What should you show on your website?

There are a number of basic things that you should show on your website in order to attract and convert the best number of visitors.

Show your qualifications and achievements, achievements

• Always show evidence of what you have done
• Demonstrate your understanding of your target market and the problems they have.
• Speak to your audience through stories – we respond much better to them.
• Prove that you care about your audience – ask questions.
• Be proud, but also be humble 
• Always put you customers first

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Is Your Website Suffering from a Personality Disorder?

The old adage is true … People buy from People!

Injecting personality into your website is one of the most effective ways to convey a human touch, to convey the fact that your website and therefore business is backed by real people!

Visitors are interested in accessible, unintimidating websites just as we’re drawn to friendly, easy-going and downright nice people.

But not all of us are blessed with this effortless charm. Likewise, many websites exhibit a lot of traits that simply put visitors off them.

Is your website suffering from any of these common “personality disorders”?

• Does it talk about itself more than the visitor? 
• Does it forget to say how good it can be for your potential client? 
• Does it provide simply outrageous claims that it can’t back up! 
• Does it talk the talk? Keeps rabbiting on about things that just aren’t important! 
• Does it talk with forked-tongues? Talk gibberish? Talk in jargon so that no-one will understand it! 
• Does it talk negatively about itself? 
• Does it show too pics like a boring uncle who shows you their endless and dull holiday snapshots? 
• Is it anti-social or does it allow you to follow it on one of the many social networks? 
• Does it lack goals, drive or enthusiasm? 

If it exhibits any of these personality disorders then I need to take a look at it as soon as possible for you, if it shows any of these disorders then no-one will give it any attention!

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How's that website of yours looking?

Isn't about time that you took a seriously long look at your website!

I know the site was probably designed by you or you approved it, it’s a very personal thing to your business, it might even seem like part of the family; but sometimes you need to ask some very tough question of your website, and business owners do not always like what answers they get back.

Sit back and answer this question with complete HONESTLY; is your website REALLY working for you?  Are you getting enough business or enquiries from it?  Does it really have that WOW factor when the homepage first loads?

You can answer the first part yourself, you know very well (or you should know) whether your website is selling for you and bringing in the enquiries that you need.

Whether your site provides the WOW factor can be a little more difficult for you to judge!  Try this very simple test …… load your homepage or main landing page and study it closely for 6 seconds (I know this doesn’t seem like a long time but seriously, this is all a real visitor will give you).

Now answer the following questions honestly.

1. Can you tell instantly what service or product you provide?
2. I'm sure you have a couple of key messages that you want visitors to know about you – can you find evidence of these?

If you think you can’t answer these without being bias then pass get some feedback from other people whose judgement you trust.

If you think you have a problem here it could be down to a number of factors, including:

• Navigation
• Layout
• Design
• Content
• Images

This is where I can help you, I can work with your development team or website designer to help you create a website that it fit for purpose and will provide a WOW factor that will help you convert more visitors into customers.

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Improving Your Business in an Economic Slow Down

Now is the very best time to take a look at your business to help you move it forward.

Here are some tips on how to make that happen.

1. Find out what your competition is doing

This is a really fantastic opportunity to let your sales and customer service staff get reacquainted with past customers and communicate with current ones and through their discussions find out what your competition is doing.

Old customers are one of the best sources for competitor intelligence information, they left you for some reason, now is the time to find out why and what it would take to gain back their business. Was it price? Was it service? Was it quality? Were there performance issues? Maybe the competition just had a better product. Get as many details as possible to help bring improvements to your product and/or service.


Keep in mind that your old customers might also be in a "slow" period due to the slow down, so they may welcome talking or meeting with you find out how you can help them!


2. Training

Like most businesses you'll go through periods of time when you really couldn't afford the time people would need to be away from the business to learn new skills? Well right now could be the right time to allow them out to hone their skills or develop new ones by sending them to seminars and workshops (these can be really useful and cost effective). Or bring in a trainer to help teach team building, teach teams how to be more creative, or develop sales and customer service skills.

If you are concerned about the cost of outside training, why not cross-train your employees internally so your team is more flexible to deal with business issues going forward.


3. Don't cut your marketing budget

Chances are this is what your competitors are doing, and cutting yours too will simply mean that you could miss out on good market opportunities.

That said, a careful review of your marketing spend is sensible, look at what you are doing and why.


4. Check your Sales Literature

Now is a good opportunity for you to check your sales literature and web site to see if the sales messages are still working for you or whether you might need a refresh.


5. Revise your business plan

This is one of the most critical activities that you will need to perform if you are feeling a slow down in business.

Chances are your sales forecast will need to be revised, which means your overall budget will need to change. Get your business plan up to date so you and your employees have a solid strategy to work towards.


6. Ask your employees for suggestions

It's not just said for fun, your employees are you best asset, they know your business well and either know your customers or your internal processes and systems extremely well.

Find out what ideas they have for a new product or service, or how to make improvements to save money or increase performance.


7. Network

This is one of the best source of leads for any size business. Join a peer group, find a breakfast club, get back involved with a trade association, speak to existing customers. Nurture these sources and they will bring you business.


8. Remain positive

Listen to the news, read the newspapers or specialist press, and business gloom and doom is everywhere. You can't ignore it, it's always there reminding us how bad it is!

But is isn't always bad, chances are that you have a good core business, with great employees, focus on that. Get back to basics. What motivated you when you got into business? Revive the positive attitude and enthusiasm that made you successful in the first place.

Keep away from all those negative influences.

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