hi I’m Sean thanks for stopping by today we’re going to talk to you a little bit about how you can help drive sales on your website these are the 10 things every website must have to drive sales so my name like I said is Sean I’m a huge fan of small business and so for those of you that are starting a small business or thinking about starting a small business I have the utmost admiration for you for the courage that it takes and the creativity it takes to get started and that’s why we’re doing those that’s why we’re a part of this at GoDaddy and why we really believe that every small business deserves a website and we believe that every small business deserves a website that does something right for them that makes them money and that’s we’re going to be talking about today how do I turn visitors to my website into customers right into the people that become part of part of my network and even into advocates that tell other people about my business so the three different areas we’re going to focus on the first one is our homepage so making sure that that first stop that people see when they come to your website that that first stop really gives them a good idea about what you do it’s your sampler menu right and you want to make sure that that’s effective the second thing we’re going to talk about is building a relationship of trust building credibility with customers nobody’s going to want to do business for somebody that they don’t trust that they’re worried is a fly-by-night operation or somebody that’s just trying to trick them on the internet and then the final thing is how are we going to generate leads and there are some tactics there are some things that you can try in order to create that relationship with your customers because not everybody is ready to buy now but you still you still want them around you still want to be able to talk with them and interact with them okay so let’s get started let’s go with the tip number one so tip number one is going to be taking a really good look at our homepage and dissecting it and the things that we want to do is use simple clear navigation now the reason this is important you might be thinking like hah how is navigation going to help drive sales is because you want to make sure that people never get lost on your website you want to make sure that it’s always easy to find the things that might be important to them and so most customers and most people start with a very simple website and we totally recommend that what you’re looking for are five pages so you have home you have about you have contact services and testimonials and one of the big reasons why you want to keep that simple and why you want to keep that that that easy for people to find you is because you don’t want them to get lost it’s not like pulling them into a casino you get them inside and haha you’re stuck here right good luck finding the exit right because your your visitors all they have to do is just click the back button all they have to do is is close the browser window so when they come here you make it very simple and very easy to find things so they can learn about your business because what you want to do is convert them into customers right so tip number two write effective meaningful headlines so you’ve got one chance when they hit that home page to explain who you are and what you do right and headlines are really really important and one of the reasons are really important is because we’re all lazy readers right we just want to see what it is as quickly as possible so in this particular case start in an auto reply shop I got a good friend she’s convinced that I know more about cars than I really do and so she’s she’s put together this website for me shawne’s auto repair and maintenance okay we know what you do affordable quality service Oh awesome that that sounds awesome family owned and operated scottsdale for seven years now notice I don’t have a lot of other text on this page right now I don’t I don’t I don’t have stories and look at me I’m on the Internet I’m a genius right I don’t have that on there I just have my headlines so that people understand very quickly Who I am and what I have to offer them I’m going to be able to get into a little bit more detail on my other pages but on your home page you want really clear headlines and here’s a tip for headlines right and this is an old journalists tip so writers use this all the time when writing your headlines you can try is actually writing it to to the same cadence or rhythm of a popular nursery rhyme or a song it’s like camptown races right so camptown races sing this song doo-dah doo-dah right so in this particular case I could be like Shawn’s auto-repair is really cool doo-dah doo-dah right you come up with something so you can play with that and it resonates with people it’s a trick it’s a dirty trick that journalists play on people all the time those headlines work psychologically that’ll help so there’s a little tip for you on headlines okay so next we want to determine one maybe two calls to action now call to action is the one thing I want you to do so I’ve told you what I do so you get a good idea really quickly now there’s something I want you to do once you come to my page okay so I don’t tell you what I do and then just leave it there I want you to take action of some kind and there are lots of different calls to actions that are out there that we could use and test and play with in this particular case what I want you to do I want you to call me right I want you to call me call today get in tomorrow that’s what I want you to do now I have it I have another one that’s kind of subtle here for my call to action get our newsletter for tips and tricks and we’re going to talk about why that’s really powerful a little bit later on one of other tips but that’s my one call to action so here are some other ones here’s some other ones that you could try you could call for a quote by now in safe make a reservation donate watch a demo schedule an appointment register now call us for more info right stop by today right these are all different actions you can put on your homepage and you’re gonna want to make sure that that’s that that’s bold that it’s got plenty of space around it that a person’s eye naturally goes to it so that people understand what you want them to do next right make sure that your call to action is right up there in front and if you have to ask somebody ask a friend ask a family member hey if you look at this what do you want to do next right they’ll tell you they’ll tell you whether or not it’s working they’ll tell you whether or not they’re going to click on it so that’s the next thing you want to get on there right because then that will help direct them into becoming customers too dry sailes so that you could make more money as a small business okay the next thing we want to do we’re getting into building relationship of trust and credibility so on the internet now like over the website you don’t have that opportunity to look somebody in the eye shake their hand so they know that you mean business so they can trust you so they can see all you are you’re totally somebody that I want to do business with and I want to give you my money and I totally want to use your service here and and and by the awesome things that you create okay so your story becomes a great opportunity to explain to them exactly who you are and what your vision is so in this particular case I put a picture on here of my of my kids right down there they’re driving crazy up across the border and I hope that they’re not actually driving I hope this is posed and so why choose us this is my opportunity to talk about you know my family this is my opportunity to talk about what we do this is my opportunity to talk about why we’re in business and the why we’re in business isn’t so we can take your money right that’s not why we’re in business we’re trying to establish that credibility that relationship of trust with you we’re in business because we saw a need for a unique service and we want to tell you about it we want to be passionate about it so use pictures right use use use your story be honest be candid and tell people why you do what you do why are you unique you know why do you have something special to offer them so that you can create that that that group of people that really believe in you we’re all rooting for you right so who are you why did you start your business be passionate add pictures and add a video we’re going to talk about video a little bit later but video is really really powerful especially when you’re telling your story and for a lot of you it’s going to be a lot easier than writing your story if you can just record yourself talking into the camera right tip number five and this is the next tip in building credibility with your customers are to gather and publish customer testimonials and this is really really really powerful right this is this has customers talking about how cool you are or how great your service is instead of you right so it’s one of those those opportunities to say you know don’t take my word for it right listen to these guys these guys think we’re great right and so these really work in building that trust and credibility on your website and then in helping convert customers you know 63% of visitors to your site that see testimonials on their are more apt to do business with you they’re more likely to purchase from you when they see that others have had a good experience with you so on our site right we publish the testimonials of course I got five stars on my service although of course of course five stars all the way down now a common question is where where do I get testimonials where can I find testimonials right and the easiest the easiest way to get testimonials are to ask customers what they think about you so if somebody comes into your restaurant they come into your business or or they work with you just ask them how the experience was ask them how the food was ask them how the service was ask them how your consultative certain like asks them right and as they give you the answers and you get those good testimonials and people that have had a good experience working with you ask them if you can publish it on on your website at nine times out of ten there can be more than happy more than happy to have you quote them online right because it’s kind of like being famous right you get you get put on somebody’s website there’s your picture there’s your line right so ask them ask them how they’re doing and if you sell things online right ask ask the customers after they purchase send them an email and when you send in that email have them fill out a form and in there it just ask them how things went right ask them whether they were happy with the service or not and allow them to talk about you right and then you can use those testimonials on your site now another way to find out what customers are saying about you and another way to find testimonials for your website is to sign up for a lot of the free business directories that are online and so these are these are these there’s a lot of them whether they’re reviewing websites their weather reviewing businesses customers or reviewing businesses at Google Places being local Yahoo local Yelp merchantcircle LinkedIn Yellow Pages white pages Angie’s List City search some of these are familiar to you some of these you have seen this before right so we’ve got Google Places on here we Yelp on here and so this is where customers go and they’re rating your business they’re probably rating your business right now and commenting on it so you want to sign up for that and make sure that you’re that that’s your business so you can have that conversation with them on those sites but that also gives you a chance to get those testimonials and get those good testimonials now there’s one other great reason to sign up for these how many of you have been you’ve been online searching for a business you type it in and it pulls up the business and it shows a map over on the side and and on the side you can click on it and you get even more information about that business even before you go to their website well that’s exactly what happens on Google Places or on Yelp so here’s an example on Google Places on Google Places this isn’t the air park Auto Service website this is Google Places so over in the corner I can see that there’s a map I can see reviews down here in the bottom right so this gives you kind of like another mini website now it’s not the only place you want to be online because you want to link back to your actual website where your branding is and your story is and everything else that’s going on right but this is becomes really really powerful as another source for people to find you the same thing happens when you look up a business on your phone you see those reviews automatically come through so register for those free services make sure that you’re on there and you’re conversing with those customers and building that Network and then that’s going to give you more of those testimonials and more of those ratings to put on your website ok the next step into building building credibility is to add badges logos and certifications this is different for for all different types of businesses in our particular case because it in our example it’s a it’s an auto store right I’ve got a Better Business Bureau I’ve got triple-a I’ve got nap I’ve got these are these are logos that customers trust so when they see that on a website they trust it they know that there’s been a third-party source that has verified that this is good stuff that you are that you’re that you’re honest that you provide good service because you’ve had to negotiate and get these deals so if you’re a massage therapist that you’re licensed and where are you licensed right if I if I sell windows for a living is there a particular brand or a particular a particular company that I work closely with so that I’m a certified partner right these are all great logos and badges to put on your website to build trust with your customers now if you’re an online store your online store you want to put somewhere on here right the that doing business with you is secure right so there are badges for the SSL right we’ve got a badge it godaddy it goes right on there and right down there bottom the customers know hey there’s an SSL there’s a secure certificate on it it’s fancy talk for hey your credit card information is completely secure on our website put that badge on there so that people know so they know that you care about their privacy they know that you care about their safety right and that builds that trust that builds that trust moving forward okay the next thing remove risk so offer a guarantee and this because you’re working on the Internet and they haven’t met you face to face this is one of those really easy ways to make sure that they know that they can trust you and even better this is a way for you to be really proud and confident about what you do right because basically what you’re saying when you offer a guarantee or you offer an easy way for you to do business with you if things don’t work out is hey listen what I do you’re going to really really love like you’re going to be totally amazed by what we’re going to do for you and if you’re not then we’re going to make it right we’re going to make sure that you’re okay in the end that’s really powerful right so on our site right we’ve got our warranty on there if you do business with us it’s in writing here’s our warranty right and here’s our price guarantee so if you’re a store online and you’re selling things you’re going to have a return policy right an easy way for them to send something back and get that money in return like you’re making it very very safe to do business with you like think about it from their perspective think about the questions that they might have for you how are you going to make it safe to do business with you okay let’s move on to the next one number eight we’re starting to get into the lead generation and that’s a fancy way to say hey hey you’re not ready to buy now right but maybe you have some friends that are right interested in our service or maybe you’ll be ready to buy or do business with us later so you want to take that information and and curate keep it and keep those contacts and keep that connection with your potential customers and the easiest way to do that with a website is to gather email addresses that you can’t just publish on your i’mme I guess you could just probably hey give me your email address right you want to give them something in return so in our case and you guys saw this at the beginning right I’ve got to get your newsletter for tips and special savings so I’m going to send a newsletter to you if you give me an email and I’m going to make sure that that newsletter you haven’t seen it yet but when you do is valuable to you so I’m gonna have special savings I’ll have a coupon in there I’ll have a promo I’ll have something like that right because because because I care about you I want your business I want you to work with me but I’m also going to put something of value in there like tips and tricks like how often to change your oil or tips and tricks on unscrewing that really difficult not down at the bottom if you want to do it yourself right I’m going to put things like that in there for you because that’s what I said right I’m going to give you tips on how to do this type of stuff and what that does is that customer hasn’t bought for me yet but you know maybe once maybe twice a month they’re going to get a newsletter for me with valuable information to them so the next time that they do need their oil change or the next time they need tires or the next time that they need anything for their car they’re going to remember me because they’re part of that network that I’m creating right so you can come back to me so email addresses become really even more powerful if you invest in an email marketing tool so at GoDaddy we have Express email marketing and what this does for you is this enables you to add a web form to the website like we had there on the previous slide week we were able to put the the actual fill in type in your email and it will go automatically to another program right so that I can manage those email addresses it’s going to store all of those it’s going to make my emails pretty that I send everybody so it’s not just the plain text I can I can put my logo up in the corner I can use specific colors or font so they know that it’s from me and this is where it gets really powerful it’s going to allow me to create targeted messages for my customers and here’s how that works right a good email marketing tool like Express email marketing what it will do is it will also allow you to to to survey your customers so I can send it out and find out who you are I can send it out and find out what type of people are interested in doing business with me so as an as an auto store maybe I’ve got a group of people that they just work on muscle cars all the time and they totally know what they’re doing and they don’t need any help changing their oil okay so I find out that’s who they are from from asking them these questions when I send in the emails and then I’ve got another group of people that are the soccer moms right they just want their oil change they just want the tires well there’s probably a few of them that also work on muscle cars but but for the most part that’s the way that it’s set up okay now I can now based on that information using the email marketing tool I can send different emails to them so that I can target them so that I can send certain deals over to the soccer moms and send different deals over to the muscle car fanatics really powerful stuff and totally worth investing in and then once I send those out I can find out how many people open their emails I can find out how many people clicked on the links in those emails right and that tells me whether or not they’re successful I can try different strategies until I do figure out what works so I can keep them in contact and build that network ok the next tip and this is one that many many many of you are playing around with now and it’s it’s integrating with social media we’re going to talk specifically about Facebook and Twitter these are both really powerful ways to to create that network so we’re talked about email well not everybody not everybody uses email the same way and for a lot of people down they don’t like getting email on this type of stuff but they’re more than willing once they find out who you are and once they read your story and once you’ve built that trust they’re more than willing to click like right they’re more than willing to click on your website and say this is awesome I love that he’s doing this this is great stuff and so once they click like on there you now have a way to communicate with them on Facebook because once they click like now you can send them message now they can follow what you’re doing in your business so as you have promotions of you as you have have new things that you want to do as you have you know the big party events where the radio stations going to come down to the store right they’re going to know about that stuff even if they haven’t purchased with you already and the flip side to that is once they click like all of their friends also see that they like you and they like your business and if they’re legit right then their friends will see and go oh yeah well Sean he’s totally cool I wonder why he likes that business let me take a look at it and they become your marketing team for you so again you’re creating that that network that tribe right and Twitter works the same way make it really easy for somebody to tweet about your business from your website so you add those icons to your website so they can share with their friends you guys check this out you’re not going to believe what this guy is doing right so as you have that unique vision that unique story you’ve got other people that will share it for you okay the final tip number 10 we’re down to the very end offer visitors something special so of course you want to offer them something special just by your business being awesome right just by creating a really great small business but in this particular case on your website you should offer them something unique to your website so what this means basically is in this particular case I have a special that I’m offering only on my website so for the month of April get a free ten point tune-up with every oil change all you have to do is mention you saw the deal on our website ok now you see what I did there at the very end there all you have to do is mention you saw the deal on our website so now what this does and this is what this what this will do is to help drive sales obviously is I’ve offered something really cool for for these customers so they’re going to come in and use my service that’s great a coupon promo a special deal a a buy one get one free writer for a free pipe wrench with every battery that you purchase right that’s cool that’s going to get them to come in but the other side of this is this allows me to test the success of my website so now when somebody comes in and they say hey I saw that ad on your website you’re like oh there’s one right somebody else comes in hey I saw that out on your website that special deal right okay there’s two so this allows you to track and you can do this with everything you can do this with the emails that you send out right so you put a unique code on there something you want them to say or when they click on a link if you sell things online and it takes you to the store you can track that promo code you can track that number that gets attached to it so you can see what’s successful and then as you find out where successful you can do more of the same so that you can make more money right so test everything test all the stuff that I showed with you today all those 10 points test them change them try new things to see whether or not they work and then you measure the success of it okay now I’ve got a bonus tip for you right I know we got 210 and then you’re like oh good this is finally over no I’ve got one more and this one’s important this one’s huge I’m going to give you I’m going to give you a hint okay you got it you got it yeah yeah there’s your hit right use video now the here’s where video is really really powerful 60 percent of customers who find video on a small business website they watch them right that’s that’s awesome out of the number of people that hit a webpage and see there’s a whole bunch of text and oh look there’s Shawn’s story and they’re like I’ve got to read if they see that circle with the triangle in it they will click on it we are like moths to the flame right oh I totally want to see what this is and that means that they’re going to stay on your website for how much longer two minutes three minutes and what are the chances that I’m really finding out what your story is or hearing those customer testimonials if they’re video they’re higher right so use video right use video on your site and you don’t have to overthink that that can be with your iPhone and a little tripod right just to keep everything steady you can use video to to to pull in customers and keep them so every small business deserves a website that makes them money so just for you right we’ve got a ten point inspection and and see how we did that right we have the ten point inspection on the tune-up type of thing and then we’ve got this for all of you so here you can go and download this worksheet fill it out and it will give you a good idea of where you are on laying the foundation and putting those tactics into place on your website to drive sales okay and as you fill this out and you circle yes or no for those 10 points there’s a there’s a rating down there at the bottom with some possible next steps and if you fill this out and you find out a I’m looking really good maybe it’s time for you to move on to some next steps some other really powerful things that you could do on your website if you fill this out and you’re somewhere in the middle pick one thing pick two things that you could do this week write your story to put on there work on a different call to action right put somewhere on your website a place to gather emails from your customers if you fill this out and you find out like oh man I’ve got a long ways to go right in that particular case just give us a call we’ve got somebody here that will help you 24/7 hey you guys thanks for watching thanks for taking time out today to learn about this and good luck out there
