If you don’t love your website, it’s time to ask, “Is it working for you, or just a placeholder online?”
Last week I posed the question, “What do you need your website to do for you?” and it’s a question that has sparked some great conversations, as it usually does. What I most often discover when asking this question is that most people don’t realize their website can work as hard as they do. They see it as a placeholder for basic business information online, and nothing more. They don’t love their website, or even like it most of the time, and rarely visit it or even direct people to it. Their website is little more than an online brochure.
What would you say if I told you that your website could actually be a member of your team, working right along side you to build your business?
It’s true my friend! Your website can work for you, and to quote my friend Susie Buck again, “Your website should be working as hard as you do, and my website is my administrative assistant!”
So let’s take a look at some of the ways you can put your website to work…
Building relationships
Your website is often the start of your relationship with new and potential customers. The message you share and how you share it is one way of building that relationship, but there are other ways you can build relationships. And one way that many people miss is personalizing your online contact forms.
By making your online forms more conversational and adding in a personalized automated response message you are starting the conversation immediately, which will help strengthen the relationship from the initial contact.
For example, a standard built in response to a general contact form looks something like this…
Subject: Submission Confirmation
Email: Your information has been received. (and then your information is entered on the form.)
But what if you changed that message to be something a little more personal. Something like…
Subject: Thank you for contacting Web Designs by Teresa
Email: Hello Crystal! Thank you so much for reaching out. I will be in touch within the next few days and I cannot wait to learn more about you and your business. Have a great day! ~Teresa
I know you feel the difference and your customers and potential customers will too.
Client Scheduling
One of the first things I ask my clients is, “do you need to meet regularly with clients or potential clients?” If the answer is yes, I know that we need to implement an online scheduling strategy.
Having an online scheduling strategy frees up the time spent, emailing and calling back and forth trying to find a time that works. It can help you further by sending out reminders as well. This will make sure your customers are more likely to show up, and less likely to be a no show.
You can use your online scheduler to schedule
- Initial consultations
- Check-in meetings with clients
- Follow up meetings
- Coaching sessions
And just about any other meeting you can imagine. Plus, online schedulers like the one I use, Acuity Scheduling, have the ability to include customized questionnaires so you have the information you need before the meeting even begins.
Online Payments
Billing, invoicing and follow ups can eat up a lot of your valuable time as a business owner. After all, no one likes waiting for checks to come in the mail. By providing a space on your website where your customers can pay online, you are freeing yourself up from some of that.
There are quite a few ways to add purchasing options to your website including
- Store options such as WooCommerce for WordPress and the store option in Squarespace.
- PayPal, Stripe and Square embed options.
- Built in payments with your online scheduling program such as Acuity Scheduling.
The key is to find the method that is connected to what you are already using for credit card processing and build from there to keep it easy for you.
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