There are 27 million entrepreneurs in the U.S. alone. It can be difficult to stand out in such a saturated market, which is why having an effective website is so important. Are you making these mistakes with your website?
Just Showing Your Portfolio
Here’s the truth. There are tons of people that do what you do. All of these people have websites and all of them have the qualifications necessary to satisfy your customers. If you want people to notice you, you can’t just show off your portfolio. You need to provide value.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.
- What are they asking for?
- What is something that could help make their lives easier?
These are the things that, along with your portfolio, you should include on your website.
Never Updating
A lot of business owners make a website, only to never update it ever again. If you want your website to be an effective goal for getting leads, you need to experiment and change it often. Use Google Analytics to pay attention to your stats.
- What pages are getting the most traffic?
- What has a high bounce rate?
- Where is your traffic coming from?
These are all questions that Google Analytics can answer, so you have a better idea of what pages need improvements. Unlike printed materials, your website isn’t set in stone. You can change it frequently to make it more effective.
Trying To Appear Bigger Than You Are
We’ll never forget a conversation that we had with a client a few years ago:
“When I first went to your site, I thought you were a big company that would be way out of my budget. I didn’t realize it was just the two of you until I started clicking around.”
This feedback was a wake up call, and one of the reasons we decided to rebrand. How many people decided to NOT call us because we looked like a big company that was out of their budget. We were catering to small businesses, but had a site that looked like we worked with bigger companies.
We see a lot of companies using text and images on their website to make them look bigger than they actually are, but we think it’s better to just be yourself. Everyone starts somewhere, and there is nothing wrong with being a one person shop. If you provide a great service and an awesome customer experience, people will love your company, no matter how big or small.
Is it time to make some changes to your website? We specialize in creating easy to use, effective websites for small business owners. Contact us today to see how we can help.
