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Episode 125: The Purpose of Every Web Page
269 Plays3 years ago
In this episode Krista and I discuss the purpose of every page on a website. Well not every page but we discuss many pages that one would likely find on a website. In previous episodes we've done deep dives into various pages but today we're taking a high-level view of a website and discussing how looking at your website as a funnel can help you understand each page’s purpose and place in the customer journey.
For show notes visit...https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-episode-125/
Recommended
Transcript
Strategic Testimonial Placement
00:00:05
Speaker
testimonials work portfolio, which I think there's always a temptation for people to put all of their testimonials on one page, but it's probably pretty unlikely that someone's going to go to your testimonials page and read through 20 testimonials, unless they are really considering working with you. Same with maybe viewing your work. They might view a little bit if they're super curious, but we have found that people have more success in displaying their whole business as a whole when they mix everything up throughout the site.
Website Purpose Exploration with Davy Jones
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:48
Speaker
In this episode, Chris and I discuss the purpose of every page on a website. Alright, well not every page, but we discuss many pages that one would likely find on a website. In previous episodes, we've done deep dives into various pages. Today, we're taking a high-level view of a website and discussing how looking at your website as a funnel can help you understand each page's purpose and place in the customer journey.
00:01:12
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands Lifebook podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram, at DavyandChrista. Now, on to the episode.
Personal Chat: Krista's Pregnancy and Weather Woes
00:01:33
Speaker
All right, we are back. Already sniffling over there.
00:01:38
Speaker
Another episode of the Brands of Book podcast with Krista. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Appreciate you made the trip all the way from the guest room.
00:01:50
Speaker
That's two flights of stairs. That's right. Well, I appreciate it. Second episode we've recorded together while you've been pregnant. Not feeling great today. I'm just like stuffy and I don't know if it's like allergies or if it's like, you know, your nose gets stuffy when you get pregnant. I'm a little out of breath. I don't know that. I'm only like 15 weeks. So I feel like it's way too early to have that like, I'm so big I can't breathe.
00:02:11
Speaker
What kind of thing going on? Either way, I appreciate you taking the time to record. Thank you. I'm excited for today's topic. Yes. Digging into some website stuff. First, I want to ask you, what's your least favorite month of the year? Are you asking me this because you want to complain? Yes. I'm just going to cut to complaining then because you've called me. Can I answer? Yeah, go ahead. Probably February because it's like there's nothing going on. It's freezing cold. This year, it was snow the entire month.
00:02:38
Speaker
February is an awful month, but you know it's going to be cold. So you just kind of wrap your head around, you go into it just knowing it's going to be cold, it's going to be miserable. What is there to dislike about April? It is 80 degrees and beautiful today. The flowers are in bloom. It's setting out.
00:02:56
Speaker
Today it is 80 degrees, but Saturday it was 55. That was the high. Oh, it's like a tender, so cold. It might as well be freezing. Oh my gosh. And that's the thing about April. In March, you roll into March and you're like, you get a couple warm days in March, but you're just grateful because you're like, this is a gift. These warm days are a gift. By the time March is over though, you're like, it needs to be warm. And April is all about like, hey, I'm going to give you a couple of 75 and sunny days, and then we're going to turn the temperature down to 55. A frigid 55.
00:03:26
Speaker
I do not like anything below 65. You were ridiculous. You were such a baby. That's why they make coats and under armor cold gear and sweatshirts. I sometimes ask myself, we could have moved really anywhere, right? And we decided to move to Virginia.
00:03:42
Speaker
Maybe we should move to Florida. Although I think you'll find a reason to complain in July when it's over 100 and humid. You know I love some humidity. Oh my gosh. You're the only one. My hair is curly and it does not love the humidity. Anyways, just kidding. Lots of things to
Living in Virginia: Hair and Weather Challenges
00:03:57
Speaker
be excited about here in Virginia. We're going to pick up some pork from the processor, send our first round of pigs to processing. Some of those pigs were named and I'm really trying not to. They're only named by Krista.
00:04:10
Speaker
That's not true. The kids named them too. I'm really trying not to think about the fact that we're evil. It's like named.
00:04:17
Speaker
Well, I'm very excited for bacon. So you can't take that away from me. Excited about that. Excited about what's going on over at Big Spring Cattle 2. So that's exciting stuff launching soon. What else? SEO course, show at SEO course. That's launching relatively soon.
SEO Course Launch Announcement
00:04:33
Speaker
So if you have a show website, you're thinking about a show website, interested in search engine optimization, be sure to stay tuned for that. And you know what? If you send me an email, maybe I'll just give you a special early access price. Wow.
00:04:46
Speaker
Chris is looking at me like, we did not plan this. What are you doing? This is not on the outline. Like, are you setting up a link for this? Am I doing this? So, we'll just send us email support at DavyandChriser.com. Tell us that you heard about it on the podcast. Okay. And we'll hook you up. I don't even know what the special is going to be. Renee is going to be really confused. Yeah.
Website Pages and Sales Funnel Alignment
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. Anyways, moving on, we are talking about websites today. We're talking about the purpose of every page on a website. We have other episodes where we have
00:05:15
Speaker
dug deep into a specific page. So for instance, one of the about page ones come to mind. We've done one on the service page, services page and sales page four. But we really haven't taken a bird's eye view of a website and just talk through each page of a website and just kind of how we approach website structure in general. I think that our approach is often a little bit different than most people think of when they think of outlining a website.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, it's top of mind right now because of some of the stuff that I'm going through, or have recently been creating for the show at SEO course, just in, again, our approach to website structure, you know, how we set it up well for not only search engines, but for users as well. And I think that when people, especially if you haven't launched a website before, or that's just not your specialty, right? I mean, it's kind of like when we worked with our architects, we just didn't know what we didn't know.
00:06:08
Speaker
And so he would bring stuff up and we'd be like, oh, we would never have thought about that. Like door swings and like, yeah. And so it's not like, so it's just, you know, interesting when you work with somebody who's that's what they do. That's their specialty, right?
00:06:23
Speaker
They just bring up things, the little things that you just maybe wouldn't have thought about. So anyways, what we're going to do is we're going to go through each page of the website. We're just going to talk about its purpose, how we approach it in general. And there are all sorts of different ways to set up a website. So just because we don't name a page that maybe you have or want to have on your website doesn't necessarily mean that adding that page would be wrong. We're not going to talk about every possible page you could have on your website, but just the pages that we typically find.
00:06:53
Speaker
Sounds good. Yeah. So one of the ways that I find it helpful to think about your website and your approach to your website is thinking about your website itself as a funnel. Okay. And we've talked about funnels on the podcast before, but if you're not aware of, you know, marketing or sales funnel,
00:07:11
Speaker
Typically at the top of a funnel, so think of a funnel, at the top of the funnel, the widest part of the funnel, that's the awareness phase, all right? So in that stage of the funnel, you are making people aware that your product, service, content exists, all right? And the idea is to move them down the funnel. And of course at the very bottom of the funnel is hopefully making a sale or booking a client or whatever it might be, right?
00:07:38
Speaker
So, you have the top of the funnel, that's typically awareness. The middle of the funnel for people, typically consideration. It gets a little bit narrower. People fall out along the way. Not always a bad thing because our products and our services aren't for everyone. And then we move them to the bottom of the funnel, and that's the intent portion of the funnel. They are ready to buy from someone. Hopefully you.
00:08:00
Speaker
It sounds good. So anyways, it's helpful, I think, to put each of the pages of your website within one of those segments of the funnel. Okay. To really understand, you know, where is the customer at? Where is the potential client at in the customer journey?
00:08:18
Speaker
And I think that's going to help people think through like, oh, what sort of content should I include on that page? What sort of links should I include on that page? So what's the call to action after somebody hits that page? Where do I want to send them? So I think that might be a helpful illustration for people.
00:08:36
Speaker
Typically, how I outline stuff is if I were to put pages in a funnel, it would be in the top of the funnel, there would be the homepage and blog slash blog posts, any sort of content, so maybe you have a vlog. That's the sort of thing that would go in the top of the funnel.
00:08:51
Speaker
stuff that brings people in. Exactly. And then in the middle of the funnel, you'd have maybe services pages, right? People who are definitely interested in a service and maybe they're comparing you to other service providers or cornerstone pages. We're not going to talk a lot about cornerstone pages in this podcast episode.
00:09:07
Speaker
But in general, what I'd consider a cornerstone page would be a page that targets a specific search. It would be similar to a service page, but it would be more specific. So for instance, when we shot weddings, we primarily worked in Annapolis, but Baltimore being a little bit north of us, DC being a little bit south of us, we could create cornerstone content around Baltimore and DC weddings. So a page for each to target those searches. Anyways, stuff that we get into in the show at SEO course.
00:09:37
Speaker
and then the bottom of the funnel. What sorts of things would you think would go on the bottom of the funnel? The contact page, sales pages, specific product pages. Exactly. Wherever you're pushing people to actually make that end conversion. That's typically how I'm thinking about a website if I were to think about it in terms of a funnel.
00:09:58
Speaker
I think that's really helpful too because I think sometimes the temptation would be on your homepage to add a bunch of contact buttons or a bunch of buy buttons because you think, well, that's what I want people to do. But most people when they first get on your homepage, they're not ready to buy. They want to learn more about you and your services before they're hit with all those buy buttons.
00:10:17
Speaker
Exactly. And I think something else I see about different pages, like a services page, for instance, if we think about the services page as somebody who's in that consideration phase and they're actually thinking about your services, I see services pages that have maybe links to random blog posts. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, right? Especially if you have really popular blog posts, but it's sort of backwards, right? You could take the content in those blog posts and maybe
00:10:43
Speaker
put them in some sort of gallery or portfolio page or something along those lines that keeps people on the services page instead of sending them almost backwards to a, what's like a blog post is typically going to be a lower converting page. And it's not going to have like a buy now, contact us now, inquire now kind of button typically.
00:11:00
Speaker
Whereas a services page, more likely that you have maybe a contact form at the bottom of the services page. And what you'd probably want to see after somebody hits your services page is for them to land on the contact page and actually make the inquiry or make the sale or whatever it might be.
Designing an Effective Homepage
00:11:15
Speaker
So anyways, I think that's one of the reasons why it's helpful to think through the website as a funnel for that.
00:11:23
Speaker
So let's dive into each page and just talk about its purpose a little bit. We'll start with the homepage here. One thing, one element that goes on every page, especially when we're designing a website, what do you think it is?
00:11:37
Speaker
testimonials work portfolio, which I think there's always a temptation for people to put all of their testimonials on one page, but it's probably pretty unlikely that someone's going to go to your testimonials page and read through 20 testimonials. Almost they like are really considering working with you. Same with maybe viewing your work. They might view a little bit if they're super curious, but we have found that people have more success in displaying their whole business as a whole when they mix everything up throughout the site.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So basically, we're big advocates that social proof should go on every single page of your website, basically. And it doesn't have to be the same kind of social proof. So social proof is made up of a number of different things, as you just mentioned. So it being kind words and testimonials. It could be case studies. It could be badges from different places that you've been featured. So there's all different sorts of social proof that you can work on your website. But I think, as you said, when I see a testimonials page, it's like, well, of course,
00:12:33
Speaker
Of course, they're going to put all their best stuff there. Yeah, exactly. And it's just going to be a series of testimonials. And it's not that people wouldn't visit that. But I do think it makes for a more powerful website when you use testimonials in strategic places to back up the different claims that you make throughout your website. So anyways, that's something that goes on every single page. So we will talk about maybe where or when a portfolio page or testimonial page might make sense here in a minute. But let's dive into the homepage. Sounds good. Good place to start.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think so, too. So when we design a homepage, we're really designing it for somebody who is not familiar with your business, right? You know, I'm thinking about businesses that I'm familiar with, businesses that I use, so ConvertKit, for instance. Like, when I go to the ConvertKit homepage, it's really to get into login, you know? Because I've already signed up. I'm already familiar with ConvertKit, right? And so really, who ConvertKit needs to design their homepage for is for somebody who needs to get to know them.
00:13:32
Speaker
And if you go to their website and at least the last version that I saw, it would be there's two calls to action. One is to sign up for a free account and then one is to learn how it works, which makes a lot of sense. So if you're a photographer, it should be pretty clear right when somebody visits your website that you're a photographer and where you shoot because those are probably the two biggest questions somebody's going to have when they visit your site.
00:13:55
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, especially if you're a service-based business and I can't tell you how many service-based business websites that I've seen where it's taken me a while to figure out where somebody is located. I've seen somewhere they don't say it at all because they think that'll get people to book them for traveling. But I think it does them a disservice when no one knows where they are or where they serve.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Especially when most services are going to get the majority of their work from local business. And it's also better for search engines if you say we're located. Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of lose out on maybe that search engine optimization value by not including some locational information. But I think that the test of a homepage is could someone visit only your homepage and then figure out or have a clear understanding of what you do and get at least a sense of who you do that for, who you serve.
00:14:44
Speaker
And like I said, when we design a homepage, we're really thinking of somebody who is not familiar with us in our business. And that's really how we're going to go about figuring out what sort of content that we would include on our homepage. So on your homepage, I think it's totally fine. I think about the homepage as sort of a top of funnel page, somebody who's designing it in mind for somebody who's not quite familiar with us.
00:15:09
Speaker
So, you know, I might link off to a lead gen piece, you know, something where people can put their email address in and get some sort of freebie from me just to continue bringing them down or continue to nurture them, you know, down the funnel. And then, you know, linking to blog posts, I think is a fine thing to do on something like the homepage because it might get them to some of your most valuable or popular content.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, anything linking to your about page and having a photo of yourself on your homepage is important or a photo of your team or like if you're a wedding venue, something that represents your business just so that people get to know who you are and they can see that there's a face behind the business.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that the links that you have on your homepage, it's okay, even a link to something like a blog post, your about page, things like that, really get people acquainted with what it is that you do and who you do it for, maybe some of your core offerings or your best content.
Crafting an Authentic About Page
00:16:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Cool. So should we go on to the about page? That sounds good. All right. The about page. Now the about page I think is just a
00:16:12
Speaker
One of the most confusing pages out there, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about this. We have another episode where we dive deep into about pages. I think me and you recorded that together. And then I think you and Jess have done one too, maybe? Yeah, especially from like a copy perspective. So check that one out for sure. But the about page, I think it's, you know, I call it the social proof page. You know, like, why do you think people visit the about page?
00:16:38
Speaker
It's probably not to learn that Davey likes running and hoagies and sweatpants and all the other things that are just very Davey-esque. I do like all of those things. But yeah, it's probably not to learn those things. It's probably just to get a sense of whether you're legit or not. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that you shouldn't include personal details there. So the fact that I run might, I don't know, somebody who's considering working with us might identify with that, right?
00:17:04
Speaker
But it's all about, you know, if you're going to include that information, like how are you tying that into your brand? Does it build up your brand? Forget how Jess put it. She put it really nicely, I think, especially in terms of thinking about the copy. Like, does it help them? Like, if you include something, does it help them picture you doing what you do or something like that?
00:17:23
Speaker
Like for her, she includes coffee on her home page or on her about page or something like that. Which makes sense. But if I share my Starbucks order, it's probably not going to help people book me. We never go to Starbucks. There aren't any around here. I have a few Starbucks gift cards in my inbox because I don't know where to use them.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't think the about page has to be particularly complicated, right? Or even particularly long. You know, I think that really, especially if you feel like I'm not a great writer or, you know, maybe you feel like you're not that interesting or something like that, which I'm sure you are, right? Everybody is. You know, I think that just making sure that you convey that you are good at what you do. You know, I think telling a story that conveys why it is that you love what you do, again, testimonials, any sort of badges, places that you've been
00:18:04
Speaker
You can get testimonials from your peers too. If you're in the wedding industry and you're a planner, ask photographers and florists and venues to give you a testimonial and include those. Those are a good way to build up more different kinds of social proof.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah. And something else that we mentioned about about pages as well, you know, I think it's like to a certain extent a box that you have to check for some businesses, especially e-commerce businesses. And I know that this podcast is more geared towards service-based businesses, but you'll notice that the about page often isn't even in the top level of navigation, right? I'm designing a shop right now and the about page is super simple and it's not going to be linked in the main navigation because if you're buying jewelry from someone, you don't really probably care who they are.
00:18:43
Speaker
Their story. Yeah, and I don't even know if it's that necessarily right, but there is obviously a difference between, and I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast are solopreneers, or small teams, or even if they're not a solopreneer, they maybe are the face behind their business. They're fulfilling the client service, the orders, or their bookings, or whatnot. So, it's a little bit more important that your wedding day, for instance, and I know we use that as an example a lot, and we work a lot in the wedding industry. You like the person that you're working with
00:19:11
Speaker
for eight hours on one of the most important days of your life. Right, or if you're hiring a web designer or a copywriter. Whereas I just ordered a promptly journal for our new baby and I don't need to, like it was like a quick one time transaction and I don't need to know really that much about the company.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yeah. And one thing we'll link to as well is my talk at show it, not this past year, because 2020, it was 2019, I guess. And I think a good job of summarizing the about page there as well. And just really getting into, make sure you're speaking to a specific audience, but then also checking that box like, Hey, you know, I'm good at what I do. Right. So, all right. What's next?
Creating Value-Driven Services Pages
00:19:48
Speaker
The services pages. All right. The services pages. And we recently recorded something on services pages, didn't we?
00:19:54
Speaker
We've recorded so many. If not, we will. I feel like we should point out that we're not talking about like a list, a page that lists all of your services. Yeah, that's a good point. Like for us, we'd have maybe a website design page, a branding design page.
00:20:09
Speaker
We actually have those pages, so it's not hypothetical. When we say services pages, we're insert your service here. If you're a photographer who shoots weddings and portraits, you probably have a wedding page and a portrait page. Exactly. I think there's a lot of reasons why you might do that. One is from a search engine optimization standpoint.
00:20:29
Speaker
If you're a wedding photographer and also a family photographer and you're trying to optimize a single page for both of those searches, you're probably going to be less successful than if you have single pages for— Especially if it's named services. Yeah, exactly. Having pages for each of your services makes a lot of sense to us, and then that way you can really convey things like what?
00:20:51
Speaker
Social proof. Social proof, we talk about that a lot. Your expertise, experience. The process. Exactly. And really convey the value of what you offer. And really think about what you offer, not so much in terms of a product, but an offer. And so the offer is sort of like the package. It's the collective experience that you are providing somebody in your service. And I think when you think about whatever it is that you do like that, it's easier to articulate
00:21:19
Speaker
value, you know, of your service. So instead of family portraits where somebody gets 50 images, they get memories that are going to last a lifetime. Yeah, exactly. That also sells much better than 50 portraits or digital perfs or whatever it is. Yeah, because at the end of the day, people don't care exactly how many images they get. I mean, they probably want to get a sense that they're going to get a good amount of images or whatnot, but they don't really care. It's again, you know, 51 images and you're, you know, it's going to be shot on this camera with this lens or, you know, something like that.
00:21:46
Speaker
But if you get them imagining their walls filled up with beautiful photos of happy moments that make them forget the days that their toddler has temper tantrums and then it's followed by social proof that says, I look at my photos every day, they're beautiful, you captured us on a bad day and they're still amazing, then somebody's gonna book you. People aren't gonna book you because they get certain deliverables probably.
00:22:10
Speaker
Well, I think it's just important to highlight benefits over features, something else that we talk a lot about. And when you think about your services page, again, I think about it in the middle of the funnel there. So where are you sending people off to? And in the example I used earlier, you probably don't want to send them off to your
00:22:26
Speaker
A random blog post or something like that. And if you have blog content that's really popular that does fit well, maybe you include that on the page or you include that or you create a page out of it that maybe is meant to be a little bit more high converting than something like a blog post. So that they're not going maybe backwards in that customer journey. Whereas in the home page and the about page, like the about page it might make sense to send people some of your most popular content.
00:22:52
Speaker
Or sometimes we link to personal or helpful articles on an about page. Yeah, exactly. It makes sense maybe to highlight your Instagram, especially if that's an area where people really connect with you and people seem to really resonate with what you share on that given social platform.
00:23:09
Speaker
So anyways, I think that's something to keep in mind when it comes to services. You likely don't need to share your pricing. I think it depends a little bit on what you're doing and your goals. You know, if you're getting a lot of inquiries that are maybe below your budget and you want to include something like a starting price or the average client spends or something like that. And I would say that this might be like only if you're getting like dozens of inquiries. Like we have always preferred to have more and then we funnel people with specific questions once they inquire to find out if they're a good fit.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think depending on what your business setup is too, if you have associates and you have both higher price points and lower price points, you want maybe all the inquiries because you can funnel maybe lower price points to associate photographers or something like that. So I would say you don't even have to share your pricing because you don't have to make the sale on your services pages. And I think that's the key distinction between the services page and the next page we'll talk about which is a sales page. You don't have to make the sale right then. You just have to get them to do what?
Comprehensive Sales Page Strategy
00:24:08
Speaker
start a conversation. Exactly. You just have to get them to inquire. Because we've always found too that if somebody really likes you as a person, their budget may not be as hard as they originally thought it was.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So the next page that we want to talk about is the sales page. We'll be quick for that because again, we do a lot of service-based content. Yeah. And what I will say about the sales page is that you do have to include more information because you have to overcome all the objections that somebody might have on that page. Ideally, you don't have to get involved.
00:24:40
Speaker
Right, you probably, with most sales pages, I think you're not gonna have a conversation with them or you answer all of their questions. Whereas if somebody's booking you for a service, you're probably gonna meet with them. Yeah, exactly. Especially if it's a service that costs maybe thousands of dollars. Right. There's probably some sort of conversation in between. Whereas a sales page, a high ticket offer might involve a phone call. It can be helpful to have some sort of live chat. You know, we use Crisp, which we've used for a long time now and I think it's been really good for us. Yeah, it's been great.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, we've really enjoyed that or appreciated that tool specifically. And we've used a couple others in the past. ChatRa, maybe? ChatRa. We tried the Facebook Messenger one for a while, but Messenger is so hard to keep track of messages.
00:25:20
Speaker
So, I don't like to go on Facebook, so I don't like to see messages there. Yeah. So, sales pages, you're going to have to likely include some more information and specifics about the offer and the pricing. You know, you can't. Obviously, that's something that you have to share on a sales page. So, sales page is going to be probably a little bit longer than your services page, and you want to overcome all those objections. I think a few key features of that, like an FAQ section, even though that can be an effective part of a services page as well.
00:25:46
Speaker
Or if you sell a course really outlining who it's for, what people are going to get out of it, maybe outlining what is in each module or each chapter so people know exactly what they're going to learn. Yeah, giving people a preview of it. I've seen that as – I wouldn't say that's a trend necessarily because I feel like people have done that for maybe a while, but I see more of that now. I think especially as more people invest in online courses, they want to make sure that it's something that's going to be worth it. Right.
00:26:13
Speaker
That covers a lot of the core pages. I think a few that are worth mentioning though, your blog in particular, I think to attract and nurture people. The blog, you know, the blog post, of course, I had mentioned being like sort of a top of funnel. Good way to generate awareness, podcasts, good way to generate awareness, videos, like vlogs and things like that.
00:26:33
Speaker
But, you know, the interesting thing about content, right, is if you're taking a full funnel approach to content, that doesn't mean that maybe one blog post really does nurture somebody who's in that intent phase and gets them to purchase, right? So, obviously, I'm not saying that these pages always fit neatly in one of those categories of the funnel. But in general, you know, I think creating blog content, and again, by blog content, I mean all the other things I just mentioned.
00:26:59
Speaker
Really great way to build trust. I mean, all of what we're talking about right now is basically building enough trust to bridge what we've called on the podcast before the trust gap to move people to purchase.
00:27:15
Speaker
Like if I go to somebody's website and they have a blog and there are like three blog posts, I kind of question how long they've been in business, if they're still an active business. Yeah, especially if they, especially if you're not familiar with them. You know, like maybe you follow this person and then really they share a ton of social media content and you've built some trust there and that puts you over the edge. Right. But it is, especially if you're a new business or not, I'm sorry, not a new business, but you're a new customer rather or a new potential customer, you know, that those are the things that sort of stop you like, ah,
00:27:45
Speaker
I don't know, they haven't published a post for like a year and a half or something like that. So those are the things where it may be in that case, it makes sense not to have a blog at all. That way people have to figure out kind of whether you're legit in other ways, like maybe it is that you would love creating content on social media. So that's kind of where you'd want people to be nurtured versus maybe a blog post or something like that.
00:28:07
Speaker
So anyways, then your contact page. We have a great episode on contact pages, great blog posts as well. Do you have his favorite? Is it still your favorite page? I think so. It's where the magic happens as I say, you know? And you know, just being super focused on getting the inquiry.
Effective Contact Page Essentials
00:28:23
Speaker
And you know, typically all that involves is getting social proof, you know, relevant image and a contact form, only the questions that you absolutely need.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, not a super long contact form. Yeah. And of course, I mean, it varies. It depends on how qualified you want a lead to be. The more questions you ask, typically, the higher the drop-off rate is going to be. Yeah. So one thing that I guess two pages that I want to at least mention here, all right? One are portfolio pages, how it works pages, testimonials pages, case studies pages, right? Some of these other ways that we build trust with people. Okay.
00:28:59
Speaker
Now, in general, we've typically said don't have a portfolio page, don't have a testimonial page. Correct. Why? Because there's not a lot of content through them. It's better to pepper those things throughout your website so people actually see them.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So with a portfolio page though, I think it does make sense if, you know, for instance, you're a photographer and you only shoot family sessions, you know, because then you would have your family page or experience page, and then you would have your portfolio page.
00:29:30
Speaker
Sometimes we'll keep it all on the same page, but we'll add a link to a portfolio in the main navigation that just brings you to that specific section of the family page. So it's all still together. Yeah, and I do. I think that provides a nice cohesive look to it. And I would say even if you just have a portfolio page, not to have just a random smattering of photos or something like that. I would still have specific galleries that people can click into.
00:29:55
Speaker
It's like Davey and Chris's wedding, Joe and Emily's wedding. Yeah. And why we do that right is because each wedding or each portfolio is likely going to have its own aesthetic, even if you have an overall look and feel to your work, which hopefully you do. Right. You know, and it's okay. I think on your portfolio page, if you have a standalone portfolio page to include other information as well. I'm really not a fan of the testimonials or kind words page.
00:30:19
Speaker
You know, I just don't think of a lot of situations where I really feel like that's helpful. I think that if you're going to have a page like that, having a page that's more set up like a case study page, you know, where it feels like if you go there, you're not just, it's not just a page where people are like saying nice things about you, but it's a page that explains exactly what problem you solve for people and then, you know, how it transformed their life, you know, like really focusing on that transformation.
00:30:45
Speaker
And that story there that people can connect with. And it doesn't feel so much like a pad on the back page. So I really don't like those pages. I think it could be something else like a case study page. On the Till website, we added how it works page. And I remember talking through that with you and you're like, all of this content is on your services pages. And it's true. But the thing is, what we found is people would go to our services pages and so we do things like paid advertising and search engine optimization.
00:31:12
Speaker
And of course, on those pages, we talk about a lot of things that we talked about or you should have on your services page. But at the end, people would say, okay, this sounds good, paid advertising, I want to do it. Now, how does it work? And at first, I'm thinking in my head like, well, it's on the –
00:31:29
Speaker
It's on the page, right? But people go from kind of wanting to learn something to then, okay, how does it work? What's the next step? That sort of thing, right? Like if I sign up now, what's it going to look like in the next week, next month? And I don't think all businesses need this. If you're providing photography, I think that most people understand the basic concept of what a photographer delivers.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And I think, but still, just another example of a service-based business, right? Whereas if we were creating a wedding photography website, this is something we probably wouldn't recommend or probably wouldn't put on the site, right? But for the agency, it makes a lot of sense because people want to kind of know, okay, I understand more about paid advertising now, but now what's it look like if I commit, you know?
00:32:12
Speaker
And so it answers that question. So what you'd find is a lot of content that's already on the services pages, but it just has maybe a different context to it. And so people are in a different frame of mind as they go about trying to answer that question now, maybe before they schedule a discovery call with us or before they actually sign a contract.
00:32:28
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So anyways, I hope that's helpful. Like I said, it's not as if we covered every possible page that could go on a website. No, we have a lot more pages than this on our website that are not linked to. We have case studies pages. We have a look book, you know. Every lead minute has a page. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different things, but I think from a, hopefully from a overview, this is helpful for people as they kind of figure out and maybe put together their own site map for their website or they plan content or just want to feel like,
00:32:58
Speaker
All right, if I look at not a single page, but what's kind of the overall purpose here? And then something else we have talked about like cornerstone content and how that can be an effective part of your content strategy. Maybe you should do a whole episode on that. I should. We already have hit, we're at 33 minutes, probably 30. We talked a lot about months of the year and weather.
00:33:20
Speaker
People who live in California and Florida are like laughing at us right now. Yeah. They're like, why are you living out there? But anyways, I appreciate you taking the time to record. Well, I know you don't feel great, especially as the day goes on. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here chatting about websites. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. All right. Well, thanks. Bye.
00:33:44
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.