of the pages of your Website begin and end with your Domain Name and is the primary name of your Website which you must keep updated each year through the Domain Name Company you decide to go with including paying an annual renewal fee as otherwise, you will lose your Domain Name which another company could pick up and start using.
If you select various pages within the Website you will see the Domain Name followed by the Slash mark / and the page name you have clicked on. This will occur for each page you click on.
4. What is a Landing Page?
A Landing Page is a specific Destination page brought to you by a specific link you have clicked on being directed by an Advertisement or other Source. For example, if you search on Google you will get several links that respond to the information you need. These are Landing Pages. The first couple of links you see are through Paid Ads which a company is paying specifically to get you to notice their company links first.
A “Unique Landing Page” is a Landing Page specifically created through the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that is directly targeted to you. Most Unique Landing Pages have 1 button to click on making it very easy for the Consumer to understand what they have to do next. A Landing Page serves a specific purpose to get Visitors to your Site to complete a specific Call-To-Action (CTA).
A Landing Page is valuable as it serves as a single purpose targeted to specific New Customer types which targets a Marketing Campaign the Advertiser (Company) wants you to respond to. Landing Pages have a Unique URL usually with an embedded code in the link that identifies where & how you got to the page which tracks you as the Landing Page has directed you specifically to this page. This provides your company valuable Tracking Information of how a customer got to your page and where did they come from.
You can have Multiple Landing Pages that can test a customer out to see which page performs better which software coding within the Landing Page directs them to based on preference as there is no “one-size fits all” solution so a Multiple Landing Page can appeal to several different customers increasing your company profits and/or services provided. A company should always be testing out Multiple Landing Pages to make sure it works best for their customer audience.
You can create Customer Experiments through Multiple Landing Pages just like large companies do without breaking your marketing budget.
5. Your Website Takeaways:
Think of your Website as your Main Hub for existing customers, new customers and reaching different, unique customers which is your gateway to all things within your company.
Think of your Landing Page as places you use for advertising or targeting specific customers or to drive a particular activity.
Whether you are designing your Homepage or creating a specific Landing Page, there are some things you need to consider to create a Website design that converts.
What is the purpose & goals of your Website? A.) Need Recognition; B.) Info. Search; C.) Trial/Evaluation; D.) Purchase; E.) Post Purchase. Every customer has a Goal of what answers they want when they view your Website so it is very important you have different stages within your Website that respond to these as listed in Items A-E.
6. Website Conversion!
A Conversion doesn’t always mean “let’s make a sale!” which can mean many different things with different industries. Define the Conversion if you are a Retailer (i.e. do you have an eCommerce site where customers can purchase items directly on your Website?) or do you want “Secondary Conversions” that get a customer to 1.) Create an Account; 2.) Sign up for Emails; 3.) Pay for Premium Account. Both items are important in assisting you to grow your customer as maybe the purchase doesn’t happen right away.
For Services, the Primary Conversion isn’t necessarily selling a product but a service so there will be more negotiation and conversation involved so the primary purpose of the Website is to generate Leads or to get them to sign up which would be through a Secondary Conversion by getting them to download content for a Free Trial, sign up for Emails or download Content.
Other industries primarily want to get Bookings to sign up for an app or a subscription or to create a social media/blog account to stay Engaged.
What is the purpose and conversion goals of your Company’s Homepage? What type of site do you have? Who is the audience? Who will be coming to each page? What do they want to do? What do you want them to do?
Designing your Website for Conversion you must consider Information Overload and realize that too much information will create people to bounce off your Website immediately. Sometimes you can provide too many details that is detrimental to your site.
5 Conversion Centered Design Goals which are 1.) Context – where are your visitors coming from? Does the message/content match the expectations of the visitor? 2.) Clarity – is it clear from a quick scan of the webpage as to what the site is all about? And is all the information needed there and in the right order? 3.) Attention – Where is your focus? How many distractors are there relative to the one key thing you want people to do or know? 4.) Congruence – do all the words on the webpage encourage the conversion or task or are there distractions? 5.) Credibility – are there ample reasons to believe you can deliver?
Best Practices to Consider with your Website. 1.) Don’t try to do too much on any given page –especially on your Homepage. 2.) Make sure the unique selling proposition is clear. 3.) Hierarchy of information; 4.) Break out information into multiple pages. 5.) Make clickables (links) stand out. 6.) Short and quick reads work best – simplify text. 7.) Mobile First – design your site so that all mobile devices can use your site. 8.) Ask your customers if you are operating differently from Covid-19 Pandemic as a lot of customers may want to know what’s going on with all the customer delays and supply chain delays. For example, if you are a restaurant, you will want to put a Flyer on your Homepage indicating your restaurant is doing Takeout and/or delivery of meals from your restaurant. If you are a business, you want to put on your Homepage that you are doing things differently as a business or post on Social Media and/or email your customers letting them know how you are operating differently so they are assured they will have a good experience with your business.