Unless you are an eCommerce company, entrepreneurs want their website to make the company look “professional.” That’s great, but websites are the number one selling tool that most companies have, so they should be used by everyone to sell its products and services. It can both look “professional” and sell our products and services.
For starters, you need to look at your website’s structure to make sure you have structured a persuasive story. Following is a website structure that will guide you to a successful website.
According to Yoast, Site structure refers to how you organize your website’s content. A website often consists of content on a variety of related topics. The site structure deals with how this content is grouped, linked, and presented to the visitor. If you structure your website well, it will benefit from this structure; users will find their way more easily, and Google can better index your website.
Layout each section on paper first, so you don’t have to make any changes later during and after development. There are nine sections in this discussion. Colors and images are fine, and you need to use them, but it’s words that sell.
Don MIllier, author and CEO of storybrand.com, has a simple, straightforward way to look at your website, making sense and is easy to use. Look at your website and compare it to this list,
1 Header
First impressions are important. The first 10 seconds the customer lands on your page are the most critical. They decide to stay or leave. Others say 20 seconds is what you have or the first 100 words.
Don’t be cute or clever. Be simple, clear. You need to answer three questions; first, what do you offer? How will it make the customer’s life better? What do they need to do to buy it? This is where you get your CTA.
Don’t be passive-aggressive aggressive with CTA. like “learn more.” The customer needs something to accept or reject. You can even have two CTA‘s in the header. Images are good and happy people are hard to beat. But, if you sell cakes, show great cakes.
2 The Problem or Situation
This is the failure section. Stories love tension. Most stories start with a character who wants something. Then challenges are placed between the character and what the character wants. The closing of the distance makes the story work—a positive scene, followed by a negative scene.
What is the cost of not doing business with you? What is not having a clear, powerful messaging costing you? How many customers can’t hear your offer in the sea of marketing noise? Your lack of clarity may already be costing you a great deal?.
If there are no stakes in the story, there is no story. How about the pains of losing to competition, not reaching potential, confusion, lost business, missed opportunities, wasted time.
But a little bit of this goes a long way. Maybe show a box with a logo and a sentence or so telling about some pains. Maybe underneath the box, three columns with some points that you want to make.
4 Value proposition
It is a good idea to put this section after stakes position after negotiation; stories love the contrast. Contrasting scenes work well. What value will the customer receive if they do business with you? Tell customers everything they get: can they save money, save time, reduce risk, get quality, simplify their life.
Be specific. The visual. Maybe a box again with 123 and the different points that you want to make. It would be best if you had a headline on top of the visual; otherwise, people won’t read it.
5 The guide
Provide an incredible return on their investment. Focus on the customer, Lose sleep over your customer’s success.
The Guide is an empathetic and authoritative person to help the customer get where he wants to be. He understands their challenge and helps people achieve it.
A couple of ways to show this are testimonials, logos of companies you’ve worked with. A simple statistic, many people you’ve helped tons of people for example
Don’t overdo authority. Make sure you don’t use too much authority and not enough empathy. Three testimonials will show both. Keep testimonials short and to the point.
The same is true for overcoming objections, involving problems, solving problems, adding value. Keep testimonials short; statistics is another way. Show the years you’ve been in business, awards you’ve received, and clients you have served.
5 The Plan
This tells customers the path they need to take to buy the product or service. It may not be obvious to them how to do it. Use three steps. Keep the plan visibly simple.
6 The Explanatory paragraph
Most people don’t stay on the website because there are too many useless words at the top. With this structure, they are already hooked by the time they get here.
This is where the SEO comes from. This explanatory paragraph needs to follow the story outline. One, identify who your customer wants to become, two identify what they want, three, define the problem setting them back, four, position you as their guide, five, share a plan they can use to solve the problem, which includes your product—six calls to action.
Another option. Overcome your client’s objections. List the top five reasons or excuses why they don’t want to work with you. Craft a sentence or two to overcome each objection. Note you can do both of these on the same page.
7 Videos
Videos are becoming very popular. Many sites have them now, and you will need to look at them as a quick way to get your message across quickly and with impact. A
8 Price choices
If you have several price options, you will want to put them after giving them enough information that visitors could make a buying decision.
9 Other Information
All of the above information may not be enough for everyone. Some will want to know more. Here is where this information goes. Those very interested will continue to read on, but most will have exited by this point. They could come back another time, however. Also, some people will have questions, and this is the place to answer those questions in either narrative format or even a list of questions and answers.
Conclusion
You want a professional-looking site, but you also need a website that delivers a sales message. This structure will help you get both. You don’t have to go one through nine; you can vary the order depending on your message. However, you need to start with a problem and the solution to get the visitor to spend any time looking at your story.\
Does your website have a readable structure? What improvement could you make?
