In this series of articles we will discuss how to optimize your online tools to answer "how to find customers" question.Please follow us and Let us know your success.
So you started a new business, or you want to expand your business, congratulations! Having a business does not mean that you will generate revenue instantly though, in order for your business to be successful you have to have customers.But:
How to find customers?
In the past all the power belong to the business owner, and the customer did not have a way of knowing of that was their best option or not. Internet and smartphones changed everything. Right now customers have more power than you, the owner, so you have to keep them happy and be honest with them while still compete with other providers. You have to find your customers, BUT finding customers is not EASY. Even if you find a customer you have to convince them that your product or service is worth it to them, otherwise they will not buy it. In this case, if as a company you don’t have a right strategy in order to get customers you will fail sooner than you think. We have been running SeodaPop for almost 5 years and during these years we only got customers through referral. We decided to experiment and get customers through inbound marketing this time.
First, we have set a four month window for ourselves, to increase our client base with at least 10 clients. If we could only get three clients per month we would be set. There was
Messy workplace with stack of old paper
a problem though. None of our tools was setup correctly. Given that we were getting all our clients through referral we did not update any of our tools. The funny part is that as a consultant we always keep telling our clients about the importance of updated websites, visitor tracking and conversion channels but we did not have any of them on our own website. Our website and tools were become kinda like my afternoon work desk ugly and untidy.Thus my team and me were actually starting to work on our own website.
Before we started working on our website. The website was there just to show that we had one. IT WAS NOT MOBILE FRIENDLY!!! If somebody visited our website on their phone , our first page slider would be cut off and many of the buttons would not work anymore. Also there was not a clear “call to action” or service offered. This is when we decided to change it. We knew that the first step to attract customers is to make sure that we have a clear website with a clear message and clear call to actions. Bellow is our website before and after the updates and changes.
Before Redesign
Everything was all over the place. There was not a single clear call Action. The site was not appealing and as a regular visitor I would not trust this people.
With Redesign
We divided our services into two categories. Web Design and Online Marketing. The rest of our services would lay under the services tab. On the home page, we give our visitors two options to choose from. You can go with either web design or marketing. Of course they would be able to combine these two together as well.
We did the same for all the other pages of the website to make sure that they are user friendly and optimized. After we were done with the design we should the website to the regular people and also to the tech savvy ones to see what they think about the website and if they can navigate it easily. We got over 80% satisfaction which we think is a good rate. Also they gave us many constructive suggestions that we applied to the website. The next step for us was to make sure that all pages are mobile friendly and also pleasant on the mobile.Keep in mind that you might use a template or even code a template that you think is mobile friendly, but in action they cannot be mobile friendly at all. For instance we implemented a testimonial plugin that we thought it is mobile friendly but when we used it in action and also saw other customers using it we realized that the plugin does not work and when the customer was trying to scroll down it will prevent that action to happen.
The other important aspect is to make sure that in any page customers can contact us or even chat with us easily. Thus we created contact us and chat with us on all pages.
Lastly we wanted to make sure that our bio and info is online as well. As a customer I would love to see real people’s picture on the website for the team picture or about picture.
In the next article I will talk about how to prepare your team for marketing.Thus in the nutshell here is the checklist that you have to follow to make sure that your website is user friendly and up to date.
- Make sure your website is clear about what you offer and how you offer it
- Have a clear call to actions
- Have a clear product or service to sell
- Is mobile friendly
- Does have a good load speed time
- Have a real human pictures
- Have an eye catching design
If you are not a web developer implementing all these features might not be trivial for you. You can ask your developer or you marketing department to help you with them. Also here in SeodaPop we are happy to help you as well
