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December 6, 2016

4 Easy Tips for a Website Update by the End of the Year

Planning for revenue growth in 2017: Part 5 of 6

website_update_3 If you’ve been reading along with this series for the past several weeks, you know that we’ve covered several fundamental, but critical, ways to enhance your marketing & sales as you move into 2017, including:

Today, we explore what should be at the hub of your marketing efforts – your website… and how to do a website update.

Without suggesting you embark on a complete re-do of your website – especially before the end of 2016 – here are 4 easy tips to help get your website ready for 2017:

 

Spruce up the copy

If it’s been a while since you’ve read through your website with a critical eye, here are two suggestions we have to enhance the copy:

  • Is everything that’s new at your firm on the current site? Have you added (or updated) any service or product lines since the last time your site was reviewed? If so, now’s the time to update that copy on the website. If you’re one of those firms that showcases your employees on your website (and you should be), are all of your employees actually on the site? What about your client list? Quotes from clients? Recent news on the News page? And so on. Take some time now to go through your website and make sure it’s up-to-date.
  • Most firms’ websites are written in the first-person… “We do this…” or “We’re great at that…” Here’s a little secret… Your clients and prospects don’t really care about what you can do… they care about what you can do for them. So, learn to write about what you do – but through their eyes. Write about how they benefit by working with your firm… how you help them… how you solve their problems. It’s that perspective (not page-after-page of your services) that will resonate with them.

 

Make it easy to connect

There are a number of firms in our industry whose websites only give visitors one way to reach out to them… maybe just an email or one of those online forms. But what’s most convenient for you is not necessarily the preferred choice for everyone else. Make it ridiculously easy to connect with your firm – give them your phone number(s), email(s), mailing address, fax number (yes, even that), an online form plus links to all of your social media sites. And put a link to your Contact Us page on every other page of the site.

If you want to give them a unique and an even more convenient method of contact… install a ‘web chat’ function on your website – one of those [inexpensive] apps that allows a site visitor to have a real-time ‘text chat’ with someone on your team while they’re on the site!

 

Freshen up your images

Fact: Images on your website improve readability. Rule of thumb: Any image is better than no image. Photos are better than graphic images. Photos of people are better than photos of things. And photos of people doing something are best of all.

Adding photos doesn’t have to be that expensive. Here’s an article on 20 free photo sites: https://bit.ly/2gYk2ZX

 

Your Elevator Pitch

We all know what an ‘elevator pitch’ is… it’s that 20-second infomercial about our firm that we use when we meet potential clients at a conference or networking event.

But do you know your website should have one, too?

If a visitor – who’s unfamiliar with your firm – lands on your home page and in the first 5-10 seconds, can’t determine what you do, who you do it for or why they should consider doing business with you… they’re gone!

Don’t let that happen to you… take some time to create a strong elevator pitch and put it front & center on your homepage.

 

Conclusion

As we started-off saying… your website is – and should be – the focal point of your marketing efforts. It’s the first place a prospective client will go to do their “due diligence” on your firm. In these last few weeks of 2016, you’ve still got time for a website update… the goal of which is to help visitors move a little further down the Buying Funnel™ and generate enough interest so they reach out to you for more information.

Good luck and good marketing.


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