How to Increase Sales for Your Service Business through Your Website
How to Increase Sales for Your Service Business through Your Website
The purpose of your website is to either directly generate sales, or indirectly generate sales through highly qualified leads. Even when you aren’t directly selling a product through your website your website should be a lead generation mechanism for highly qualified prospects.
What you do to get traffic to your website is marketing. Once that traffic gets there it’s your website’s job to sell that traffic. Most service businesses will be selling that traffic on the idea of signing-up for something with perceived value so you have permission to market to them over time until they’re ready to become new clients.
That means the first page a visitor sees and every page on your website must have one and only one clear objective for that visitor. What happens when a visitor comes to your website now? In all likelihood that visitor is confused.
It isn’t immediately obvious to them what this page is about, what they can do on this page, or why they should want to investigate this website further. Each visitor to your website has three very simple questions you must answer. If you can’t help that visitor answer those questions in less than 30 seconds they’re gone forever.
The first question your visitor has is, “Where am I?” The purpose of marketing was to get a visitor to this page. Once the visitor arrives they simply want to know they’re in the right place.
An easy way to make this clear is to match the wording used in the marketing tools to get the visitor to the page with the message the visitor sees on the page. This eliminates confusion immediately. If they didn’t have an interest they wouldn’t have responded to your marketing message and visited the page in the first place, so making sure your messages match is a simple solution to eliminating visitor confusion.
The second question the visitor has is, “What can I do or get here?” This is where most websites really miss the mark. The visitor gets to the webpage and then there are too many options, or the option they want is too hard to find. Keep it simple by giving them one and only one action to take.
Their final question is, “Why should I participate?” Most people get too many emails already and suffer from information overload in combination with a time deficit. The perceived value of the action must be greater than the pain of getting yet another email.
Keep these three simple questions in mind as you build your website, or update your current website. Remember your website is a selling tool not a marketing tool. Use it to your advantage to increase sales.
How to Increase Sales for Your Service Business through Your Website - To learn more about this author, visit Cheryl A. Clausen's Website.
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Many business owners have a common misunderstanding about what their website is supposed to be doing for their business that is costing them missed opportunities to directly increase sales. Most business owners have the misguided notion that their website is a marketing tool. That’s a big and costly misunderstanding that is spawned by web developers and graphic designers who don’t understand the importance of a return on your investment, or how to get it.
The purpose of your website is to either directly generate sales, or indirectly generate sales through highly qualified leads. Even when you aren’t directly selling a product through your website your website should be a lead generation mechanism for highly qualified prospects.
What you do to get traffic to your website is marketing. Once that traffic gets there it’s your website’s job to sell that traffic. Most service businesses will be selling that traffic on the idea of signing-up for something with perceived value so you have permission to market to them over time until they’re ready to become new clients.
That means the first page a visitor sees and every page on your website must have one and only one clear objective for that visitor. What happens when a visitor comes to your website now? In all likelihood that visitor is confused.
It isn’t immediately obvious to them what this page is about, what they can do on this page, or why they should want to investigate this website further. Each visitor to your website has three very simple questions you must answer. If you can’t help that visitor answer those questions in less than 30 seconds they’re gone forever.
The first question your visitor has is, “Where am I?” The purpose of marketing was to get a visitor to this page. Once the visitor arrives they simply want to know they’re in the right place.
An easy way to make this clear is to match the wording used in the marketing tools to get the visitor to the page with the message the visitor sees on the page. This eliminates confusion immediately. If they didn’t have an interest they wouldn’t have responded to your marketing message and visited the page in the first place, so making sure your messages match is a simple solution to eliminating visitor confusion.
The second question the visitor has is, “What can I do or get here?” This is where most websites really miss the mark. The visitor gets to the webpage and then there are too many options, or the option they want is too hard to find. Keep it simple by giving them one and only one action to take.
Their final question is, “Why should I participate?” Most people get too many emails already and suffer from information overload in combination with a time deficit. The perceived value of the action must be greater than the pain of getting yet another email.
Keep these three simple questions in mind as you build your website, or update your current website. Remember your website is a selling tool not a marketing tool. Use it to your advantage to increase sales.
How to Increase Sales for Your Service Business through Your Website - To learn more about this author, visit Cheryl A. Clausen's Website.
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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