Here’s the thing, your website should be your best unpaid sales person in the world for your business. Your website can and should be building trust with your audience and bringing in revenue to your business 24/7 and it’s not that hard to do this.

Whether you’ve got a website or you’re getting started, these tips are for you. It’s so important to make sure you’ve covered all of the below to make sure you website does its job to connect and convert.

Here’s 5 essential things to check off so your website sells

1. Get crystal clear on your offering

Make it easy for people to understand your offering. Don’t use complicated phrases or industry jargon. Attention spans are hella short these days. It should be obvious what you do within 5 seconds of visiting your site. If people have to spend time figuring out exactly what you do, chances are they’ll leave your website asap. And you’ll lose a potential client. This is can have trickle down effect on your overall ranking on Google. To go deeper, I’d recommend ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ - an awesome book that explains best practices for UX and web usability.

2. Focus on how it benefits your clients

Everybody’s favourite topic is themselves. Use this to your advantage to turn your website into a conversion machine! The best thing you can do is communicate your offering by telling your ideal client how it will help her. If you haven’t figured out exactly who this is yet, now is a great opportunity to hone in on this!

Spend some time understanding what’s important to your ideal client and tap into that. List tangible benefits and don’t be afraid to use emotions selling techniques. Say for example you’re a VA. Your ideal client is looking for assistance as she’s snowed under with work. You can speak to how you can help by freeing up more time for her to spend with her family.

3. Decide on your aesthetic vibe

The number one tip to make sure your website looks professional and polished? Consistency! Ever landed on a site that make your head hurt? Yeah, me too. When your potential client lands on your site for the first time, she has to try to make sense of everything. The whole point of good web design is to create an experience that is enjoyable to your visitors. Having a consistent design helps her  find the information she needs to make a decision.

Here’s a few essential pointers:

• Choose max 2-3 fonts to use throughout

• Pick colours that compliment each other

• Use images with a similar colour or subject matter

When I work with clients I ask them to make a Pinterest board of images, colours and fonts that they like. I pull all this info together and create a brand guide and moodboard.

4. Pick a primary goal

This can be a little tricky. You probably have lots of things you want to achieve with your website. But for the sake of focus and direction, I want you to choose one to focus on.  This helps visitors understand exactly what you do.

Let’s pause for a sec. Think about what success means to you and your business. Are you really focused on growing your email list? Do you want to grow your social media following? Are you tracking the number of inbound inquiries you get for your services?

Write down all the goals of your website and then highlight your primary goal.

Based on your primary goal, I want you to consider what the primary call-to-action will be.

A call-to-action (also known as a CTA) is an instruction to your website visitors that provokes an immediate response. They’re often buttons that link to other pages on your website where a final action can take place. “Buy now” “Learn more” “Call today” “Work with me”

5. Organise your content

You might be a little overwhelmed by this one. Maybe you have lots of content and are half-thinking to copy and paste it all on to your homepage. Please don’t as this really won’t help your visitors. First, let’s get really clear on the relevant information. When in doubt, think Apple! This company is famous for non-wordy, effective sales copy. Another helpful tip is try what I call the ‘Ask Grandma’ test. Imagine you are explaining your services to your grandmother. You might end up rewriting some of your content to make sure she understands you. That’s a good thing! Remember, if your customer is confused, you’ve lost them. I’m a fan of using Hemmingway App to make sure my content is as clear as possible.

The next step is to determine what pages you want to include on your website. Outline the purpose and call-to-action of each page. You may realise you can get rid of a few pages by going through this process. For example, let’s say you plan to have a contact us page with your contact details. You also plan to have a directions page with a map. These can easily be merged into one page.

Above all, keep the layout of your site logical and in line with normal website standards. This is the best way to ensure your clients can easily find the information they are looking for.

Once you’ve got these steps sorted, I’m confident you’re going to soon have lots of new clients start streaming in through your beautiful website!

Not sure which website builder to choose? Check out my blog post where I walk through the pros and cons of the most popular free and paid options including Squarespace and Shopify.