1. A picture/video of you, the owner, with your credentials. With the advent of Web 2.0 the minimum you should have on your business website is a welcome video – no more than 2 minutes and a link to pictures of your business facility or pictures of people providing the service you render. You should not be concerned with the ultimate professional setting for your video. What I mean is, a portable video camera of you walking through your facility while providing a short tour or mini tour of some of your workplace, provides the viewer with an inside look that they do not have of any similar business they may find on the web. With today’s technology, you really do not need an entire camera crew with major special lights and media experts to produce a high quality video. I use a flip mino video recorder, or a Logitech Orbit Webcam for most of my videos. Be natural and conversational in your tone in front of the camera.
A stiff talking head is not nearly as interesting as someone sitting on the side of their desk and walking around their office while explaining what the visitor would experience by being associated with your company. You might even consider a link about why you came to providing the service that you do in your business. People want to know your “Why”.
2. Your physical business location should be easily discoverable on your website. A map associated with a mapping service so that people can use it to print out directions. You could also have directions ready to print out that would get a person to your location from several different starting points. Use Google maps to highlight your business. You should absolutely take the time to to fill in the information that Google maps has for you to identify your business. You would be foolish not to take advantage of this FREE location service associated with Google maps. Make sure you put in the driving time to get to your location as time, not miles, on your direction page as time is the significant factor in people deciding to visit your business location. Make sure youinclude easily recognizable landmarks in your description to make make a “no hassles” trip to your location. Consider a link that has directions to your business with a “first visit” savings coupon on the bottom of the directions. For some reason, “savings” is a preferred term over “discount” for me but you may have to do your own research as the meaning of words change as the economy changes. Make sure that you have taken the time to fill out your completely free Google Place Page.This a an amazing service that is vital to being found on the web.
3. Make sure there is compelling “sales copy” on your home page or landing page to draw in your visitors to other interesting educational links on your websites. A few lessons in producing great sales copy on your website will pay large dividends to your business. If their is nothing to keep them on your site for more than a few seconds, all the work that you did to get them to your site is lost to the, difficult to detect, black hole of “no sale”. There is an awesome copywriter by the name of Clayton Makepeace – you should become familiar with his website – a wonderful sort of copywriting information. Just do a Goggle search on Clayton Makepeace and you will find his website.
4. It is imperative that you have a system to collect the e-mail of your visitors. Many visitors get to your site – just once, and determine if you are a viable source of the information they are looking for. If you have the proper attraction methods, you can turn that one visit into many by getting their e-mail. You will want to give your visitor the opportunity to opt into your periodic “Special Reports”. Please do not call your communication a “Newsletter”. The name just does not have the power and urgency that a “Special Report” has. Have you ever paid for access to a “newsletter”? The chances are you have not. But, I have made several payments for a “Special Report”. I suspect you have too. Am I suggesting that you make your e-mail communication a paid subscription? No. But, you may develop a paid product or subscription to present to your list during the course of your communication, after the awesome value of your communication becomes clear. My favorite source of e-mail communication is the aweber company. With this service, you can send e-mail when ever you want to your lists, or several lists, as there is no limit to the different lists you can create. This is a very important distinction in your search for an e-mail client. Also, I believe you MUST use an autoresponder system and I believe that aweber is one of the best at this. You can also coordinate an e-mail communication with a post from your blog with this system.
5. I know you have been hearing about how important it is to incorporate social media into your business these days. At the very least, you should have links to your Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube accounts. There are, of course several others. Personally, I am in the process of organizing all of my Web 2.0 social media sites on one web page so that I can keep track of all of them. Do you have to do them all? Of course not. But, there are still massive numbers of people on all of these sites. Should you just be seen in one? Back in the day when phone books were the only way, I advertised in several of them. Why? because people had different reasons why they liked certain books. Today, the internet has social networks that can be targeted to within a few miles of your location. How silly is it to NOT make “friends” with those that are in your market area so that they are aware of your services.
Many people are just not sure how to approach promoting your business through these social networks. In essence, the concept is to first attend the “party” of the online social media experience. Next, meet some people that you like and that like you and invite them back to your “house” (your website or your blog). Then, they will notice the great things on your website and find out all the things that you do and the services you provide. After they are in the know about what business services your provide, they might want your services. Or, just as possible they might not want your services. However, they could refer someone else to your services, if you show them you are a nice “friend”.
The biggest mistake in the social media conversation is being like the person that stands up on a chair in the middle of a party and tells everyone to make sure they come to his dry cleaning store, ice cream shop, or whatever it is that he is selling. Yes, that is tacky and it is rude. It plays out the same what on the web. Become a friend first, then share what you do to the interested ones.
6. Your hours and services provided at your business should be clearly displayed on your website. Samples, if applicable, could be displayed on your site also. Introductory tours, consults, or reports can be offers to bring the visitor a little closer to receiving your product, service, or idea to ultimately bring profit to you though the transaction exchange. If you are a business that anemergency contact number is appropriate, make sure that you provide that number. And, a pet peeve of mine – if you are one of those businesses that have been convinced that some sort of a word / number combination is going to win you more customers, please, at least make sure that you put the complete phone number WITH the cool words you have chosen to help your customer remember you. Do not just put – 000-BUY-HERE. Why? – because I might have a phone that does not have the letter on the keys and my brain does not remember which number go with which letters. So for me, unless the numbers are there, I do not call that company! Wow, to do all that we do to get our visitors to call us, and be stopped because the number is not clear, would be a shame.
Several hyperlinks within your services explanation will provide additional information to your site visitor that make them feel like they have already visited your business before even getting to your physical location. Another sample of services you provide could be pictures of your finished workthat you have done for your clients. Whether it is a picture, a restored vintage automobile, a set of cabinets you constructed, or a series of websites you have completed for your clients, Or pictures of satisfied patients – pictures are the best at showing your successes.
7. Testimonials of customers speaking about your services should be available on your website. Video testimonials, done correctly are very convincing, but I think that a combination of these types of testimonials are in order. The nice thing about putting testimonials on your website is that you can link to them from one of your “Special Reports” later on from your e-mail communication – hopefully with your autoresponder so they you can systematically connect them to all parts of your awesome website as they go through your autoresponder series.
Testimonials are best gathered through a system you have in place. As a chiropractic physician, I have a “Patient of the Week” system. All I have to do is say, “Hey ,you sure would make a great “Patient of the Week” to one of my patients and they say’ “Really, What is that?” I say, ” You fill out a short form and we take your picture and that is about it.” They usually say “Ok”. Next, I slip a laminated form into their file that says “Patient of the Week” on it and my staff does the rest. They take a picture, give them a form to fill out, type out what patient wrote on form, present typed form to patient for them to sign, and have them sign a release allowing us to use their testimonial.
For a video, I simple ask them if they would do a 1 to 2 minute video testimonial and the usual response is “Yes”. I have a web camera attached to my computer and I put them in front of it and ask them a few questions. At the end of the video, I say – “Do you care if I use this for anything?” They say “No”. I am free to put it on my website, YouTube, blog, make a DVD, or link it to a post on Twitter.
Ok, I lied. There are many more important things you should have on a business website. Yes there are many more than just seven. However, I did not want to spend forever listing them all in this article. It would be a book instead of an article. Hmm. – not a bad idea. I would be interested in what YOUR top 7 things a business website should have. What do you think? Really, let me know your thoughts about this article.
