The Teckki Says

This is the last of the series of What Your Website Should Have.

If, as an organization, you don’t have a website, you feel the heat of one question, "What is your website address?" Then there’s the mad rush to get a site, any site, that will allow you to avoid the further embarrassment of answering, "Uh, I don’t have one." However, in your panicked rush to get something up and going, usually on the cheap, you leave yourself open to having your site visitors ask another embarrassing question, "What’s the point?"

There is a song that my daughter and I really enjoy, Children's Story, by the Hip Hop artist Slick Rick. As a song, it is a wonderfully told bedtime story about a kid who is led down the path of crime and the consequences of that choice, with the moral of the song to stay straight. Its' poetic rhythm made it a favorite of ours. Although it is an old song, it recently prompted us to look up the video on You Tube. The song was so well written that it should have served as the script. I really emphasize SHOULD have, because in their efforts to put out the video, someone was rushed, lazy or clueless, as the video oftentimes barely resembled the song. Being a Hip Hop piece in the traditional sense, I guess the urge to inject scenes of sexual imagery and self aggrandizement were too much to overcome, rather than leaving it as a brilliantly-told story. It left me asking, "What's the point?"

Is THAT the question you want your website visitors and prospects to ask? Remember, the question you get asked is IF you have a website, not what's on it. You aren’t there to answer that question.
Maybe your in-person sales pitch is like that song – smooth, appealing and well done. We all have to blow our own horn to a live audience. If we hit the right notes, perhaps they will be impressed and want see the video, er, your website. If the two don’t match, I should not have to tell you what that means.

You get the point.

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the Product Presentation.

Most websites sell something, whether they are goods, services or ideas. Far too many websites think the web is full of customers looking to buy from them exclusively. If your products and services aren't well presented, you might as well not have a website, because the effect on your sales will be about the same. You are not the only game in town,

Some website owners think that just getting up a site is all that matters, and just good enough will do. Presentation can become a casualty of many budgets, but I'll offer up proof of just how much it matters. Many of us have seen Walmart's print flyers, television commercials and website. You've probably also been in their stores. In my opinion, the presentation of the print, television and website advertisements are much better than the actual shopping experience in the stores. In the store, profoundly low pricing and immediate need overcomes my low expectations of positive shopping experience. Low pricing is their mantra, and bland product presentation, along with tight aisle space and a Spartan store layout, is emblematic of this. They do not replicate this on their website, because if the experience was the same, many visitors might shop elsewhere. They certainly need the reputation they've built up in the stores to make their website efforts work. However, their site presentation is not too far different from their rival Target Corp's website. They are both clean and non-cluttered, but in my opinion, Target's website reminds me a little more of their stores than Walmart's website remind me of theirs. If on the web, Target, Walmart and most online retailers are roughly competitive on price, what makes them different?

Presentation and Expectation Builds Reputation

This brings me back to your website – Pictures can be worth a thousand words, and a thousand dollars. I look at thousands of pictures a year, many from clients. I can get technical, but your eyes know the difference between poorly taken pictures and professional ones. If you plan to sell a thousand widgets at $10 a piece, is it too much to ask for you to spend $500 for a better picture so that the widgets to look better? Is it too much to ask you to spend $125 for a professional writer to produce a great description for a necklace that you want to sell 10 at $500 a pop? Should your customers have to find better written descriptions of merchandise on your competitor’s website, making them wonder if you are selling the exact same product for $50 less? Wouldn't this be better than the $85 you spent on the cheesy yellow and red flashing banner that says "hurry, only two left?"

Is it too much to ask that the services be explained, perhaps backed up by testimonials of REAL customers, rather than self-serving proclamations stating, "I am cheaper than 'competitor.com?'"

The web is all about visuals. The "Low Price Leader" recognizes this, your customers do, and so should you.

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the Price Page(s).

If you are selling something, eventually your potential purchasers will want to know costs. Bury the price, and you bury the sale. If there is anything a purchaser dislikes more than anything, it is the surprise of something that costs more than expected. However, there are few things sellers hate more than exposing their prices too early in the selling process, or divulging price information to a competitor.

Many sellers will agree that if you reveal your price too early, you expose yourself to comparative shopping. After all, you may not have had the chance to explain the benefits and answer questions that justify the price. An upfront price lessens the opportunity to justify your case.

Putting out pricing information also helps your competitors. For competition that has been in the business for a while, they know where to undercut you. For those who may be jumping into the business, all they know is to undercut you. To your prospects, neither makes a difference.

I am one who believes in posting pricing, and I began to include it on my website years ago. Upon doing this, I was surprised to find that my colleagues were also looking, and they were amazed. I am sure that they felt that I would drive away prospects, as well as expose myself to competitors. I don’t know how many competitors used my pricing as benchmarks, but I do know that prospects who called me became no longer available once I sent them to my website to check out services and prices. I was fine with that, because that is part of what I designed my site to do.

I don't feel I've lost much, if anything. This resolved a problem I spent years trying to correct. I used to spend days preparing estimates based off of spectacular sales meetings, building rapport and fostering relationships, along with identifying the customer’s needs and providing solutions to fulfill them. I asked the budget question and what they expected to pay, and the answer was that no one has a budget and no one knows what websites cost - until I gave them a price. Then they were experts. What I found was that the number was important all the long.

The web is a medium where comparison and lower pricing are generally expected. You can be wowed by dazzling sites, and clients expect everything to look great, but buyers expect it to be cheap, or at least cheaper than can be found in the offline world. If "lowest price" is not your targeted market, then let them know that upfront. In a world where the lowest price wins, not displaying one is tantamount to having the highest.

Eliminate price as a deal breaker. Your website should serve as a filter as well as an informational and selling tool. If you direct people to your site, all of the things they want to know should be there – who you are, what you do, what you have done for others, and of course, well, price. Those who know what they might pay, and still choose you, have found something else they like about you. The negotiations change to how you will get it done. You also don't have to make the client regret the price by eventually telling him that the things he thought he was getting were put back on the shelf the minute he agreed to the deal he ultimately got.

I recently got a call from a prospect who was almost sure she would buy from me. It's easy to get excited and feel that you bagged the sale. However, I referred her to my website, where a few days later, I got a call saying that they had found another provider. Price may have played a role, but I know I saved hours of meetings, proposals and modifications, and sales speeches trying to emphasize value, only to lose out because of price.

Missed potential sales cost, but lost sales attempts cost much more!

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the Contact Page.

In previous blog posts, I covered the Home and About pages. This post covers the Contact Page.

A contact page is obvious to most of us because it is a given unless people can contact you, you cannot respond to them. However, the Nigerian money scam makes contact easy, and only the gullible, desperate or greedy bite. Why the rest of us don't is part of what goes into a well done contact page.

I think that because online shopping is so successful, we forget how hard it was for us to trust sites with our credit card and other personal information. We are reminded when we are informed that a hacker has breached our favorite shopping site, sending shivers up our spines, and what companies have to do to regain our trust in their site again. Part of that trust was built on being made comfortable that if we had a problem, we could contact someone, just like we could at a physical store. That’s the value of a good contact page.

Contact pages should be more than lists of chains of commands, investor and/or public relations. These pages should point out who takes care of what when a visitor has a concern, especially if that visitor is a customer. And those people need to be accessible beyond technology – you know where I’m going here – because when you have to hide behind contact pages, voice mail and email, or some lengthy set of forms before you talk to a customer, you don't deserve your customers. Too many websites have fifty points of contact to make a sale, but can have just as many roadblocks for service and support. I believe that the true test of a contact page (and the company behind it) is to pretend to already be a customer and attempt to have a problem resolved or question answered – you may change your mind about patronizing them.

Contact pages should really be on every page. Good contact information says to a visitor that you are proud of your company, you are willing to stand behind your claims, and that the customer is not a bother to you. If you are available in a timely manner, a negative experience with your service or product can be lessened if the customer is able to contact you. Contact pages aren't the first page someone looks at for when searching for a product or service, but are necessary to build and/or strengthen the relationships on a continual basis. Not having adequate contact information says basically that "now that I have what I want from you, don’t cause me any trouble – go away," a surefire way of damaging a relationship you worked so hard to get.

Be accessible after the transaction – have clear contact information and the resources to back it up.

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the About Page.

In the last blog post, I went over what should go on the home page. To summarize, the Home page is the page that introduces a visitor to your site. It has the primary function of capturing interest and compelling visitors to go further into your site.

The About page, which can include a number of things, such as mission, goals, history, and staff pages, describes who you are to the outside world. It is not the place visitors seek, but it is an important section as visitors who are looking for a closer relationship turn to for assurance that values, philosophies and experiences mesh with theirs.

The About pages are some of the most underrated pages of a website, and I will argue that most organizations under utilize these pages. It's not hard to figure out what these pages display – "This is us, this is our history, these are our values, this is our mission statement and this is our staff". I assert this because just about every website I've done says this, and those whom I've read do the same. The about either gives a historical timeline of birth to now, or staff capabilities and credentials, and vision statements in terms of what the company wants to accomplish. I would also argue that your visitors are greeting this information with a big fat "So what!"

One of the best mission statements I ever read was one from an automotive company that stated from the customer's perspective how she was pleased with the professionalism of service rendered, the quality of the repairs and the price she was charged. She also said that she would recommend her friends. Although websites weren't in use by many businesses back when this statement was developed, this company's "About" page would have revolved around this statement. Would it be easier for someone to identify with a customer-quote-like mission statement, or one of the traditional statements that start with, "We will provide…?"

About pages should be something that the site visitor can relate to. Once someone knows your name and what you do, they want to know who you are. Your about page should say, "I'm like you", or "I'm what you are looking for because you understand who I am," or something that gets a light bulb going that relates back to the visitor.

Your about page is really not about you. It's about getting your visitors to relate to you.