My last post hammered home a single point: there’s only one goal for a demand generation website. Advice is fine but some examples would be better.
Have a look at Wolfgang Career Coaching and flip through some pages… study the navigation… observe the text. There may be ways to improve it but there’s one important fact to note: this thing generates leads! One to four each business day. That’s enough to keep our business growing while keeping our marketing costs lean. So what makes this website work? The answer includes things like Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing and maybe even the word “Wolfgang”. But let’s focus on the site itself and what makes it effective once a visitor lands on a page. These are in order of importance:
- short form on every page – it doesn’t take away from the content but just sits there waiting for the moment when a visitor decides its time to find out more
- phone number, real big, in the upper right corner – some people like to call, some don’t. we give them both options. plus, you will never wonder, “where can I find their phone number”
- clean, simple layout – visitors aren’t overwhelmed. they can quickly see where things are at which helps them get to where they want to go.
- clear direction & path – the home page and the first set of sub pages do their best to narrow the choices and route you to the content you want to see.
- options are covered – some visitors know what service they want; others are thinking about their situation; some need social proof; some want to make a connection with our staff. we help them quickly find what information they need.
- pithy links, headings & copy – we try to say only important things and we try to say them as succinctly as possible.
- pleasing colors, pictures, and imagery – all these things affect the emotional reaction someone has as soon as they visit your website.
- social proof – testimonials are on just about every page. they are short and speak to specific, common client scenarios.
I apologize about tooting my own horn – that’s not my intention. My point is to reinforce that effective demand generating websites can achieve all of your primary and most of your secondary goals without an expensive design, without tons of content, without a professional writer and without taking 6 months to build. Keep these design/component principles (and their meaning) in mind when creating and revising your website.
Ready to find out how effective your website conversion is? I like this link that describes Using A/B Testing to Improve Conversion. I would be remiss if I didn’t also stress another important tenant of demand generation websites: effective website copy.
Do you have other observations? What about your own case study on what works and what doesn’t? Please… share.