I’m super excited because my new website is going live on Thursday! But I’m not going to talk about my website, today I want to talk to you about your website, and mainly your website experience.
Whenever we go to the movies and by our popcorn, our drinks, and our ticket, or we go to the hairdressers, that’s an experience and that experience says a lot about that business and it’s exactly the same for your website.
Your website is just an online experience and what your website does and feels like says a lot about you and your company. So I’ve got three questions for you:
1. What does your website feel like?
Using a real world example, let’s say you’re going to a networking event or you’re going to a party and you know no one else, and people going to be looking at you for the first time. Are you going to just roll up in joggers? Chuck up your hair wrap wear? Wear a baggy t-shirt? Probably not.
You’re probably going to pick out a nice dress, do your hair and do your make-up because you want to give that good first impression, you want that good feeling and it’s the same for your website. Does it have good images? Is it clear and easy to navigate around, and easy-to-read? What’s that feeling you create? When you at the party and you see someone you get a feeling for someone. It’s a first impression and it’s no different for your website.
2. What does your website say?
A lot of people, when they have a budget, and their idea for a company, usually leave the website until last and they don’t really want to put as much into their website because you can make a website really cheaply. So they take out a lot of the cost involved in a website and they don’t invest as much and they just think “It’s ok, because once I’ve got past the website, I can really sell to them”.
But that’s no good and here’s why. Going back to the real world example, let’s say you meet someone at a party and they’re not really fussed about greeting you, they’re all like “Hey, yeah, whatever”. You’re probably going to think that person is a dick.
And then if that person came back to you at a later time and was like “Oh hey, by the way, I’ve got a really exciting product or service and I really want you to buy it”. That first impression you had from them wasn’t that great so the likelihood that you will buy from them in the future is significantly reduced.
You didn’t get that great first impression, so it’s going to take a lot longer for you to actually want to be part of that service or that product.
It’s the same thing for your website. What’s your website saying to your customers? Is it greeting your customers and saying “Hi, how are you? What would you like to know? Where would you like to go? Would you like to look at this? Would you like to look at that?”.
Is it friendly? Is it making that good first impression that makes people go “Oh this is a nice person! This is nice website! I want to be part of this! I resonate with this!”. What does it say?? Just have a think about that.
3. What’s your website costing you?
I’m not talking about the initial upfront cost- the price of the web developer, the price of the design, the price for the hosting and domain. Forget that.
What I’m saying is, a lot of people look at that cost, the upfront cost, and think “Well that’s a big cost so I’m going to scrimp on that”. But then what happens is you provide your website visitors with a half arsed experience, and then when they visit your website, they could be paying customers! They could be giving you money! They could be buying your product, they could be buying into your services but they gone! Because they received a shoddy experience.
So please don’t scrimp out, and I’m not saying you have to go out and spend a grand, five grand, 10 grand. I’m not saying that. If you are a start-up and you have a very low budget that is fine. Use things like Wix. Get a template on WordPress but what I’m saying is there has to be some sort of investment.
Take Wix. For £6 a month you can take off the big banner that says ‘Create your free website’ (which has nothing to do with your business and is very distracting). You can take that off and you can remove adverts. Adverts that you didn’t put on your website. So if you get a free Wix website you have adverts to other companies and probably similar companies and therefore competitors, and will be scaring the website visitors away right off the get go.
So it takes off that free banner. It removes ads. You can get your own domain, so rather than typing hello-my-website.wix.com, you get hello-my-website.co.uk. It’s mine!
£6 a month! I know money is money, but £6 a month, is that it, really?? Think about your monthly expenditure. Do you have a Netflix subscription? Do you get coffee on a weekly basis? Are you splashing out on takeaways once or twice a month? I am sure there is probably £6 you can save somewhere, just to provide that good first impression for your customers. Because it counts and that’s the whole some up of today. Your first impression counts.
If you do have any questions, please email me at hello@thisiseloise.co.uk or ask me in the comments below. Do check out my new website, it’s launching on Thursday and talk to me about it. Let me know – how does it make you feel? What does it say to you?
Chat soon x
P.S. Leo interrupted one of my takes! He’s so handsome, he made me forget what I was saying pahaha!
