There are more ways than ever to promote your business. Social media allows for nearly unlimited updating, content-sharing and engagement. E-mail campaigns, newsletters and blogs enable your business to communicate targeted messages and promote your company’s unique value. And there are a dozen surefire offline approaches to reach targeted audiences and drive leads and sales.
But no matter how impressive your social presence is, every company still needs a strong site — your beachhead to the interwebs and the central hub around which you can promote your vision, tell your story, and allow your brand to come to life.
Your website can be your business’ best friend or its worst enemy. Here are four common Website content fails that we see every day along with simple fixes that will help make your site the branding star it was meant to be.
1. Too much copy
The best Web copy is straightforward and concise and leaves readers wanting more. Get to your point quickly and then move onto what you want to communicate next. The most valuable commodity for most busy business people (or consumers) is time, so make your Web copy compelling and persuasive.
Paint a picture of your business with broad strokes. Don’t over explain; if it’s taking you too many words to make a point, you need to simplify your message. Use short paragraphs and punchy copy. Site visitors should immediately get what your company does, what products or services it sells and why you’re awesome. If they aren’t sold within 15 seconds of reading your copy and doing a quick scroll of your site, you’re missing out on a great first impression and very likely an easy conversion.
2. Failure to speak to your targets
Waxing poetic about your world-class team and culture and using words like “innovation” will not endear your company to prospects or spark their imagination. By speaking too much about yourself, you’re neglecting to speak to the prospects that have come to your site to get sold on how you can help them.
Make it clear to your target what it is you do and why they should care.
If your company provides tech solutions to nonprofits, your headline should make this clear in 10 words or less. Your copy should motivate prospects to keep reading and include calls to action. Sell don’t tell.
Take the following two company headlines. Each offers the reader a general business description, but the tone and persuasive message of each could not be more different. One tells, the other sells.
- Company A makes it easy to create and manage online payments for your small business.
- Use Company B. See your online payments explode.
Which company would compel you to learn more?
3. What’s the difference maker?
Telling prospective customers that you’re better than the rest, but not demonstrating “why” is a poor sales approach. Your site is where prospects expect to find specific information about what you do and how you do it; if there is still uncertainty regarding how you stand apart from the competition after a prospect has reviewed your site, you haven’t done your job.
Difference makers come in many forms. What makes your approach to the customer unique? How do you achieve superior results, make a client’s life easier or solve a problem more effectively? What accomplishments make you shine?
One of the easiest ways to differentiate and show off successes are through case studies. Use them to illustrate your core competencies and highlight success stories. While they’re usually copy-driven, more and more businesses use video case studies — they’ll add to the media texture of your site and provide a personal touch.
4. Lack of social media integration
By now you should know the importance of social media links and integration (both for aesthetics and for SEO optimization). Promote your social presence, ask people to follow you on Twitter and Instagram, like you on Facebook and follow your pinboard. If you’re able, provide an incentive to get people to take that extra step. But above all, make sure your social media integration is visible and prominent on your site.
If you live in the B2B world and many of your customers are middle-aged and older, you may think that social media is a sideshow for your more focused marketing messaging and activities. You would be wrong.
The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is 50-65 year olds — many of whom have been on the sidelines for the past five plus years and are eager to catch up on the latest online trends. Social media in all of its forms drives business. Give it the consideration and respect it deserves and it will help drive yours.