If you don’t have a website, you’re basically living under a rock. I don’t care who you are or what business you have, you must have a website. So what do you need to have on your website?
I’m going to cover the most important things for your homepage. Not only because that’s where most people land first, but if that’s not going to convert people to something else on your website, then nothing will.
I did an informal poll my group asking them what they click on when they come to the website. They want to know about you, they click to you, they click to how they work with you. They scroll down to find out if there’s something they can opt into. They want to read reviews, which is great because it’s all the things we have on our list to go through today.
A GREAT headline
Okay, so the first thing, the most important thing you’ve got to have on your site and what a lot of people are getting wrong is the headline. Just think about the giant text on your site. It’s often behind a colored background on your face. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, you’re the face of your business.
The headline needs to say, what do you do? And who do you do it for? That’s the number one thing.
If you remember from last week, if you’ve heard me talk about websites before, it kind of works the same way as it did in the journalism world, right.
When I was a copy editor and a page designer, as a journalist, I know we’re worried about what’s above the fold. What’s going to get people to pick up the paper and actually buy it. Now granted, this is when people actually bought a newspaper. This was like way back before the whole industry broke. But the same principle applies to your website. You basically consider what is the thing that they can see on their screen that’s going to be called your above fold.
And you need to have your biggest headline, so like nerdy stuff here, but your h1 tag, if you’re selecting your font or your copy on there or you’re hand-coding it to h1 tag right there. That’s the biggest font size that your theme or your website will pull and it’s the most important thing that one Google is going to pull for you when it scrolls or crawls on your site.
But also, there’s something about size and how people relate to how important that text is. That’s why that’s the biggest headline in newspapers, right? Like, like, Whoa, this is so important, because it’s like size 63 font. The same thing applies to your website. So make sure when someone can land on your site, both mobile and on a desktop that you have a giant headline.
If that is not the first thing people see they’re immediately going to bounce. You may have like a half a scroll up to answer Who is this and what is this thing. People are always looking for something to give them reassurance that they’re in the right place. This could be a tagline. It could be a short sentence, it could be something like a phrase. Whatever it is, that’s what’s going to be hooking people so they continue going.
Remember, the whole point of when you get people to land on your website, is you’re taking them on a journey, and you want them to keep scrolling or to do the thing you’re asking them to do across your site So make the big claim and put your stick in the stand so that it screams: I do this for you!
A subhead that gives details that clue them that they’re right at home
The second thing which goes along that is your subheading. You want to make sure that you’re able to break it down with more specifics. So for example, it could be something really short and pithy. On the new website that I’m launching, it’s going to say something along the lines of growing your business locally. It’s giant, top pink has a period, but my subhead is I help female entrepreneurs and small business owners grow locally to six figures and beyond.
Right, like that’s my hook and my promise and like a little bit more detail to give some specifics because at first, they are going to be like, Oh, yeah, like if you want to grow your business locally, in a local market in some way, whether that’s your town, your community, your state, your whatever, whatever is local to you, they should know immediately if they are in the right place and then they can pre-qualify themselves with your subhead.
So, get really, really specific and your subhead and break it down because you want people to be drawn to you like a siren call, right? You want them to know if they’re in the right spot. It’s kind of the same thing when we talked about the email list, right? You want people to either stay on your list and engage or unsubscribe immediately. Unsubscribing is not a bad thing. For the first couple of times, it hurts our feelings.
Create a call-to-action
The third thing on your site is your call to action. What is the one most important thing for people to do when they land on your site? Because that’s the thing I want you to be calling out multiple times on your homepage, okay? They need to be able to see a couple of different times the button could literally say the exact same thing. But the way you talk about whatever it is, you’re asking them can be a little bit differently, okay?
The call to action is the most important thing. A lot of times it could be like book a call, it could be an optin to your list, it could be download something and it could be click over to something else. You’re going to want to make that call to action to be collecting information in some way, shape, or form whether that’s taken into a form, whether it’s a pop-up, whether it’s something, but the call to action should be taking them along the next step in their journey with you and your business.
So for example, the thing you’re going to see most on my website when I talk about it, and even right now, if you go to my website right now at divimallory.wpengine.com the thing that I talk about everywhere on that homepage is The Get Visible Guide.
It’s my main offer that I put out there. Of course, if you come through the podcast there’s all these like extras and freebies and bonuses and other things you could download. But on my homepage, the one thing I talked about like five different ways is to get visible guide. It’s got the step by step guide on how to get more visibility. It’s got the giant checklist in there and like all the places and things to try and I talked about it lots of different ways because I know if I get people to come in that’s a great starting point for people to kind of get introduced and to figure out 1) if I’m for them 2) if that’s really actually their problem. and 3) can they get some wins with me to finally figure out like who am I and what exactly do I do?
Other things that I could have on there or I may have put on them on the rebrand I will most likely have some kind of link maybe link somewhere like a book a call and talk to me right some people not a lot, maybe like three to 6% Probably are ready to actually talk to someone just to see, right. Like they’re just talkers. And that’s fine. That’s what I need to do.
A lot of people, they’re just browsing, they’re just searching. So you want to give them something to do that takes them a little bit further along, gives them a taste of you. And that’s why opting into something is always a great idea.
Show me the TRANSFORMATION
Okay, the fourth thing that you need to have on your website is you need to make sure that you’re talking about the transformation that you provide, or you offer you give where you’re taking people basically. And you can do it in a lot of different ways.
One, you need to definitely have copy about it. And you can also show it through some of the next couple things that come in such as your testimonials and your social proof. But a lot of times if you go back to and I will have to find the episode for this. But when I talked about the creepy exercise, the one thing you need to do to really get into the head of your clients. The things that come out of that exercise need to be on your website because that’s where the transformation starts to happen. That’s where you get into the conversations happening in their head.
When you call out the thoughts in their head, they can’t just scroll by. They are consuming your copy now. And the more people are scrolling, the more people read, the more they make decisions on you and fall in love with you. And like you, which we want to happen — that know, like trust factor. So make sure you are very clear on your transformation.
I see people get tripped up on this and leave it off their website because they’re afraid they’re bragging if they talk about how they help people. No, no, no! That’s why they’re here in the first place. It’s almost like the people who have the best transformations are the ones that are going to win, honestly.
Share testimonials and social proof
Another way to show the transformation is to make sure you have testimonials and/ or social proof that you work with real-life people or you sell things to real-life people. Here’s how I differentiate between testimonials and social proof.
Testimonials are where people actually give you a few sentences talking about what their experience has been like working with you and kind of what’s happened and where they’ve gone and when they do they’re often a little bit longer usually. And usually, they have been collected from a form on a phone call, on a session, whatever it is, collected it some way through that part of them.
Social Proof, on the other hand, could be for like literally screenshot and reviews. It could be pulling in from Google reviews, like widgets or apps on your website, could be seen as screenshots, Facebook comments. That’s why it’s really important to take screenshots of everything so you can use it but also because those work really well.
I almost always look at reviews before I buy stuff. I could invest in $27, I could be investing $2,700, and it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be looking at reviews and what do other people say because it helps me confirm why I’m wanting to buy it, right? We’re always looking for things to reaffirm that we’re making the right decision, or to help us be like, Oh, you know what, you know, I wasn’t quite sure and that this is why Okay, so social proof is super important. But testimonials are equally important because they tell more of the story, right? They’re not just like great words. wins for your business. But they also tell the story, which is really important to kind of capture people’s attention.
Make sure they can opt-in to your list
The sixth thing you need to have on your homepage is your opt-in form.
Sometimes, it may make more sense to have people click to download a coupon if you’re a local brick and mortar business, or you have a product business because you want them to download the coupon and come into your store. Other options could be to have them subscribe to the podcast. It could be joining your email list, or downloading a guide, or getting a coupon.
Make sure you have a way for people to opt in with you some way shape or form on your website does not have to be the exact call to action we talked about earlier, but it definitely can be but make sure they could opt in.
Pictures of YOU
The next thing is you need pictures of you and your brand and your business. Stock photos are not cutting it anymore. I’m sorry if you like them, but they’re just not. People know when it’s a stock photo and there is some kind of turn off in your brain when you’re like oh This is all fake people, I can tell nobody looks like this in real life, or nobody smiles like that, or poses like that or like looks like that at a table, they don’t really work as well.
If you are trying to grow something local in your in your market, people want to know your real and they want to know you’re a real person and that you look like them and you fit into their world view and all those things. So put your face on there, put your brand on there, put your products on there, put like behind the scenes stuff on you. Make sure whether you’re the face of your business or not, there’s pictures of you on the site. And there’s real life pictures. It’s not just stock photos, it’s going to make a huge difference in converting people on your website.
Make it crystal clear how to work with you
The eighth thing, do people understand how to work with you? And what exactly are you selling or offering? You’ll be amazed at how unclear most websites are that it’s not obvious what you do, or what you sell or how to start working with you or buying that thing.
Share who you are
I know a lot of people bounce over to your about page from your website visitors. But you can stop the bouncing if you put a little section that talks about you and what you do on the homepage. People like to know those details which is why it’s such a popular hit on your site.
If you look at your Google Analytics, which in a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to if you don’t have it set up on your site yet because it’s an upcoming topic, but if you look at your analytics, you know, those are most often the most popular pages.
It’s definitely so for mine, so I get a ton of hits on the homepage, I get a ton of hits on the podcast page. And then it goes to the work with me. And then about me. These are my four most popular pages on my website. Your audience wants to know how do you work with people, and they want to know who you are. They want to know your story. They want to know why you do what you do. They want to know the person behind the brand.
So make sure you whether it’s a small call out section, whether you’re weaving your story throughout your copy, however that is whether it’s a video of you talking whatever it is, make sure you are not only just your faces on there but who you are a little bit about what you do and how you got there is on there as well.
That’s going to go a huge way to helping people do what you want them to do on your website. Okay, I hope this was like oh, I can do this or Oh, I have a lot of this stuff on here. Because really, it’s not hard to do it right.
It’s like these are simple changes, they just take a little bit of brainpower and thinking, and like different ways of how you talk about your business that isn’t really natural to us. Like, that’s basically all of marketing is, if you can figure out these nine pieces on your website, then you could market anything in your business, just FYI, we weren’t sure that you can go make a list of all these things.
And this we’re gonna talk about everywhere else as well, right? it bleeds over and the more you get comfortable saying this stuff over and over and over, the easier it’s going to be talking about what you do.
We get out of practice, we don’t know how to talk about what it is we do in a way that sells and so we like, Oh, I feel so icky. And that’s you know, don’t feel icky. It just takes practice, it’s uncomfortable. We’re not groomed to talk about ourselves naturally unless we are a narcissist or something.
That’s not running around in my veins right now. It just doesn’t come naturally to most people and that’s okay, but you do have to practice you do have to talk about it, and it’s going to get easier as it goes.
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About Marketing Magic:
The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it to grow, you’re in the right place. This is the place to uncomplicate your marketing. Be sure to listen, subscribe, and leave a review! Join the conversation of other unapologetically successful women in her Facebook community, The #girlboss Club.
