6. Messaging on your web page - what to do when visitors don't convert

Introduction

When visitors come to our site, we only have seconds to explain how we can help and why they should keep reading, and if they don't find what they want, then they're gone. Website is like a shop window - it's where potential customers get their first glimpse of your business. But if we're not telling them how you can help them within seconds, they'll click away and never return.

In this episode, Simon Harvey and Daniel Kleber, will show you how to create landing pages that clearly explain how you can help visitors and why they should keep reading. We'll give you practical tips to optimise your landing pages and turn your website into your company's best salesperson.

Remember, your website is where potential customers engage with your business. With the right landing pages, you can make a great first impression and turn website visitors into paying customers. Let's make your website work for you!

To help you improve your marketing strategy, download the free brand script worksheet, which includes sections for each part of the storytelling framework we discuss in our episodes, here (or copy and paste the link below): 

demodia.com/brandscript-worksheet

---

Join marketing experts Simon Harvey and Daniel Kleber on Authentic Marketing, the biweekly podcast that provides proven marketing tips to improve your marketing efforts and help your business grow.

Subscribe to our biweekly episodes dropping Friday on your favourite podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other.

Book a consultation with our Authentic Engagement coaches to help you navigate through the jungle of the business world: demodia.com/sales-marketing-review

Demodia Instagram: instagram.com/demodia_digital

Demodia LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/demodia

Episode Transcript

Over the last few episodes, we've been looking at story structure and the importance of giving your prospects a plan. Today, we're going to take a step forwards and look at your website. Your website is the shop window to your organisation. It's where customers get their first impressions of your business and how they get to know you, and more importantly, where they start to know that when visitors come to your site, You have seconds to explain how you help and why they should keep reading. And you've seen that when they don't find what they want, they're gone. On today's episode, we're going to dive into the depths of your website landing pages and give you some practical tips that you can use to ensure your visitors know what you offer and ultimately turn your website into your company's best salesperson. Hello everyone and welcome to the Authentic Marketing Podcast. I'm your host Simon Harvey and with me as usual is our co host Daniel Klaber. Thank

you Simon. Good morning everyone.

Hi there Daniel. So today Daniel we're going to talk about webpages and websites. So let me ask you this, you know, when was the last time you bought something online or you know at least at minimum went and looked at the details of a product or you looked at a review or something online before you purchased it physically in a shop?

Well, I'm not a big shopper but... If I need something other than food, I usually order it online. And I think it's been a week since my

last order. So let's think about how much shopping we do online. I personally buy loads of things online these days. And I think the last couple of years have dramatically disrupted the whole market. You know, they've changed the way so many of us shop or the way that so many of us look for solutions to our problem. Physical shops was where everybody went not so long ago, but these days I think everything has moved into that online space.

Yeah, it's crazy how the global market suddenly transformed. A couple of years ago, almost 40 percent of all small businesses didn't have a website. Can you imagine that? It's really

hard to believe that, but it's true. Yeah, the pandemic has completely changed everything. You know, online businesses have boomed and so many of us have changed our shopping habits.

Yeah, that's definitely true for B2C companies. How about B2B businesses? I think

they've been affected too. Many trade shows we saw went online. Many business meetings moved online. That's why things like Zoom have taken off so much. And rather than having face to face sales presentations, I think a lot of businesses have relied on online presences like the website. Every business these days has to have a website, and if they want to stay a leader in their sector, it needs to be a good one.

Yeah, that's definitely true. In my years of working in the marketing branch, I've seen so many bad webpages. A lot of small businesses see their webpages as a replacement for brochures or business cards. Most times they contain either too little or too much information. Did you know that on average, visitors spend around 52 seconds reading a web page? There's not much that you can take in within that time.

Yeah, 52 seconds, that's pretty amazing really when you think about it. It just goes to show how important that first impression really is. There's another stat actually that I heard the other day. This one was saying that visitors make an initial decision within just six seconds. You've got six seconds to get across and convince somebody that it's worthwhile staying on your site. And many people don't even read the text in there, they can't in that time, they just scan through the headlines. So, your webpage has to be so clear, it has to be so clear that the customers looking at it should instantly understand your message and what your problem is that you solve.

Definitely. And over the years, we have gone through numerous client pages and there are several common mistakes that we see coming up quite often. They have too much text on each page or they try to cover too many different ideas. They're using inside language on the web page. They don't have clear CDAs. The images they are using are just random and don't connect to the customer's vision of success.

So how do you fix these things? What we want to look at now is a structure that you can use on all of your web pages that's going to ensure that you get your message across clearly and succinctly. So let's take a look at the process and see how to do that. In earlier episodes we introduced the brand script and talked about how to invite our hero, the customer, into a story. We discussed how to build a one liner, how to make a three step plan and how to create a clear call to action. Now we're going to pull all those together to create your web page. These become the key elements that you want to use when creating content for your pages.

So, how do we build a webpage that

converts? So there's key sections that you want to be able to include on each webpage. So starting from the top, the first section that you want to include all the time is the header. You know, this is one of the most important parts of your page. It's the first part that your customer reads, so it should be brief and really clear. The header needs to highlight what exactly it is that you do, and how it's going to make your visitor's life better. Okay,

that sounds simple, but clarity is also essential here. The headline needs to state clearly what your business does. For example, we provide IT security solutions for your online banking, or we keep your house warm when things get too cold outside. Then in the subheader, talk about the value that you bring and how that will make your customer's life better. Use the success section from your brand script. You should talk about how your solution will improve their life.

And last but not least in this section, don't forget to include a call to action. So many web pages don't have a clear call to action in their header. We've talked about this before, but include something like call us now, book a consultation or something that's actionable and appropriate to your business. Another strong recommendation that I've got is to repeat that call to action at the top right hand corner of every page. Research has shown that this is really where people expect to find the checkout within webpages. You know, it's where their eyes naturally go to. And

let's not forget the image. Have a compelling image showing your customers how success looks

like. Yeah, very important. So not just random images over the page. Let people picture what success and the transformation looks like. So let's look at the next section of the page. This is what I'm going to call the stakes section. So why is this important? Well, if you remember from our earlier episodes, the story doesn't get started until there's a problem, and if there's no stakes, there's no story. So you need a conflict. You need a problem to get people interested in what you've got to say. This content I want you to go and pull from the failure section of your brand script. In this part you need to outline the pain points that you know your visitors have and that you can help them to solve. There

are many ways to illustrate the stakes section on your web page. You can include a few sentences or list them as bullet points. Just don't go too negative. I tend to think of it like adding salt when you make bread. If you don't add salt, then the bread rises too far and collapses. However, if you have too much, it never rises in the first place.

It's exactly the same sort of thing in there. So now you've got your steaks, the next section is the value proposition. In this section, you're going to explain what your customer's life will look like if they purchase your product or service. The value proposition is probably the most positive part of your page, so it should immediately follow that negative stakes section. The content for your value proposition needs to come from the success part of your brand script.

One piece of advice I would add here is to use specific language and clear benefits. Include things such as, You will save time. Or you will reduce risks and so on. Next

up comes the time to introduce yourself. This is what I call the guide section. So the guide section is where you need to show that you understand the challenges that your customer is having and talk about how you can solve them. The wording you include in this part of the webpage comes from the, uh, the guide section of the brand script, and it needs to demonstrate empathy and authority.

Exactly. Show that you've been there before and you know how to solve these problems. Another important thing to add here is things like testimonials and quotes from your customers. These really show what other people

think of your work. They do indeed, and if you don't have those, as many people might not, the other option is just to include logos

here. And now we come to

the plan section. Yes, the plan section. Indeed, this is very important. It summarizes the key steps your visitor needs to take in order to do business with you. In a previous episode, we explained in detail how to create a three-step plan, so I won't go through it here now, but the reason we recommend you include a plan section is that people don't want to go into the unknown. They won't commit without knowing what they're gonna get into or what they're gonna get from you.

Yes, they want to know how much of their time and effort it's going to take if they sign up to work with

you. Yeah, although it might be obvious to you what the process is, it's not obvious to them. So giving them a three step plan really helps to provide some clarity and trust. The way that you can do this is to condense it down. Do something like saying, you know, step one, book a free consultation. Step two, get free personalized training. Step three, run your personal best. You know, that'd be the perfect thing for a personal trainer or someone like that. Another thing I'd also consider is those visitors that aren't yet ready to book a meeting. For those people, you should also add a secondary call to action. This doesn't need to be anything complex, but ideally it should educate them and add value to their business. Typically I'd recommend something like a checklist maybe, um, or a template that they can download. I don't suggest adding more than two calls to action though. Otherwise what you're going to do is overload people with choice and then they're not going to act at all.

One last thing I want to mention is the other content that many people are now asking what they should do with. Things like product descriptions, feature lists, or other

descriptive text. Yeah, I think you see that a lot, particularly on B2B websites where people need to include a little bit more information about their products. This is all important, but you've got to be careful about what we were talking about earlier. If there's too much content on the page, too many different messages, then things are going to get confusing and you've lost your customers at that point in time. So all this stuff belongs at the bottom of the page after you've gone through the main story section. Once you've hooked people, they're happy to scroll further in any case. It should be kept separate from the main story thread and can provide detail once you've gone through that three step plan and had the main sort of calls to action.

Fantastic. Listeners? You now have a great framework that you can use to improve the clarity and conversions of your website.

Thanks, Simon. Thanks for that conversation, Daniel. So listeners, wasn't that great to hear that there's a structure that you can use for your homepage and landing pages that will ensure your visitors get the information they need. In particular, I thought Daniel's comment about the header on the webpage stating what your business does is so key. It seems obvious and it probably is, but many sites that I visit still say things like, you know, intelligent, connected, secure, responsible in their headline. You know, what does this mean? What does that company actually do? I'll leave you to try and work that out for yourself. If you're having problems with your website and don't seem to be able to get visitors to convert, or if you aren't really sure how to create your story or lay out your own wireframe, then you can hire an authentic engagement coach. Just go to demodia. com to hire a coach that will show you how to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and find an easier way to grow your business. So, listeners, at the end of each episode, I like to give you a set of concrete actions. These are practical steps from today's episode that you can take to immediately improve the effectiveness of your sales and marketing. In our conversation today, we talked about your website and how to structure your landing pages in a way that clearly explains who you help and how you do it. So for today's practical step, I want you to build a wireframe for your website. I want you to use your brand script as the starting point. Then you're going to craft each of the sections of the site using the content from the related section of the brand script. If you need help filling them out, rewind this podcast and listen to the descriptions that we gave again earlier on. To help you out you can go to demodia. com slash wireframe and download the landing page wireframe worksheet. In there you'll find sections to each part of the page. Once you've completed your wireframe, what I want you to do is go to your website and update your landing page or your home page with your new content. Give visitors a clear understanding of how you help and how to work with them and they will convert. That's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Authentic Marketing Podcast, where we help you to create a sales and marketing plan that will get you new customers and grow your business. Follow us and rate us wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to join us on LinkedIn. We always love to hear what you want to learn and how we're helping your business succeed. See you next time.