Small Town Websites: More on Design

Good day once again. After having written the last post I realized that before moving on to marketing your website, I should probably touch a little more on the design and content of your site.

Your website is your virtual store front. Imagine having a store in a heavy traffic shopping area. All the people walking by are looking into your store. What do you have there in the window to make people come inside? Once they come inside, what do you have or say that makes them do business with you and not your competitor down the street?

It's the same with your website. Tons of people searching for your products and services are walking by your website listed in the search engines. What makes them want to do business with you? Once they've clicked on your search engine result, what takes them beyond the home page and into your website to investigate further then ends in a sale or inquiry??

The META DESCRIPTION TAG

Let's start with your search engine results. When a spider or crawler indexes your site for a search engine, the little description that appears below the title of your website is determined by what you have in your "meta tags." Meta tags are usually things that your designer knows about because it's part of the code to write your website. But if you are informed about the meta tags yourself, then you can make sure that the designer provides an accurate description of your business the way you would describe it. No one knows more about your industry than you. Don't leave it up to your designer to describe your business. Provide them with this info. The meta tag that influences the way search engines will describe your website is called the "Meta Description Tag." That really is all you need to know to tell your designer what it is and what you would like it to say. This is the first thing that people see when walking past your website. So try to make is say something that not only describes what you do or sell but also what makes you better or more unique than the next website down the line.

YOUR HOME PAGE

OK, so you've got someone who has seen your search engine result and it has looked like something they want to pursue further. They click on your link and it takes them to your home page. Now what do you want them to see?

Well, there are a few things you should avoid at this point. You cannot and should not try to put everything you do or sell on the front page. Too much information will confuse the visitor and they wont invest the time into finding what they need. Especially if you make it too hard for them to find.

Instead you should give a very brief overview of all you have to offer. Again, think of this as a potential customer first walking in the door of your store. Greet them. Make them feel comfortable. Provide an easy page for them to browse around on with out feeling like the sales person is hounding them to make a decision.

Layout your page so that links to what they might be looking for are easily seen. For example: if you sell gift items, provide links that break down those items by a broad category on the home page. If you have Christmas items and brand name items and plush toys and so on. List those as broad categories on the home page. If someone came to your site looking for a Santa Claus trinket. They would plainly see that they need to go to your Christmas items page. From there you can break it down to Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, snowmen, etc.

This applies to ANY type of business. If you are a plumber and you offer commercial and residential services, start there. Provide two links on your home page offering "Commercial Services" and "Residential Services." Then from there, list more specific items. Under commerical you may have "New Construction" and "Existing Buildings." Under residential you may have "Bathroom Services" or "Kitchen Services." (OK, I'm not a plumber but you get this idea. Like I said, you know your industry better than anyone else! haha)

If you have someone interested in something specific coming to your site, and they clearly see another page that will provide them information on what they are looking for without having to guess, then they will click on it. Then BOOM! The next thing you know, there in!

The store equivalent to this would be someone walking into your store and you greet them pleasantly. They see the section of the store that contains the items they came in to look for and the next thing you know, they are walking to the check out with the item they needed.

Keeping it simple and easy to navigate. That's the key! Think of organizing things like you would build a pyramid starting from the top. List the biggest categories first. Then on each of those pages break it down further and so on. The catch 22 is not to get too detailed. In the end you have to have more than one item on a page. So, using the example above, if you have only one Santa trinket and one snowman trinket, you may only have to go as far as "Christmas Items" to list all that you have. Use your best judgement. The designers will want to keep the pages to a minimum. So try to find a nice balance.

The other links that can and should be found on your website are your "About Me" page. This is the page where you tell people who you are and all about your experience and where you explain what makes you unique from your competitor in more detail. People who buy online have to feel like they can trust the site they are buying from or they have to feel like you are a trustworthy person to do business with before they will call you for your services. This can be a pretty important page and shouldn't be left out of your design.

This is where the person who walks into your virtual store that may be considering a purchase or using your services and may make their final decision to do so. Illustrating that you have the experience, the knowledge and the reliability to earn the potential customer's business can go a long way.

You also need to have your "Contact Me" link on your home page. If someone has walked into your virtual store and looked around and read about you and still has questions, you NEED to make yourself accessible to that customer. How you do this is up to you. You can simply provide an inquiry form where someone can fill out their question, provide you an email address or a phone number where they can be reached so you can get back with them and have them click the "submit" button. The good side to this is it provides you a "lead." An interested person who has shown enough interest in contacting you and wanting you to contact them back. The downside to this is some people will be leery of giving out their information. They may want to remain anonymous until they make the decision to do business with you. These folks may prefer to simply call you with their questions. If you choose to do an email inquiry form, I highly recommend that you clearly state that you wont be spamming them or selling their email to a third party. That may help ease their minds about submitting their information. If you have an e-newsletter (again, another topic for down the road) then offer the ability to receive it or not. I wouldn't just use the information you gain to start pushing e-newsletters out. That can work against the good reputation your trying to build with your customer.

Other links on your home page can vary. You may have items to sell that you want to "closeout" so a simple link to sale items may be great. Other useful links to other websites should be there. Resources you can provide your customer can show you are helpful (plus, reciprocating links are important to good SEO).

I just wanted to touch on the basics. The high points. Your designer will undoubtedly have more suggestions. Do some give and take. Brain storm with them. Your input is as valuable to them as theirs is to you.

Now you should be prepared for those customers to go browsing around in your virtual store. Hopefully they are hanging out. Looking around. And eventually turning into a sale. A return on your investment.

There are ways to measure your "conversion." That's when your customer does what you hope they will on your website. That comes when you understand your Analytics.

But geez! Don't even get me started on that right now!

Until next time...