4 things to remove from your website right now (and 1 to add)
In this episode, I delve into practical strategies to optimize your website for attracting the right-fit clients. We emphasize the importance of viewing your website as a strategic journey, simplifying the user experience, and providing quick solutions to your clients' needs. We discuss four crucial elements to remove from your website: unnecessary equipment images, standalone pricing pages, complex dropdowns in the About section, and separate FAQ pages. Instead, I suggest integrating this information where it makes the most sense, such as services and contact pages. Additionally, I stress the significance of prominently displaying your location to help potential clients easily find you, even if your business is primarily online. By implementing these changes, you can create a website that efficiently guides visitors toward booking your services.
Timestamps:
[00:01:25] An easy-to-navigate website is essential to converting visitors into clients
[00:02:38] What you need to remove from your website
[00:02:44] Images of your equipment
[00:05:23] Your Pricing/Investment page
[00:07:17] About page drop-down links
[00:09:58] Your FAQ page
[00:12:51] Add your location to your website
[00:16:31] Make a plan to take action
Key Takeaways:
The importance of viewing your website as a strategic journey.
Simplifying the user experience and providing quick solutions to client needs.
Removing unnecessary equipment images from your website.
Replacing standalone pricing pages with comprehensive service pages.
The significance of prominently displaying your location for online and local businesses.
Simplifying the About section by consolidating information onto a single page.
Creating individual provider pages for team-based businesses.
Integrating frequently asked questions (FAQs) into relevant pages.
Using an FAQ anchor link in the footer to make FAQs easily accessible without diverting traffic from the website's strategic journey.
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Process to Profitability. As we wrap up this season, I wanted to spend my last couple of solo episodes talking about really practical things that you can do on your website to see more right fit leads reaching out and getting onto your client calendar.
[00:00:21] Today we're going to be talking through four things to remove from your website right now and one that you can add.
[00:00:30] The reason that I wanted to do this episode is because I have spent a lot of time looking at the websites of health and wellness providers, therapists, private practice owners, and I'm noticing some trends that are not actually helping you when it comes to your website. I think the reason that so many people do these four things that we're going to talk about is because that's what they see everybody else do, or that is what is included in the template that they purchased and set up.
[00:01:00] But we want to think about our website differently. What we really want to do is create a strategic journey from when somebody initially lands on our website, whether they came from a referral, or they found us on Google, or maybe they're coming from social media, and we are moving them step by step towards booking a spot on your client calendar, either directly or through a consultation call.
An easy-to-navigate website is essential to converting visitors into clients
[00:01:25] Samantha Mabe: When we think of our websites as that journey, we want to make it as simple as possible. This is not an epic quest that somebody has to go on and there's all these side quests that they have to check out. We really want to give them the answers that they need, make it really easy to find, so that then they can move directly into the next step and get help.
Your clients want to take action fast
[00:01:48] Samantha Mabe: So many of your clients are coming to you because they need help right now. They don't want to wade through a whole bunch of different websites and compare what services you offer and what the pricing is. They want to know can you help them solve the problem they are having right now and get them results quickly.
[00:02:14] What we are doing through our website is we're continuing to build that trust by showing them that we understand what issues they might be dealing with, we understand what answers they are looking for, and we understand what questions they're asking before they reach out, and we are preemptively answering those for them.
What you need to remove from your website
[00:02:38] Samantha Mabe: Let's talk about those four things you need to remove from your website right now.
Images of your equipment
[00:02:44] Samantha Mabe: The first one is images of your equipment. Now, I know you spent a ton of money on the equipment. They are big investments and they are an important part of what you do in your practice. But your clients don't care what the equipment you use looks like. They care about how your service is going to benefit them.
[00:03:06] When I go to a chiropractor website and I see photos of their rolling table, and their adjustment table, and their x-ray machine, and all of these different equipment pieces, I'm not looking at those and comparing, 'oh, theirs looks nicer and newer than somebody else's.'
[00:03:22] All I'm thinking is, 'okay I would expect them to have this equipment because they offer this service.' What I want to know is how does their service actually benefit me?
[00:03:36] So what you can do instead of having images of just your equipment on your website, especially in a gallery format, is to take professional images of your space in use.
[00:03:49] If you're a chiropractor, get a model and have someone take pictures of you actually doing an adjustment on them. If you're a massage therapist, have pictures of somebody in your space, getting a massage, taking some time to relax. If you are a therapist or you talk with somebody one on one, take pictures of you working with somebody in your office space.
[00:04:15] That is going to give you the benefit of allowing people to see what your space looks and feels like and what they can expect without feeling like you are just listing a bunch of things that they need to check out and they should know whether or not that's what they need.
[00:04:34] The one exception to this is if your space is the selling point. If you have a website for a rental property, or a coworking space, or offices that you rent out, obviously the space is the thing that you are selling in those instances, and you should have photos of that. But the best way to have those is still to stage them so that people can see themselves in that space.
[00:05:02] And a bonus tip for this thing you need to remove from your website: if you can't hire a professional photographer right now, find somebody and offer to trade services with them. I've done that multiple times in my business, and it's always beneficial for both parties, and it gets you to be able to grow your business faster.
Your Pricing/Investment page
[00:05:23] Samantha Mabe: Okay, the second thing you need to remove from your website right now is your pricing or investment page. An investment or a pricing page is not going to convert visitors into clients because it only highlights the cost of your service, instead of being anchored by the benefits and the outcome and everything else that is a part of what you do.
[00:05:44] If you have a page on your website that is just says investment or pricing and all they do is click there and they see a couple of different packages, maybe a comparison of what's included in each, and a final price, they're not going to care. They are not going to go to that page and go, 'Oh now I am ready to work with this person.'
[00:06:06] So what can we do instead? Instead of creating an investment or a pricing page, you should create a services page where you include all the information about your client's pain points, the benefits of working with you, exactly what's included, your unique process, client testimonials, and the price.
[00:06:26] You want to include all of this together so that they get the whole picture and when they see that price, they are not turned away because all they are looking at is a number and they've forgotten what the rest of the benefit of working with you is.
[00:06:45] My bonus tip here is to use words like cost and price when you put this on your page instead of things like investment, because this is going to help with SEO. Nobody is Googling, what is the investment for working with a chiropractor? They want to know, how much does it cost?
[00:07:04] If you can use the words that your clients are actually searching for, it might not sound as fancy or as pretty, but it's going to help you show up in search results for the people who are actually looking to work with you.
About page drop-down links
[00:07:17] Samantha Mabe: Number three, what I want you to do right now, if you have a dropdown on your website under your little About link, I want you to take it off.
[00:07:29] The more pages you have on your website, the more likely it is that potential clients are going to leave before booking with you. Do not include multiple pages in a drop down on your main menu, especially for your About page.
[00:07:47] What I want you to do instead is create one page that includes your business's mission, your process, the team that you have with their names, headshots, specialties. You're going to add some client testimonials.
[00:08:06] If there is something important about working with you or your industry, you want to include it all on one single page instead of breaking that into multiple pages. That's going to mean people have to spend more time looking at things that are not getting onto your client calendar.
[00:08:26] A bonus tip here is if you allow clients to choose their provider when they book and you want to give them information about the different providers on your team, you can create individual pages for each provider with more detailed information about their specialties, their education, and their interests and then link to these pages from that main team list on the About page.
[00:08:53] Don't put these in a drop down. Don't put these anywhere that is in your main menu. But you will link to it from that page where you've got all of the information and you're still allowing them to see what they need to find out or to see the information that they need to know in order to choose a provider without cluttering things up and making it confusing.
[00:09:19] If you don't allow clients to choose a provider because you want to assign them with a provider that has availability, works with their specific concerns and you don't want them trying to compare and get onto a certain person's calendar, then don't create these pages. All you want to do on your team section of your About page is have a headshot, their name, maybe their credentials and the overall type of service that they offer.
Your FAQ page
[00:09:58] Samantha Mabe: And the fourth thing that I want you to take off of your website right now is your FAQ page. Now you may be saying, 'wait a minute. I thought we were supposed to include Frequently Asked Questions.' We want to get to those objections and give people the answers they need. Yes. But we don't want to have that as a separate page on our website.
[00:10:21] Instead, what you're going to do, is you are going to put the Frequently Asked Questions and their answers on the pages where they make sense. So it's going to be integrated in your website instead of living on its own page.
[00:10:37] For example, if you have get questions about the type of service that you offer or the education that it takes to get that service, you can include those on your About page.
[00:10:48] If you get questions about insurance, pricing, how often sessions are, what the onboarding process looks like, who it is that you work with, include that on your Services page.
[00:11:02] And the best place to include frequently asked questions, and you can include every question that you might put on other questions, on other pages, is to put it on your Contact page. So after you have your contact form and you have your location information, have a frequently asked questions section where you go through all of those questions and put the answers there. That is going to boost the SEO of your Contact page because it gives you more words.
[00:11:31] But what if you want to have a link directly to those frequently asked questions for people who ask? Here's my tip for you: you can include an FAQ link in the footer of your website, but it's not going to go to a separate page. It is going to be an anchor link to the FAQ section on your Contact page so when they click it, they're going to be directed to your Contact page, but it's going to automatically scroll them down to where those FAQs live.
[00:12:06] That way you are still making it easy for them to find that information if they want it because it's in the link in your footer. It's easy for you to email to them or include in some of your scheduling confirmation emails, but it's not a separate page on your website that's going to divert traffic from the strategy and then from the journey that you actually want them to be taking.
[00:12:35] Okay, so we have talked about four things you need to remove from your website, images of your equipment, a pricing or investment page, a dropdown for your about section on your main menu and your FAQ page.
One thing you need to add to your website today: your location
[00:12:51] Samantha Mabe: But here's one thing you need to add to your website. And this is probably the easiest thing for you to do because it doesn't involve recreating or making new pages on your site. And that is add your location.
[00:13:07] Hiding your location or making it hard to find is a sure way to have visitors bouncing off your website in search of someone else, especially if you're a local business where people are coming to you in person, you need to be very clear about where you're located and the areas that you serve.
[00:13:27] So what you can do instead of hiding that location away, or even using a big generic metro area, you want to include the location in a couple of places. One, include it above-the-fold on your Homepage. So you have your headline, and then in your subheading, you can actually include the location that you are at.
[00:13:51] Then you can include it on your Contact page. You can have your actual address listed on your Contact page, you can also have a map embedded on there so that they can see in relation to everything else where you are.
[00:14:05] You should also have it in your footer so it's really easy for people to find.
[00:14:11] You can also include your location in the site title of your website. Instead of just having your business name, you should have your business name, the type of service that you offer, and then the location of your business. For example, mine would be Lemon in the Sea, Website Design, Richmond, Virginia.
[00:14:38] In addition to that, you want to make sure it's in the meta description of your overall website and then your individual pages.
[00:14:48] When somebody Googles or searches the service that you offer in your location, they are going to see you pop up because it's in the title of your site. When they see that, they're going to say, 'Oh, Lemon in the Sea. They're located in Richmond, Virginia.' And then in the description, right underneath that, they're going to say, 'Serving the Richmond, Virginia area.'
[00:15:12] They're going to know that you are exactly where they are in terms of getting to you, getting what they need, and not having to either find somebody else because you're located halfway across the country, or even out of the driving range that they want to tackle.
[00:15:32] Here's a bonus tip: even if you travel for work. Or if your service is primarily online, like a course where you work with people through video calls, you should still include your location on your website, especially in your footer and in your meta description, because when somebody searches for that service, they are going to be shown businesses that are local to them first.
[00:15:59] So if you can say 'I am located in Richmond, Virginia', and somebody comes and just searches for website design and they are in Richmond, Virginia, which search engines know because we give them all of that data when they get their results, they are going to see places that are closer to them before they see places that are further away. So it's always a benefit to have your location on your website.
Make a plan to take action
[00:16:31] Samantha Mabe: Now that we've wrapped up, I want you to take some time, think about your website and whether you have one of these, two of these four things that you need to remove from your website and then make sure that you've got your location on there so that people can start finding you for the right things and that the journey that they go on once they land on your website is simple and streamlined so that you can get more right fit clients onto your calendar.
