I’m not going to talk about bloated websites much here, but small businesses need to make their websites simple so that they can make their websites good. Lots of tools promise the ability to make a complicated website, but they are a way to make a bad complicated website or a site that costs way too much time. The goals of almost every effective small business website are…
- 60% no red flags customers / clients are looking to avoid mistakes. Give them nothing to fear.
- 30% value speak directly to dream customers and tell them how they benefit
- 5% clarity speak directly to dream customers and tell them what the product or service is. While it’s harder to show differentiating value with a commonly understood product like a box of juice, it’s easier to show clarity. You just say “It’s a box of juice” and you’re done.
- 5% call to action usually, the call to action is “contact us.” usually best to make one call to action
This single purpose site needs to do the job effectively for our dream prospects.
Multiple audiences
If the website is made in a way that accomplishes those 4 goals for different kinds of prospects, then great. We prioritize the highest value customer who has the highest risk to protect. Then, we let the other ( lower value) prospects trickle down. The lower value prospects don’t need the same assurance and clarity, so if this site doesn’t hoist red flags for the lower value prospects, we’re good.
Multiple products
The easiest sales path is to have one clear and desirable product for one price to sell to one specific kind of customer, but this isn’t always possible.
If we have multiple products that fall under the same value statement / USP, we can have one website to show that single USP. So, explaining the separate products is a matter of clarity. In that case, we can show multiple services, features, or products that all reinforce that USP. Since value is way more important than clarity, we can have most of the site talking about the overall value we provide, then bury down lower on the site how that value is delivered.
check out David Gabbay or Frank Olivier sites to see how they talk about their different services, but those services are not even close to as important as the value they provide overall in ALL their services.
Make it simpler
A simpler site that shows more value and less detail about products is easier to create, maintain, and has more broad use. We don’t want it to be generic or speak to everyone, but most business owners want to talk too much or out-sell. Accomplish the 4 goals, then get out of the way
Make another site
If we need a site for an audience that conflicts with another audience. Let’s say we’re doing bubble shows for kids charities and chainsaw juggling performances for TV shows, that might be able to fall under the same umbrella, but most likely those gate keepers are very different with very different needs
- parents planning entertainment for the first time emotionally setting their budgets
- casting / stunt directors who work with pros all the time and have set budgets
A major red flag is being a jack-of-all-trades instead of a specialist. I’m sure if you empathize with either of these prospects, you’ll imagine other red flags that could come up seeing other work.
In these cases, we make a website for each thing.