Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
1, Make sure your website meets your goals. Those could include generating sales, leads or providing information about your business, but should not be just “getting more clicks.”
2, Don’t make your website a brochure. It should foster conversation with your visitors and gently guide them to the solution you provide.
3, Don’t focus on yourself or on industry jargon customers won’t understand. Make it about customers’ problems and how you can solve them.
4, Optimize your website using relevant keywords so you appear highly on search engines. Think like your customer and search using words they would use.
Every business needs a home on the web and technology has gotten good enough that almost anyone can create a decent page using tools like HubSpot, WordPress, Squarespace and many more.
The trick is to create a site that helps you grow your business. Here are the most important things to know before you build or redesign your company’s website.
Goals could include increasing sales, generating leads or making sure your customers know about your business and recognize your name.
Simply “getting more clicks” isn’t a goal and it won’t help you earn money. Too many businesses think their site should be an online brochure. That’s boring. Your website should foster conversation with your visitors and gently guide them to the solution you provide.
When you create your site, be sure to think like your customer. What problem do you solve for them? Too many company websites focus completely on themselves: how long they’ve been in business, the specs of the products they sell or use jargon their customers don’t understand.
Share how your company helps your customers and make it all about THEM. Retail websites should guide toward your products as the solution to the visitor’s needs. Business-to-business company websites should share how your services can help visitors solve their problems and give them the next step to try and/or buy.
You’ve got to be findable on Google and other engines and you should optimize your content to improve the odds of showing up well in a search (otherwise known as SEO or Search Engine Optimization).
To optimize your website, focus on using relevant search terms (keywords) and formatting your pages with attractive titles and descriptions to encourage searchers to click to find out more. Think like your customer and search using words they would use. Make sure your site has those keywords listed in the content of your pages.
Cheap websites are almost always really slow. Drag-and-drop web builders require a ton of back-end code to make work and images can get very large, which increases download time (especially on a phone).
Google hates slow sites. More importantly, your visitors won’t wait for your site to load for more than three seconds. Your site also needs to look good on more than your computer. More than 60 percent of all web browsing happens on phones.
The goal of your website is to get your visitors to take an action. It could be to fill out a form, explore more about your business or buy your products.
If it’s not clear what the point of a page on your site actually is, you can’t reasonably expect your visitors to take action. Tell them what you want them to do — common CTAs include “Buy Now,” “Learn More,” “Request a Quote,” “Subscribe to Our Newsletter,” or “Talk to Sales.” Ideally each page on your site should only have one CTA. If you offer too many choices and buttons, people will give up due to “analysis paralysis.” They won’t know what to do, so they’ll simply leave.
Great websites all share a few kinds of pages. There’s the homepage, which is an introduction to the problems you solve for your customers, and a directory to guide visitors where you want them to go.
The “About Us” page is actually the second most important page on any website, according to Google. Include information about your team, your qualifications and links to your services or products.
Your Products and/or Services pages should be clearly labeled and give visitors clear next steps: “Buy Now,” “Request More Information” or “Fill Out a Form.” The “Contact Us” page should include directions if you have a physical location, a phone number and an easy form to request a call. A blog lets you share news about your business, keyword-rich content for Google and information about how you help your customers.
Trying to kludge together your website with a form that emails your sales team (or worse, your “info” email), trying to remember to load your new contacts into a third-party email tool and tracking sales relationships in a spreadsheet is begging for confusion, lost deals and frustration. Incorporate a customer relationship management database, or CRM. Do-it-all tools like HubSpot will build your website, manage your social media, engage your sales team and track your customer interactions from a single spot.
A well-built site that’s part of a system will let your customers request more information and you can trade valuable information (white papers, product information or demos or even events) for the ability to connect with visitors after they give you their email address. The process of trading valuable information for connection is called inbound marketing, and it’s the best way to make your website into an actual sales tool vs. a static, boring brochure.
Finally, it’s important to analyze your website’s performance. Free tools like Google Analytics track your website’s traffic, your most popular pages and the kinds of people you’re reaching. Look for pages that are getting visitors to take action (converting), receive a lot of traffic and generate leads or revenue. Do more of what works and get rid of pages that don’t help you meet your goals.
Your website is a tool to help your business achieve its goals. Yes, creating a site is easy, but it’s hard work to make your website perform. Whether it’s driving sales, generating leads or building brand awareness, your site has a job to do.
Speak to your customer needs and allow your visitors to learn more about you at their own pace, while giving them easy steps to ask for more. If all this seems like a lot of work, it is. Consider working with a professional to help you create a useful sales tool that generates business growth.
