Does your website work for you? Does it bring in decent leads or sales?
I'm going to be totally switching up my content to give you even more hints and tips along with the practical steps you can take to turn your website into a cash-generating machine!
Your website should do one (or more) of the following:-
Convert visitors into targeted leads (whilst filtering out the time wasters)
Bring people into your world (even if they aren't yet ready to buy from you) … hello newsletter/email sign ups!
Ensure that anyone that lands on your site, immediately knows what you do, is tempted to find out more, can get that information quickly and easily and most importantly take an income or lead-generating action whilst they are there.
Show your pricing on your website (& social media)
The one piece of advice you will hear me say over and over again is that you must make it easy for people to buy from you. But they can't if they don't know how much it costs to work with you. So what is it that scares you? If you don't already state your pricing (or even a ballpark) figure on your website what is it that puts you off doing this? Maybe you are scared that your competitors may “copy” your pricing? Maybe you don't want to be too cheap or too expensive? Maybe you quote per project or want to provide a bespoke service and therefore bespoke price? Whatever your reasoning, I'm going to ask you to reconsider! I am totally transparent on my own website (and social media) about my pricing. That way if someone can't afford my services it cuts out an awkward conversation on a discovery call. Better than that it cuts those discovery calls right down. Yes you did read that right - in fact read it again: “better than that it cuts those discovery calls right down.” I hear the sharp intake of breath - here I am constantly advocating for people to have a clear call to action to get visitors to take action and book those discovery calls but … hear me out on this(!) by discouraging those that know from the off that they can't afford your services, you generally get more targeted leads - with people who have the money to invest in working with you.
You filter out the time-wasters, and more often than not, those that just want their free 20 minutes “to pick your brain”. Now granted this doesn't always happen but from personal experience since I started showing my pricing on my website I now have about an 80% conversion rate for people who then want to proceed to the proposal stage. It also means my “bounce rate” dropped - people who came on to the site and left without taking action because people do look for pricing. Maybe you think that you could charge more once you know the other person's budget? I get that, I mean who doesn't want to earn more money for a project they would normally quote lower on. But what if that person thinks you may be a lot more (or a lot less) than their budget - you may never get to find out because they may just scroll away. There's some really sleazy coaches right now advising their clients not to put their pricing out there because that way you can sell your benefits and “make” people desperate to work with you and then you can charge more. But not only is that horrible and very unsavoury, why would you want anyone who can't afford your services or your programme to put themselves in financial hardship to work with you? Now I get some people can't put their pricing on their website because they charge by project for example, but a great way to get around this is to have some case studies and put ballpark figures next to the case study. Transparency around pricing also builds trust and building trust is a key step into turning the website visitor into a fully paid up client or customer! Think about your own buying habits - if you are put off by not seeing a price on someone's website then you can bet your bottom dollar that will apply to others on your site!
