Apr

How Does Your Website Greet Your Visitors?

By Murray

I recently visited a retail outlet of a large national cell phone company of which I was a customer. The purpose of the visit was to review my cell plan, and revise a few of my cell phone options. I was greeted in the store by a representative who was much more interested in anything else that might be going on in the store than she was addressing my needs. During this short conversation I decided that my visit to this store was irrelevant to my needs. I decided at that point to pay the penalty, cancel my contract with this company, and go to another cell phone service provider, which I did, was greeted very well, my needs were exceeded, and as a bonus I saved some money.

Now I’m not writing this story to complain to you about the poor service I received from the first company. You have enough of your own, bad service stories, I’m sure.
But are you unknowingly greeting your visitors to your website in the same fashion?

Think about this…
You’ve optimized your website for an important search term to your buisness. Let’s use the overused example; “dog beds”.
So you’ve done a good job in optimizing the website and Google is rewarding you by sending visitors to your site.

Put yourself in your visitors shoes…
You’re in need of a dog bed for your new puppy. So you do a search on Google and find a listing for a local pet store that sells dog beds.
You click on the Google listing and enter the pet store website.

What do you see?
As the customer, do you immediately see what you’re looking for? Does the website give you the impression that they’re interested in your needs, your concerns? Or do you feel a little uncomfortable about how great this company is telling you they are?

What does your website say to your potential customers?
Does each page on your website talk about YOU and how great YOUR company is?
Or does it clearly reach out to a customer who’s in need of your products and good service.
Is your website a corporate billboard, or does it project the personality of your company?
Are you, or your staff, on your website in a picture or video?

These are just some of the tough questions you must ask yourself if you want your website to get customers for you.
Many small business people hide behind their website talking about how great the company is, and why the products are the best in the world.
But what you need to understand is that your visitor doesn’t care about you, or your company, even if you are the greatest there ever was.

Your visitor’s only concern is finding what they need from a company they feel comfortable with.
Although the internet has become a “first stop” for most consumers when looking to purchase just about anything, they still want to deal with people they’re comfortable with and trust. If you can project that through your website, your chances of getting new customers coming in your door are much greater.

Quick Tips:

SEO your website to be found on Google (especially local searches).
Make your website highly relevant to the search terms you optimize for.
Talk about your visitor’s needs, and how you can help them. Not YOU!
Be visible! Use pictures and videos of you and your staff, your store, and anything else that will help your visitor begin to create a feeling of comfort and trust.
Give your visitor a real person to contact!
Here are two examples;
1. “For customer support please contact info@dogbeds.com”
2. “If you’d like to ask me any questions about our dog beds or your special needs, please feel welcome to contact me anytime at fred@dogbeds.com”
Which of the above examples would you be most comfortable with if you were a customer?

Do this stuff and you’ll be amazed at the response you get from new customers.

P.S. Ok, the puppy picture was a bit of a stretch for this story, but it is cute…and reminds me of a member of our family who left us last year after 14 years…”Buddy”.