One of the most common requests I get from my clients is to improve their local SEO ranking. Put another way, the majority of business owners ask me, “How can I get to the top of the Google searches in my area?” and “how can I differentiate myself from the many other businesses offering similar services in the same area?”.
Well, there is a lot you can do in terms of SEO (check out our post about an essential SEO checklist HERE) to get your website to the top of the search engine results. Getting a lot of people to visit your website is one thing. Today I am talking about how to personalize your website, how to differentiate yourself visually and content-wise, to make your business stand out. Personalization and differentiation. The distinction of who you are, what makes you different from the rest, who your customers are, and your demonstration of your business personality is crucial. The personalization of your website (or the lack thereof) will influence whether your customers want to stay on your webpage and whether they decide they are interested in your services/products. So, how can you personalize the benefits of your services/products?
- Your customer’s persona. Take some time to think like them. Identify your customer’s personas by asking questions to your existing customers. Ask yourself questions like, are my potential customers searching for more info, or are they ready to buy?
- What questions are they asking themselves, and what are they looking up online?
- How are your brand, your personality, expertise, and overall company represented on your website?
- Does your website demonstrate you are truly an expert, and you know what you are talking about?
- Does your website paint a picture, simple enough to help guide your potential customers from what originally brought them to search online to the point where they know you will get the job done for them?
- Get feedback from your role model customers
Start by speaking with all of your current role model customers to identify what should be changed and what can be improved on your website. You will find the majority of thriving businesses have used the feedback of customers throughout their successful journeys. Take Salesforce for example. Marc Benioff, the CEO, gives a lot of credit to his success because of listening to prospective customers, and treating his customers like partners.
On top of what your customers say, add content which encapsulates and shows off your personality, your company and your customers/partners!
Images: Let’s pretend for a moment we are looking for a professional electrician to help with outdoor lighting installation in your home. In our area alone (The East Bay Area) there are at least one hundred, and maybe even 1,000 electricians providing services. To start with, the use of stock photos will make a website indistinguishable from the others. To stand out, you should use unique pictures. Take for example our client, Martin from Lumiere Electric. In his about page you will see a unique photo of him on the job!
- Profile photo: In your about section, or in a wordpress profile, wear something nice and appropriate and make sure to smile in whatever photo you use! Your initial appearance matters. Be it on LinkedIn, the first meeting with a client, or especially with your personal and business brand. The pictures and visual content you use will either make a customer want to call you or not.
- Article sections: Based on how you have your website divided section-wise, in the services section you could put a picture of yourself with happy customers. Or, for example, for photographers, in your portfolio, put some ad-lib photos of your clients and yourself laughing. Or, in a testimonial section, include a video of some of your satisfied customers preaching the value of your services! Take for example one of our clients, and what they did in their testimonial page below:
- As I mentioned in a previous article, regarding the benefit of utilizing Google reviews (check it out HERE), the majority of consumers rely on and trust the reviews of others when making a purchase decision. One of the best ways to demonstrate the satisfaction and feedback from existing customers is to show videos and picture proof!
So, in summary, here are some of the important points I spoke about today
- Walk in the shoes of your customers. Adjust your website accordingly. For example, write a few blog posts directly answering some of your customers most common discovery/preliminary questions. Or, if you know that the majority of small business owners prefer to watch videos related to their questions, challenges and needs, make a section specifically dedicated to videos (like what we did at Tech Design Studios, since this is the one person we always speak to in regards to new projects).
- If you don’t already ask for customer feedback, start now, and treat it as a critical aspect of how you improve your business, your website, and your web presence.
- Independent of what anyone says, decide for yourself how to demonstrate (on your website) your personality, and everything which encapsulates what makes your business fantastic and unique.
Thanks for reading, and please share this post if you found it useful!
Sincerely,
Chris
