What A Page On Your Service Business Website Must Not Do!

I have talked about various aspects of website marketing and website conversion, so if you have been applying the lessons contained in my blog posts, then you will be benefiting from more visitors to your website. I know this because I have been marketing small businesses since 2003 and I have seen the results achieved by those who implement my advice.

Now that you have more visitors, I want to cover something that you should not do to scare them away. I have already explained that each page on your website should have one primary purpose; one action that you want your users to take at the end of the page. http://www.smallbusinesssalt.co.uk/blog/where-most-small-businesses-go-wrong-when-it-comes-to-website-conversion/

I have further explained that you should use my Two Minute Trust Builder to ensure that you persuade as many of your website visitors as possible to make contact with you when they visit each page on your website. http://www.smallbusinesssalt.co.uk/blog/why-blogging-generates-leads-for-small-businesses/

However, what shouldn’t you do is often as important as what should you do. Here are some of the things that send me slightly delirious when I see an otherwise good page on a small business website going out of its way to ruin the good work done.

1. Linking to irrelevant topics
Imagine if you are reading all about a certain type of service, for example on an accountant’s website ‘filing tax returns’, then in the right hand column of that page there is a link to insolvency services offered by the accountancy firm. How does that help to convert the visitor interested in filing a tax return into a client?

It doesn’t.

It confuses the message.

The content on the right hand side of a page (a very good column to have by the way) is there to help convert the visitor into one who makes contact with you, so anything on that page should support that content, not distract the viewer from it.

2. Linking to other websites.
I find this one utterly bizarre, but I see it so often that I absolutely must mention it.

Some website owners attract a visitor to their website, stimulate interest in their services and then send them off to another business website to find their answer. It might be a trade body or a government body; the point is the link should never be there. Why on earth would you send someone away from your small business website at the very point that they are just about to enquiry about your services? You wouldn’t, not if you are a sane business owner, so please check you are not making this drastic mistake.

If you think that linking to a membership organisation proves that you are a high quality service provider, or that linking to a website that confirms the accreditation that you have is a good one, rather than link to their website, link to a page on your website explaining why this accreditation or membership benefits your client. That way, you get the benefit without losing your visitor.

3. Social Media nonsense…
You might guess that I am not a fan of social media buttons being plastered everywhere over a website, worse still twitter feeds embedded onto your website. Why? For the reasons mentioned above; they distract the visitor. Imagine if your visitor is just about to make contact with you, then they see a tweet from your twitter feed which looks interesting. They click it and are suddenly on twitter. They start reading related tweets, clicking your hashtag… before you know it they are on a competitor’s website because he writes better tweets than you. Ouch. You lost your client.

Please let me explain something. Something you might find quite hurtful, but my job is to give you good, honest, practical, proven, small business marketing advice, not nonsense. There are more than enough nonsense peddlers out there selling you the next ‘bright shiny marketing thing’.

So here is my advice.

Your business is probably not sexy enough to make use of twitter, social media etc.

If you are an accountant, who really wants to share your latest blog post about tax codes? If you are a divorce solicitor, is anyone really going to post a tweet saying “Yeh, these guys are great, got me a cracking settlement”? If you are an estate agent, is anyone going to share “Wow, I just moved home and only had to pay £3,000 plus VAT to my estate agent, what a bargain”?

You see the point that I am making I hope? Most of us do not have services that are sexy enough for people to want to share with our friends and family, so adding social media nonsense to a page designed to generate enquiries for your services will have completely the opposite effect of your intentions, I can assure you.

Summary
Avoid these three problem areas and you will see the volume of enquiries for your services increase.
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Small Business Salt – Practical Business Advice For Small Business Owners.