Are you sure your website isn't just confusing your clients?
You have a lot to offer your clients. Your products and services are good. Your expertise is valid. Your advice is useful. You know you can help those who have the problems you solve.
But how do you “talk” to clients on your website? How do you connect? How do you make them realise you're the one they're looking for?
Follow this story for a minute and you'll see...
Do you have kids – or at least have friends with kids? So you know about the joys and love – and stress and worries and frustrations!
Now meet Gary. He's a nice, kind, hard working guy. Right now he's excited, flustered and stressed. You see, his wife, Anne, gave birth to their first son yesterday. He's as proud as punch but...
It's also their little girl's 5th birthday on Saturday and he's promised to organise Katy's birthday party. He's never done this before and has no clue what he's doing.
Figuring he has to start somewhere, Gary rushes into the bakery and blurts to the girl behind the counter, “I'd like eats!”
The apathetic teenager mumbles through her chewing gum, “Yeah? What kind?”
Gary goes into blind panic! What kind? Um, ah, um...
Gary, like most great husbands and dads, just wants to be a hero. But he doesn't know where to start. He feels he's about to let down his wife and daughter before he's even started.
If Gary is going to make little Katy's party a success, he needs to have some kind of a plan. He needs to get things that 5 year olds like to eat. Play games 5 year olds like to play. Have the kind of cooldrink they drink.
Monopoly might be a great game and asparagus tart delicious, but they're not going to work in this situation. He needs to “connect” with just 5 year olds.
Gary needs to choose his cake to fit in with his party. You wouldn't give a sit down dinner party for a 5 year old. And you wouldn't have balloons and cupcakes and pin the tail on the donkey at a party for a 60 year old.
Just as Gary needs to know what goodies he wants the kids to eat, so a successful online venture needs to know what it wants to achieve and who it wants to talk too.
The internet is like a gigantic bakery. Every different cake and cookie and tart in the bakery is like all the different websites and businesses on the internet.
And so you need to choose your cake (website) to suit your party (online venture).
If your clients are coming to your website to be entertained, you need to offer things like music, games and jokes.
If your client is looking for info on health issues, you need to give them a medical type site with this type of info. No games, no music.
The biggest reason people go on the net and visit websites is to look for info. People want solutions to questions and problems. They're looking for specific solutions to specific problems:
- I want an 18-55mm lens for a Canon 7D
- I want to know how to get mould stains off my bathroom tiles
- I want to study accounting in Johannesburg
To get the info they're looking for, visitors will go to sites that offer that specific kind of info. If the site is confuddled with bits and pieces about everything in general and nothing in particular, they'll click away to another site that does focus on their needs.
When building your website, you need to decide what kind of party you're hosting and what kind of cake (website) you want to offer.
You can't be everything to everyone. Just as a combination chocolate, lemon, savoury and bread cake is not going to be appealing, so a mixed-up website is also a No. It confuses and annoys clients. It makes clients click away – forever.
Decide whether your website is going to be a chocolate cake or a lemon one. And then stick to that focus.
- Answer specific questions related to your product / service.
- Educate your clients about what you offer and why it's what they need for their problem.
- Solve problems and
- Sell your specific solutions to your specific guests.
Once you think about who you want to come to your party, you can plan around them and give them suitable and appreciated eats, drinks and games.
Think about the visitors you want to help in your business and via your website. Plan for them and their questions. Feed them with the info they're looking for; offer them the products and solutions they need.
Do this and you'll be the hero of the party!