Persuading potential customers to visit your website is a big step. You have a shot at winning a customer, but first, you’ll need to do a few critical things right. Your objective is to supply the information that prospects want (and need) to become customers.

Your website must deliver—in clear, enthusiastic and reassuring language and images—that portray your products and/or services as effective, easy-to-use and eye-candy visible. Create a yellow brick road journey that moves webiste visitors through a trust-inspiring buyer’s journey that has a real Hollwood ending—a sale!

1. Landing page

No one wants to waste time trying to figure out what your company sells, how they can buy it or other essential information. If they don’t find what they’re looking for in what they feel is a reasonable amount of time it’s click and they’re out of there. Disappointed site visitors will leave you and find someone who makes it easy for them.

Think objectively about what you would want and need to see and learn about your products or services if you were searching for a solution. Your landing page should include the big picture basics of why your products and services make sense and it’s all got to be right there at eye level.

2. Decision-making info

Especially for B2B products and services, prospects will conduct extensive research and compare the offerings of two or more competitors before committing to buy. Make information about who you are and what you do easy to find. You can add more content to your website by starting a blog, adding more web pages and ensuring all the essential information a customer needs is there. Further, ensure your website is uncluttered and easy to read, so that prospective customers are drawn to keep browsing and reading your content.

3. Call-to-action

A single CTA on your landing per page, no matter how appealing, may not grab the attention of site visitors who do a quick scroll through your site as they search for specific info. Someone who might do business with you might skate by during a hasty tour of your site, no matter how bright and eye-catching your CTA. Be smart and proactive and include multiple calls to action.

Tie your CTAs to specific steps in the customer buying funnel—click to receive a case study that helps you understand how we help customers get the job done; click here for a 30 minute free consultation: get started with a one month free trial here.

4. Purposeful content

Include content that demonstrates your expertise because that’s the information that supports decision-making (in your favor!). A regularly published newsletter or blog, white papers and /or case studies, customer testimonials and articles about you and your your organization that appear in the press, including your hyper-local neighborhood publications are validations of your expertise. Everything that you post onto your website is there to be in service to persuading a prospect to become a customer. This is not about window dressing.

5. Trust and authenticity

The best way to combat distrust is to demonstrate your relevance, ability to do the job and authenticity. Personalizing your website with real photos and details. If you can’t afford to hire a professional photographer, take photos of your staff, office and products using what you have at your disposal — even if that’s just your cell phone camera (making sure that your photos are clear and not blurry). Adding personal details like photos of yourself as the owner, a street view of your location, etc. will elicit more trust from online shoppers.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Vogue Magazine Collections app for Apple iPad and iPhone