It’s a good question: if the flashy, stylish websites aren’t for you, what is? What is the secret to getting visitors to pick up the phone and call?
Well, there are a few things. Let’s take a look at them and find out how to build the website that will get the most visitors to pick up that phone and call your office!
Site Construction: What Should Your Overall Site Look Like?
In general, there is a rule that can be applied to websites looking to garner conversions from local search return: The less fancy the website is, the more conversions you’ll get from it. Solid, functional sites will be far more effective for you. Keeping in that mentality, here is a general outline of what a sample website layout might look like:
– Home page
– Blog
– About Us / Services
– Contact Us (with map and phone)
And that’s it.
It might seem a bit underwhelming to you, and vastly smaller than the majority of the websites you’ve visited, and you’re right: those websites, however, are not ours. Your website is lean and mean, built for one purpose and one purpose only—to get people who go to your website to call you or email you. Anything else is a waste; it’s nice that people come to visit your site, but that doesn’t mean anything if nobody calls or if you don’t capture someone’s phone or email for future follow up.
Every page should also include a call to action. A call to action is something to get visitors to opt-in, call you or email you right away. For local business websites I recommend, at a minimum, you include a banner or header that appears on every page; make sure your phone number appears in the top-right hand side or middle-right hand side. Studies show, and our experience confirms, that people’s eyes gravitate toward the right side of a page — hint, look where Google puts their ads in their own search results. For added kick, add a form beneath the top phone number to sign up for your newsletter or to provide an incentive for people to provide their phone number and email address.
This is, of course, just an example; you are free to modify this layout however you wish. Depending on your business, you may want to add a page about upcoming events you are hosting, or recent news and press about your business. Know, however, that this basic layout works extremely well, and always, always remember: the less fancy the page, the better the results!
WARNING:
Please do not confuse less-fancy with bad design. You still want your business and website to look professional and we advocate a clean simple design. In fact, having less ‘flashiness’ to a website often leads to better visual design as there is less clutter, and better visual design also helps with conversions. Your business may already have invested in working with a branding agency to help create a logo and a set of colors that represent your “brand”, carry those into your website. There are a number of color palette tools online where you can enter your businesses core colors and they will provide you with suggested, visually appealing, complementary colors, for example Colour Lovers (http://www.colourlovers.com) or Color Combos (http://www.colorcombos.com).
Look, you are a valuable professional in your community and your services are not (and should not be) cheap – don’t make your website give potential clients the wrong impression. This means you may not want to do it yourself and that you should be careful hiring your sister’s friend’s 22-year-old kid that calls himself a webmaster, but lives in his parents’ basement. You can have a very professional basic website designed for under $1,500.