What should you put on your website?
What content works best? What’s the worst? This post covers a bit of both. Here are four things to put on your site and a few things to remove ASAP.
1. Answers to the Top 5 QuestionsRight now as you read this, someone, somewhere is researching your services. They’re looking for answers, deciding who to contact. 57% of buying decisions are made beforethe prospect contacts a salesperson.
If your site doesn’t answer their top questions quickly, they will look for the answers somewhere else.
Your website must answer their questions. Marcus Sheridan is the champion of this approach, encouraging all of us to live by these words:
- Cost
“Can you give me some idea of cost, even if it’s a range?” - Problems
“Be honest with me. What are the potential issues with this approach?” - Comparison
“How does this compare to the other options and competitors?” - Reviews
“What are others saying about this product or service?” - Best
“Who are the best service providers / What are the best products in this category?”
Those are the five most common questions, but what Marcus really wants is for us to listen to our audiences and answer their specific questions.
We call this the “Report of Broken Dreams” because it shows the ways in which your site is unsatisfying to your visitors. Here’s how to check it.
- View Behavior > Site Search > Search Terms.
Note: To get more data and more meaningful insights, choose a wide date range. - Click on the “Secondary Dimension” dropdown above the search terms
- Select Behavior > Exit Page
- Look for search terms that show the URL of the search results page as the exit page, such as /search-pages.
3. Show Pictures of You and Your TeamReal photos. Not stock photos. The faces of the people that work there. Your people are unique to your company, so they’re a differentiator. Show them off by building up the team bios in the about section. There are benefits to both traffic and conversion.
- Social media: Visitors aren’t going to engage with a faceless website. Pictures of people encourage comments, likes, follows, shares, etc…
- Search optimization: Websites often rank for the names of your team members, but only if there is a page for each person. It doesn’t work if there’s one page with everyone.
- Conversion rate: Put a name and a face on the site, and you build trust. Trust leads to phone calls, form submissions and sales.
4. Tell Your Passion Story!Why is your company in business? What is your purpose? What do you believe? What are you opposed to? What got you started? Why does this stuff matter?
This is your story.
3 Things to Remove From Your WebsiteNow that you’ve put the good stuff on your site, time to get rid of the bad. Here are three things to NOT put on your site.
- Cut out paragraphs longer than five lines
Most website visitors scan pages, looking for relevant content. Long, blocky paragraphs get scanned or skipped entirely. Write short paragraphs if you want your content to be read. - Get rid of your testimonial page
Testimonials are powerful social proof. But visitors tend not to go to testimonial pages. If you want your testimonials to be seen, sprinkle them throughout the site, on every page. - Skip the “We’re the #1 Best Top Greatest”
Seriously. That just smells like marketing. It’s also common, expected and ineffective…
Resources:
- Need help creating web content? Ask a content developer.
- Need more content ideas? Try answering these questions.