Whether you sell fasteners or high-end tools, it’s a competitive market. Hitting sales targets isn’t always easy. Fortunately, there are several fixes you can make to your website that will help pick up the slack. If your site is lacking in any of the following areas, you may find that fixing it is just the boost you needed.
Write Unique Product Descriptions
You may be tempted to save time by using the manufacturer’s product descriptions instead of writing unique ones, but that would be a mistake. The most obvious reason to write your own product descriptions is pretty self explanatory: Google penalizes sites with duplicate content. However, there are other reasons to write unique product descriptions. You serve an audience that’s different from the manufacturer’s. Who are your customers? What are their needs, priorities and preferences? What challenges do they need to overcome? Your product descriptions should answer these questions and show that you understand your customers’ concerns.
Optimize for Conversion
Search Engine Optimization helps people find your website. Conversion optimization turns them into customers once they land on it. You’ll need content that engages the reader as well as bold calls to action that provide clear directives. It’s a “call to action” for a reason: it invites the reader to do something specific.
Here are a few examples of solid CTAs:
“Download this E-book”
“View Demo”
“Submit Your Project”
Add Faceted Search
Remember this old commercial?
More and more e-commerce sites are reducing the number of clicks it takes to find the right product. Users simply don’t have the patience to click through page after page after page to get where they want to be. Faceted search lets them skip all of that. It allows users to select the product attributes they are looking for, and shows them only those products. This process is easy, simple and less time consuming than past methods; it can be just as satisfying as crunching through a Tootsie Pop’s hard candy shell.
Use Social Media for Customer Service
If you think social media is just for consumer-facing companies, you are dead wrong. There are numerous industrial companies that consistently create and post fun, engaging content on social media sites. You can find out who they are by checking out our list.
If that doesn’t convince you to finally get on social media, here’s another reason: social media is an easy way to respond to customer inquiries. Think about it: users are on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook already. Instead of having to go on your website and fill out your contact form, they can just shoot a tweet in your direction and then continue doing whatever else they were doing in that moment. Your social media team – if you have one – can respond just as quickly.
Plus, using social media this way lets other see how you take care of your customers, helping you generate new leads while retaining old ones.
Responsive Design
Picture this: a leading manufacturer of process control inspection equipment has field service engineers making repairs on-site at a customer’s facility in Seoul. They discover that they need a part and they need it right away. One of them pulls out a phone, executes a quick search, finds the part and orders it.
We often hear industrial and B2B marketers say that their customers ‘would never buy something off of a phone.’ That is simply not true. 56% of B2B buyers use mobile phones to access suppliers’ sites and the number just continues to grow. If your sales are flagging, it could be because your site is too difficult to use on mobile, and those FSEs in Seoul bought the part from your competitor.
Little Things: Site Speed, Eye-Appeal, Image Sizes, Etc.
Sites that are slow to load irritate users. If they have to spend too much time waiting, they’ll leave and look elsewhere. If your site takes 3 seconds to load or longer, you’ll need to make some changes to increase its speed.
How your site looks is important. If you have an outdated layout, weird color combinations, illegible fonts or 90s-style tables, it’s time for some upgrades. A diner that has had the same décor since it opened in 1962 can be charming in a vintage, nostalgic, time-capsule sort of way. The same just isn’t true for websites. An old site is an ugly site, period.
Images need to be the right size. Small, grainy images aren’t much help to users and don’t look good either. Avoid stock images whenever you can and make an effort to take high quality photos of your products.
Social media buttons help people find your networks but they only need to be on one part of the site. We’ve seen sites that have social media icons in three places. That’s clutter. Don’t clutter your site.
Spelling, punctuation, grammar and formatting are as important on your site as they are in a best-selling novel. Before you post, proofread.
If you need help with these or any other site improvements, Ecreativeworks is here to help.
Photo credit: jpblewitt via Foter.com / CC BY