subject: Serve Your Customer's Website Meat, Not Filler [print this page] Serve Your Customer's Website Meat, Not Filler
Your website needs to be given the same level of focus and thought that your business plan is expected to receive. That is if you are really serious about building your business the right way, from scratch.
I know. I know. Business plans are very time consuming and they are pretty boring documents to compose. To some, they are little more than long-winded, intellectual exercises in composition writing skill. They unpleasantly remind us of those old familiar college term papers that kept us up all night writing. Those papers damaged us for life, didn't they? They seemed so important at the time, but how often have we revisited them since then? Hopefully, your business plan will treated with much more dignity and respect. It is recommended that they be reviewed and updated on a regular basis.
If all this intense writing exercise is not enough, the business planning process itself forces entrepreneurs to project their enterprise's futures five years out from its grand opening. I don't even know what I am doing next weekend let alone in five years. But, all kidding aside companies that create and adopt a well thought out business plan have a much improved chance of succeeding in our very competitive world. I urge you to prepare a good one.
Websites Help Articulate Your Business Plan
If a business plan, which is only read by investors and followed by entrepreneurs can be this instrumental in a business' success, wouldn't you think that a website, which is promoted to the hilt and seen by thousands is even more important to that business? Frankly, it should be.
What good is the best written business plan if your first prospect touch-point is not very impressive and effective? In our new age of Social Media, your customers not you define your business. Your business plans means nothing to them, if your consumer outreach isn't satisfying enough. The same goes for your website. If you don't establish a "personal connection" with your audience within seconds of them landing on your home page, there is little chance they may ever consider your business and its offerings. This is why your webpage must be well planned and successfully executed.
So, what kind of pre-thinking needs to be done to result in an effective website? Of course, you must first be able to clearly identify your target audience. Who are they? What are their interests? These are the basics.
Feed Your Target Audience Quality, Not Quantity
Your business plan asks these same preliminary questions, because it too is designed to root out the people you expect to do business with. If you are in residential real estate, your primary target audience is homebuyers. Every single thing you do in your business and on the web will be geared to this particular audience. Your website must appeal to homebuyers and related influencers. Period. Its creator (you) must understand these potential customer's wants and needs in order to get them to the information they are seeking and the call-to-actions they are expected to follow-through with.
When you think about it, only about twenty percent of a website's content represents its "meat." The remaining eighty percent is mainly "filler." How might this all breakdown?
The "meat" often includes and is not always limited to the following items:
Your website copy
Your blog content (btw, blogs are great for SEO)
Opt in email functions
Call-to-action functions
Social sharing functions
Donate and/or buy functions
Account creation or signup forms (which capture personal data)
The "filler" usually includes and is not always limited to:
Extraneous menu items and "fluff" pages
Sidebar and footer elements
Most Widgets (unless they cause one to bookmark your site or facilitate a "buy" decision)
Unnecessary social sharing buttons (that do not attract others to you)
And other "thingies" that do little or nothing to inform customers or call-to-action.
Appeal, Information and Call-to-Action: Period
Given what I have just shared with you, are you really expected to eliminate what amounts to as much as twenty percent of your current or planned website? After all, this twenty percent is somewhat responsible for and equal share of the appeal that leads some customers to buy from you. Of course, you are not expected to do anything that you may disagree with. Your gut will tell you what the right answer is for you and for your business.
But, please recognize that the more unnecessary information you force your website visitors to have to cut through, the greater the chances are that they will exit your site without doing any business with you. This is your risk to take. So, be very critical about your website's contents. Every word and every item that you build into your website should be an additional reason for your visitors to be drawn further into it and buy. This is the very best rule of thumb that I can offer. If something diverts the consumer's attention away from your call-to-action goals, it simply doesn't belong on your website.
Do you like long winded sales pitches with lots of bells and whistles? Wellneither do your customers. If you are selling something directly to customers over the web, just supply them with whatever they may need to convince them to buy from you. And, if your call-to-action is to result in a physical inquiry with live touch points, lead your customers to that contact gateway without making them travel "half way around the world" to get there. They probably won't finish that sort of trip. Just whet their appetite for further inquiry without overloading them with the many trivial things that you can discuss with them when they call you or show up at your location.
Get rid of the ineffective elements of your website before they ever get built into it. Eliminate it if it is already there. You do not need many of these things. They will not help you grow your business and may actually limit a great deal of consumer interest.
As in your business planning process, set aside quality time to give sufficient thought to your website's contents, as early in the planning stages as possible. The finished product should give more space to the good stuff while respecting your visitors' limited time and particular interests. It is what matters to them not to you that counts the most for your ultimate business success.
