This post is part of a series on getting more leads and enquiries from your website.

Part 3 – Making the Right First Impression!

So far in this mini-series, we’ve focused on two key areas. Firstly, the importance of knowing what your customers are looking for when they make an online search. Secondly, how to use title tags and meta descriptions to make sure they choose your website from the search engine results.

But this only takes us half way through the process of getting your website to generate more leads and enquiries.

Once a visitor has clicked through to your site, the design, layout and content should work together to convert them into a potential customer.

The way to do this is to examine each page of your website, checking these areas against the profile you’ve created for your ideal customer.

You’ll need to ask yourself questions to ensure that what visitors find will be in line with their expectations.

• Design

Does the look and feel of the page resonate with what your customers are looking for?

Visitors will make an instant visual judgement about what they see, and you need to prevent them ‘bouncing’ off the page.

It’s vital you use professional imagery, and that all aspects of design – including subtle elements such as typeface and colours are appropriate for the audience you’re appealing to. A ‘high end’ creative approach for a site promoting a budget product – or vice versa – will send the wrong signals and might dissuade visitors from staying.

• Layout

Is the page clear and well laid out?

If visitors are confronted by an over-busy or confusing page layout, or acres of dense text, they’re likely to go elsewhere.

Your page layout should reassure visitors they’re going to have a quick, easy and intuitive experience. Having plenty of white space, clear messaging and appealing images will help reassure them.

• Content

Do the key messages on the page match with what visitors are looking for?

Now you have attracted visitors visually; you need persuasive headlines and engaging text to convince them to buy from you.

Remember to focus clearly on solutions and benefits. Your customers will only be interested in how your product or service is going to help them solve the issue they have.

Imagine you’re a customer looking for a wedding photographer.  You’re unlikely to be interested in the technical specifications of the cameras the photographer will use – you just want reassurance about the quality of the images they’ll deliver.

There’s nothing wrong with being proud of things like your businesses’ unique story, or the special equipment and techniques you use. But these will be of secondary interest to your prospects, so give priority to those things that are going to genuinely affect a buying decision.

Is the page content relevant to the search your visitor has made?

It’s important that the page a visitor lands on accurately reflects their enquiry – and matches the meta description they’ll have seen in the search results.

Back to our hypothetical photographer. A prospective customer searching for a wedding photographer will want to be taken to a page with images and information only about this service. If they find themselves on a generic page with information about other photography services offered, they’re far more likely to bounce than if they had landed on a dedicated page.

If your business offers a range of services or products, you should look at creating a landing page for each of them.

Finally, Make Sure Every Page Has Clear Next Steps!

Every page on your website needs to have clear next steps to help guide visitors to what they’re looking for. Where you direct them to will be dependent on which page they’ve arrived on. You’ll need to put yourself in the position of the visitor, asking yourself; “what would I like to see next?”, making sure the next step is clearly signposted.

We’ll be discussing the visitor journey in more detail in the final blog in this series.