Gill Andrews
That’s why you need to make every second count. Everything on your website – every word, every button, every image – needs to have a purpose. (Location 210)
Want to inform? Use words that are specific enough to create a clear picture in your visitors’ minds. Because if they can’t imagine it, they won’t buy it. (Location 218)
(1) Could you please explain your offer in a couple of sentences? (2) What is your unique value proposition? Why should someone hire you and not your competitor? (3) Who is your ideal client? (4) What is your strategy for getting new clients through your website? (5) What is your current monthly traffic and your main traffic sources? (6) Who are your competitors? (Location 228)
Homepage header carousels. Client logo carousels. Testimonial carousels. They have no place on an efficient website, because self-moving elements drive your visitors crazy harm the user experience: (Location 241)
Want your prospects to feel excited about your offer? Don’t tell them how to feel. Instead, tell them: How your offer solves their problems by phrasing features through benefits How it makes their lives better by painting the picture of their lives after they buy it What your customers / clients think about you / your product by including credible testimonials (Location 265)
#5: Want people to stay longer on your website? Start with a clear homepage Many of your website visitors don't know what you do. They're checking out your homepage to learn more about you and your offer. But if you greet them with: a cryptic website tagline walls of text countless images and links that pull their attention in all possible directions no or unclear calls to action … they'll close the browser tab faster than you can blink. Want people to stay longer on your website? Start with a clear homepage. (1) State your name / the name of your company. If you are a one-person brand, place your photograph prominently on your homepage. (2) Tell your visitors what you do, what you offer and what's in it for them clearly, using words you’re 100% sure your target audience understands. (3) Define your homepage goals. What would be an ideal action for your visitors to take on your homepage (subscribe to your email list, check out your Services page, contact you, etc.)? (4) Based on your goals, remove everything that pulls their attention in the wrong direction. (5) Add more information that may increase the chances of them taking that action (testimonials, quotes from your case studies, videos, etc.). (6)Add clear calls to action to tell people what they should do next. (Location 271)
#7: Stages of awareness and what your prospects need to hear in each of them A prospect on your Contact page doesn't need to hear about the benefits of your offer. She’s heard enough and now just wants an easy way to get in touch. A seasoned businessman doesn’t need to read five paragraphs describing his problems. He wants to know if you can solve them. Defining your audience doesn’t end with age, gender or occupation. For every page, think about: What do they know about their situation and your offer? What’s missing for them to convert? (Location 302)
Stage #1: Completely unaware These prospects don’t know anything about your offer / problems you solve. => Start by speaking to their state of mind. Stage #2: Problem-aware These prospects are aware of their problems but don’t know how to solve them or even that a solution exists. => Start by showing them that you understand their pain and present them the ‘what’ of your solution. Stage #3: Solution-aware These prospects know what result they want but don’t know that your solution can help them achieve it. => Show them how and why your solution works and explain its benefits. Stage #4: Product-aware These prospects know what you sell but aren’t sure it’s right for them. => Tell them how your solution is different and prove that it works. Stage #5: Most aware (Location 311)
#9: Delete your Testimonials page Do you have a Testimonials page? If you do, check your Google Analytics reports to see how many people visit it. I bet there aren't many. But that's not your biggest problem. Every testimonial is more powerful in context, next to a claim you want your prospects to believe, and not in a pile of ten other testimonials on your Testimonials page that your prospects may or may not discover. Want to persuade more website visitors to take action? Add client testimonials where they matter – on your homepage, About, service and product pages, and anywhere else where you want your prospects to take the next step. Only use effective testimonials that: Are short and direct Use full names and, if possible, headshots Are specific enough to sound authentic Do at least one of these three things: Reinforce your unique value proposition Use data behind the value your service or product delivers Address initial fears of your customers and explain how they were eliminated If possible, contain the keyword you’ve optimized that page for (Location 335)
What if I told you that more people may click on your button if you bury it deeper down the page and make it less visually prominent? Your CTA button is asking people for a commitment. But what if you haven’t given them enough information to make a decision yet? (Location 373)
Instead, vary the length of your paragraphs between 4-, 3-, 2- and 1-liners to avoid visually boring your visitors. (Location 390)
If you: use "I" / "we" in your copy more often than "you" describe the features of your product or service without mentioning the benefits ramble on about your journey and life philosophy on your About page … your copy is self-centered. (Location 409)
Here's how to tell if you're talking too much about yourself: (Location 415)
Make sure your website tagline and subtagline focus on how you can solve your customers' problems. (Location 425)
Don't bore your prospects with never-ending stories about your childhood, hobbies or career on your About page. Instead, tell them more about why you do what you do and why they should trust you. Describe the ways you can help your potential customers solve their problems and focus on building trust, regardless of the page. (Location 428)
For every line of text on your website, ask yourself: "How can I phrase it to show the benefit of working with me / buying my product?" Here are a couple of ideas: What’s that one main problem that you help people solve? Make this sentence your tagline. Rephrase features through benefits. Make sure the titles of your posts reflect the benefits people will get from reading them. Use an opt-in form to capture email addresses, instead of just saying "Sign up for updates". Add a line explaining what your prospects can expect from your updates and promise a benefit. (Location 482)
#19: How many CTA buttons should you put on your homepage? (Location 492)
Sure, some pages should be designed around one call to action. But some pages definitely shouldn’t, and your homepage is one of them. (Location 494)
Here are the seven must-have features of a compelling page that works. (Location 636)
#28: Treat your website navigation as a part of your business message (Location 660)
Here are three things that can ruin even the best-looking and the best-sounding website: (Location 681)
For each headline, calculate its score using CoSchedule and Advanced Marketing Institute online headline analyzers, and their average. (Location 713)
– I got the idea for these formulas from an article by Henneke Duistermaat called "7 Steal-Worthy Emails to Boost Clicks (and Blog Readers)". (Location 716)
How to use (and not to use) your photographs on your website (Location 719)
Facing straight at or towards the text and / or call-to-action button (Location 734)
Here are five reasons why your prospects may feel uncertain (and what to do about it). (Location 743)
When your visitors land on your website, they don’t start reading immediately. First, they'll skim your page. And only when they find something that seems relevant, they’ll dive into it. (Location 756)
Service name: Curb your creativity and use the words your prospects would use to describe this service. (Location 908)
Here are three concrete ways to identify your target audience. (Location 936)
#45: Include a call to action on every page of your website (and even in your freebies) (Location 948)
#47: Remove links from your homepage, About and sales pages (Location 983)
Why? Because those pages have a different goal: not to just let your visitors wander aimlessly around your website but to deliver a mini presentation persuading them to take one specific action (contact you, download a freebie, etc.). Think about it. If you were giving a presentation in real life, would you open a door and ask your audience if they'd like to leave in the middle of it? (Location 987)
How to lure more prospects to your website from search (Location 998)
#49: Make your prospects trust you more by being specific (Location 1018)
When you should ditch storytelling and get straight to the point (Location 1033)
Use social proof that’s meaningful to your prospects (and not just your ego) (Location 1068)
Now, think about what you do when you're looking for a new doctor. Do you check what school they went to and what training they completed? Or do you read the reviews of their patients? (Location 1070)
How to make sure your contact forms are easy to spot and use (Location 1083)
Use this test to quickly spot vague copy that will confuse your prospects (Location 1100)
Imagine using the same words you use on your web page in a real conversation while talking to a prospect. Will she understand you right away? Or will you need to explain further? – So, what do you do, Jane? – We execute engaging brand experiences. (Location 1104)
If it's your website tagline, use one of these formulas: {What} for {whom} Branding and design for creative women entrepreneurs {Do this} to / and {get the benefit} Turn your underperforming website into a lead-generating machine {What} {with what benefit} Web copy that wins your prospects’ hearts (and wallets) {Get this benefit} {by doing this} (Location 1111)
You’ll find an example on the next page. Notice how the last point on the left side doesn’t fit the rest (blog posts aren’t supposed to sell your product; web copy is). (Location 1132)
How to spot vague copy and missing information using Google Autotranslate (Location 1136)
For your prospects to get excited about your offer, they need to imagine it. They need to be able to see themselves and / or their problems reflected there. (Location 1200)
How to decide the order of the sections on your homepage (Location 1208)
To find that out, ask yourself this question: Can you imagine your potential client lying awake at night thinking, "Man, I gotta flush some deadly toxins out of my colon!"? (Location 1238)
Here are four popular things you may feel tempted to do, but I urge you not to bother… and do this instead. (Location 1270)
It helps to display the latest blog posts on your homepage ONLY IF ‘prospect reading a blog post’ is part of your sales funnel. Here's what I mean. (Location 1289)
Get rid of the things that don’t add value: (Location 1312)
An ultra-effective way to make more subscribers open your email newsletters (Location 1320)
But don’t just make it say "Thank you for subscribing". Add a prominent call to action to extend the interaction between you and your new subscribers. (Location 1326)
{Unique feature that differentiates you from competition} {Main problem of customers + solution your product offers for it} (Location 1402)
Clear section headings are a good thing. But if they give away everything there is to know about your article, then there wasn’t much value in it in the first place. And there’s no point reading the rest. (Location 1412)
When your product is new or there's not a big enough search volume to rely on, check out Amazon reviews or forums to uncover common phrases your target audience uses when talking (Location 1444)
Enter a call-to-action button above the fold on your homepage, the most typical being "Contact me". Here's why you may want to remove it. Since most of the people who land on your homepage see it (and you) for the first time, your button is asking them to do something they aren't ready to do yet (to contact you). Which means that button is useless. (Location 1505)
You’re SaaS (a suitable CTA: "Start free trial") (Location 1512)
#82: Here’s what it takes to convert strangers into customers (Location 1565)
At a high level, for a stranger to become a customer, they'd need to: (1) Find their way to your website (2) Get a good first impression and their initial question answered (Location 1567)
#83: Convert more prospects by answering the right mini questions (Location 1584)
Leave your visitors in peace. Let them read the article they came to you for without screaming your own agenda at them. (Location 1633)
#86: The more complex your topic, the simpler your design needs to be (Location 1642)
#87: Want more client inquiries? Make your Contact page more human (Location 1666)
#90: To get more people to read your blog posts, go beyond a standard Blog page (Location 1731)
(1) Add a Blog focus, featured posts and a sign-up form (Location 1735)
#91: How to get more comments on your blog posts (Location 1748)
Yet, you: (Should) know your customers' exact needs and can mix your ‘products’ (aka pieces of information) to match those needs faster Can’t afford to make them wander along your ‘aisles’ for too long searching for the right info, because your competitor is just a click away (Location 1790)
Not sure what's prototypical for your niche? Check out your competitors' websites and note: (Location 1820)
Here's a solution: Use two main navigation menus. (Location 1832)
Notice how those labels can be separated into two categories: Sales pages where your prospects can learn more about your offers: Home, Services, Case Studies, Book, Courses Discovery pages where your prospects can learn more about you or get in touch: About, Blog, Contact (Location 1834)
asked her to send me all the testimonials she had. Then I created an Excel sheet with the following columns: (Location 1847)
That’s why you need to make every second count. Everything on your website – every word, every button, every image – needs to have a purpose. (Location 210)
The best place for the "follow me" social icons on your website? Your website footer. If someone genuinely wants to follow you on social media, they'll scroll down to find those links. Everyone else should stay on your website and explore more of your content. (Location 329)