Consultant Marketing Website Anatomy Part 1

You claim to be unique. Why isn’t your web site?

Is yours truly different?

Probably not.

Can your home page first panel pass the three second test?

Three seconds is all you have for your brand to register with a visitor. That visitor is like a stranger you’re meeting for the first time as you’ll see in this video https://vimeo.com/351932771

The first panel on your home page must get across:

• Who this is for

• What problem it solves

• How to take action

Does it work on your phone?

Another way to ask that is, “Is it responsive?” In other words, does it automatically get formatted to appear on a smart phone? Not all sites do. And even when they do the results can prove, at times, to be hilarious.

Depending on what country you’re in the percentage of visitors viewing your site on the phone will vary. Here, according to Global WebIndex, is the current penetration of smart phones across the globe:

• North America 91%

• Latin America 97%

• Europe 93%

• Asia/Pacific 96%

Dissecting the page.

The navigation bar is often not streamlined to make that first glimpse as powerful as it might be. You
need to have your logo up there in the upper left. Make sure it is clickable. That way you don’t have to put “Home” in the navigation.

Keep the pages listed to an absolute minimum. You can use the footer for all the wonderfulness that proves you know your stuff.

Put a call to action button at the far right. If you are lucky to catch someone at the point they are willing to make an interactive commitment you want to make it as easy as possible for them.

Background Image is usually the first thing people see. We are, after all, visually oriented. The image should give us the idea of what the shift is like on the other side of your advice. It is the kiss at the end of every romance movie ever. It is the after picture in the diet ads. It is the celebration of a team.

That image must convey the positive response your advice brings to your clients. If you can’t find an image that works it is better to just make it a plain background. Robin’s egg blue tests best in split tests.

Headline is where things get tricky. A picture is not worth a thousand words. But we don’t have room for a thousand words here. We need to get your unique difference across in just a few words. You need to consider these things: 

1. Awareness level of most visitors. Are they aware of the problem you solve? If not, that is part of your job here. Are they aware of solutions? If so, you may want to offer a comparison to a known solution. Example: Software solutions that eliminate the use of spreadsheets to manage corporate tasks. Headline: Stop tracking spreadsheets with spreadsheets.

 But if they are well along in the customer journey and already aware of your brand you need to find a way to engage    more personally with them. Building on the previous example: Track all your KPI’s without spreadsheets tracking spreadsheets

2. The job to be done. This can be subtle. What, in their terms is the job they need to get done individually or corporately that you or your product/service might do for them. How you refer to what you do needs to be in terms of, “Here’s what you can do with our product.”

A formula you can use to generate possibilities is:

Situation When I’m confronted by_________________________________

Desire I want to _______________________________________________

Result So I can _______________________________________________

A great headline example is: Federal Express When it absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight.

3. What it’s worth plays a key part in how you will be perceived. If you have a value proposition for your business this will be an integral part. Here’s the blueprint I use to generate possibilities:

Name of product _______________________________________________

Helps

Target Audience _______________________________________________

(Can be more than one--separate sheet for each)

Get to

Desired outcome ________________________________________________

Here’s an example from my new website in progress:

Marketing Without Money helps Consultants build a business, a career, and a life of joy

Subhead is optional but I highly recommend it. It gives you the chance to add to the value of your headline, expand and define the job the product does and personalize your pitch for the target audience. The more these words come out of the situations your prospects find themselves in the stronger they will be. The more you can let them see you understand the emotional context they find themselves in the more they will be drawn to you.

Here is an example that could be used with the Marketing Without Money headline above:

Stop struggling to find what works and grasp the conversation that will take your business up a notch

Call to action (CTA)

After all that skull sweat to find just the right words you can’t let it go to waste. You can’t expect the visitor to know what to do if you don’t tell him/her. You don’t need to put your primary CTA on the first panel. But you do need to put at least one simple button on that first panel that is the overall action you want folks to take.

Because Consultant sites are checked out by prospects that generally have been referred (more frequently the longer you are in business) they’re looking to determine you are real.

Should you listen to all that noise about having tons of content and actively pursuing delivery of prospects through your web site? Not so much.

You need to give the visitor a simple mechanism to connect with you. In the case of the Master site we have button in a color contrasting from the background image with the words Arrange a Chat. That drops down to the primary home page CTA that is a form that gathers additional data about the prospect. Why, I’ve written here before about “Skin in the game.” If a prospect will answer a few questions they are more likely to be someone I’d like to work with.

Here’s a tip: include a second CTA but make it not as prominent. Offer the visitor a less direct close. Give them the option. Often this is used in sites for software where the primary CTA is to sign up for a demo and the secondary is to view a video demo on site.

Website assessments from developers don’t go into this.

I know this seems like a heavy emphasis on the words of a website. It isn’t. The results of A/B split tests which advertising professionals have been doing since Claude Hopkins wrote “Scientific Advertising” at the turn of the century show that the words are more important than the visuals. A target audience orientation always beats the chest thumping of a feature emphasis. The emotional argument beats the rational hands down.

Most developers are not copy writers. In simple terms they are more concerned with mechanics and design than communication that converts.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

And, so it goes.

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His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing and Brand development advice that builds businesses, careers and lives of joy.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com 
DIY Training: www.ingomu.com