3 Essential Ingredients for an Incredibly Powerful Website – Part 1
The team and I here at Larry Jacob Internet Marketing specialize as much on building websites as we do on building Infusionsoft solutions. Marketing automation is powerful, but without a solid website (or several of them), the solution is incomplete.
Since website development and online marketing is such a key part what we do, I wanted to share with you some essentials ingredients that are a MUST for any website. This applies for websites for large companies and for smaller businesses like one person law or accounting practices. All size companies can benefit from what I'm recommending here.
A lot of people ask me, “Should I use Wordpress? How important is video? What the best approach for building a responsive site to work across all devices?” You know, these are excellent questions, but the question I ALWAYS want answered first is, “How’s your content?”
The mechanics of website matter. Of course they do. But the ability of a website to deliver results has EVERYTHING to do with the story it tells and the message it delivers for you. It serves as the place people go to learn all about you.
With this said, here’s a list of essential ingredients that make for an incredibly powerful website.
Ingredient #1: Three Prominent Lines that Clearly State What You Do
For our business and our website at www.LarryJacob.com it’s:
- Infusionsoft Consulting,
- Website Design and
- Marketing/Copy Writing.
If you want anything fitting these three, you’ve come to the right place.
For a one person family law practice targeting women, it can me:
- Family Law,
- Local South Florida Experience and
- What’s Best for the Kids Over Everything Else
I’m a seven year veteran of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. I’ve served as a committee chair of two committees for a total of three years. I’m president of the BNI Prestige chapter that I attend. I’ve a very experienced networker. I cannot tell you many times I run into business owners of all types that cannot tell you in 10 seconds what they do.
When that’s the case, I usually find their website has a similar problem. There’s too much going on. The description of what they do is a complex set of explanations. They have too many call to actions. I’m pretty sure the website isn’t getting them much in the way of business either.
So the first ingredient of an incredibly powerful website is three, precise, short lines that tell us what you do.
Ingredient #2: Provide a Very Clear Concise Call to Action
I’ve seen great websites that are well written and organized, yet the call to action is off. One type of website in this category has no call to action at all. It tells everything about the business, but makes no offer. For smaller sites, the impact of this may not be noticeable because the site doesn't get enough traffic. You'll never know how many visitors visit the site, learn about the business then don’t know what to do next.
Another type of site in this category is one with too many call to actions. A website page with too many call to actions might as well not have a call to action at all. It’s hard enough to get people to fill out a simple form on a page much less have them decide among 2 or more competing call to actions. When people are confused or unsure, they do nothing.
On our site, we have minimized our call to action to, “Contact Us to Discuss Your Project Needs.” It's a web form available throughout the site where they tell us what they need. We’ve intentionally requested first, last name, email, phone number and two open ended questions. We probably lose a lot of people that won’t give us all that information, but we want qualified people filling out the form. We want those who are ready to do business with us. Those that do fill it out often give us a lot of information. More times than not, they are the ones ready to discuss a real project.
A good call to action can be something as simple as, “Call us” with a phone number shown prominently. It can be sign up to receive updates or a newsletter. It can be an offer for a paper on a topic showcasing your expertise. You should be experimenting on ways to increase the number of people that take your call to action.
At a minimum, an incredibly powerful website must have a clear, succinct and easy to follow call to action.
My next blog articles will give you the final ingredients needed for an incredibly powerful website.
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