I’m not here to argue a case on whether you should make your CTA buttons blue or green, rounded or square, or even to tell you what aesthetics to pull from to put on your website to make it good.
I’m not here to argue a case on whether you should make your CTA buttons blue or green, rounded or square, or even to tell you what aesthetics to pull from to put on your website to make it good. When I ask the question, “What makes a good local business website?”, I mean more than just the topical interface design, but the philosophies and principles that should be showcased throughout as it pertains to local businesses only. It’s a niche market, and being locally owned and operated pins you against giant conglomerates. So, I want to share what makes a website good, effective and efficient so that your business can stand a chance in the season of changing client and buyer preferences, as well as buying trends and patterns.
This is what makes a good local business website from the perspective of a UI/UX Designer who has designed high functioning, branded and effective websites that win awards and generate my clients their income.
Step by Step, expanded on within the blog:
1. If You Have the Time to Read This, You Have Time to Take Real Photos of Your Business
2. Your Hero Moment is Everything
3.. You must do what your competitors are doing, 2x better.
4. Your ‘About Us’ page is more important than you think.
5. Pay for those silly local awards, and put them on your site.
6. Last, But Not Least, Testimonials Must Be Everywhere.
Death to stock, for the love of God, it’s killing your business and web metrics.
When local audiences, or out of towners visiting, are on your website, they statistically are there for a few key reasons. To learn more about YOU, to connect with you emotionally before they make a buying decision, compare competitors, or to find a specific piece of information they need (price, photos of a menu, faqs, services provided, etc).
When you supplement photos on your website for impersonal stock images or free photos online you’ve found to save on time and effort, you not only show that you lack authenticity, but you immediately create distrust with your audience. Customers are not dumb, customers are you, your wife, your mother and father, and customers are increasingly more and more educated in sniffing out fake stuff. Not only are quality personal images important to over 67% of site visitors,Source: MDG Advertising, you have a 35% higher chance of conversion when you use real personal images. Source: VWO
And when your businesses success and website discoverability is in the hands of great SEO, you negatively impact your sites ranking by not providing images that are relevant to your business and custom to your brand.
Grab your smart phone, round up your team, take cute photos of everyone, take photos of meals if you’re a restaurant owner, take photos of every service job completed before and after if that’s what you do. 15 seconds per image is worth the trade of impact.
Well, first, what is a Hero moment?
Long ago, before websites and the internet ruled the world, there was something called… Newspapers! For the folks who’ve read a few, or have seen some lying around on a street, you’ll notice a specific folding they have. Typically one big headline being showcased, with an image, the hard hitter moment to get you to pick up the paper and read the news. This was commonly called, ‘Above The Fold’, quite straightforward of a name. Take a look at a few famous, ‘Above The Fold’ moments below.
Sources: New York Times, The Daily Telegraph
Now, why am I sharing this? Well, open a few web pages and you’ll notice that each has a certain cutoff point before you begin to scroll. About the size of a newspaper ‘Above the Fold’ moment, depending on your browser device. For mobile-smaller, however the philosophy has surprisingly remained the same, this is called your Hero Moment. You have about 2 seconds to keep someone on your website to scroll, and the #1 factor influencing this is your Hero. Much like you have as long as someone can read your newspaper headline and decide to pick it up, purchase it, and read the rest.
How can you explain what you do, in a specific and clear way, to keep your audience on your site scrolling without bouncing quickly? Too often, businesses opt for vague titles in their Hero Moment, using valorant words instead of simple, straightforward language that is geared toward conversion and keeping your audience interested.
I’m going to throw one example of a very poor hero moment below (most are like this, and wonder why they are struggling with conversions.
Can you tell me what this business does, and has to offer? Can you tell me directly what makes them special, their unique offer, without having to think longer than 5 seconds?
You probably can’t. Here is an example of a good hero moment below.
Ask yourself the same questions above and chances are that you understand it better than the prior.
Fine tune your hero moment, it influences 95% of site behavior moving forward, add your unique offer, make it exciting, design it well, personalize it to your unique local business. Source: Sweor
Some add photos of themselves completing work, some opt for custom branded designs or intrigue with interesting copy. I promise that if you make those changes, you will see a positive impact on your bounce rate, and your conversion rates.
You can’t do your local business website without doing competitor research. Truly, don’t ever do that.
Google key search terms that your audience is looking for. Maybe it’s, ‘best american restaurant in town’, ‘plumbers near me’ or ‘chiropractors near me’. Whatever it is they are searching for, take a look at the Google results. What are the top 3 organic and sponsored competitors?
Take a look at their website, is it done well? Is it mediocre and they’re just paying for ads? Really take note of their whole online strategy. Go through all their web pages, navigate to their forms, experience what your audience is looking for and getting, or possibly not getting from them. Do they have powerful branding, or offer unique loyalty incentives that you don’t? What about their pricing, reviews, all of it!
The information you learn here, is what you will use to make your website and online experience 2x better than theirs. It doesn’t have to be complicated. If your top competitors have a branded site experience with cohesive design and fun animations, find a person who can help you do it better than them. If their brand is more developed than yours, maybe you can consider doing a refresh for yours. Restaurants, update your website with happy hour offers, revive your dead boring menus. Chiropractors focus on education and do it in an exciting way. Contractors or plumbers, create unique offers and specific location pages that are done exceptionally well. Do what your competitors aren’t doing, do what they’re doing but better.
But never ever redesign your website, or redo an SEO strategy without analyzing your competitors. Whatever your competitors are doing, do it better. You will win overtime by always keeping this in mind.
As a local business, connecting with your audience on an emotional level is crucial. People are specifically choosing to buy from you, over local conglomerates, so give them a powerful reason to.
Your About Us page should have more than just a paragraph of your story, because chances are, only 16% of your audience will read a portion of it. Engage them in a new way, create a well designed and branded About Us page, covering your company values, the story overtime told through a mix of video or designed timelines on the page. Cover your dreams for the future, and how you love the community you’re involved in.
Your audience locally, desperately wants to connect with you. They want a reason to share your business with their friends and family. Give them one.
And show them early on the site.
You know those, ‘Best of X Industry in X Location’ awards you see on business windows? As cheesy, and sometimes unbelievable as they are, it turns out they are 62% more effective in getting people to trust you, and convert. Source: Baymard Research Institute
Trust and authority are key factors in people deciding to work with you, and if you can showcase external industries awarding you for your quality of service, then you can easily build those key factors. They may seem silly, but they are quite effective. Don’t be afraid to research your local business awards, or find some online for your industry. Apply to 10, get awarded, add it to your site below the hero moment, or subtly in your hero moment (don’t overwhelm this part of the page please!), make it look celebratory.
Just like awards, show these as soon as possible on the site.
Reviews that are on your Google My Business page, should be on your website. You can use tools like this one here to add all your reviews to your website. Even ones that customers say in passing, add to your website.
People want to know what others think of your business and quality of service, yes even the bad ones! That old Google review you have from years ago that keeps you from a full 5 star, actually personalizes you. Contrary to popular belief, the best review score is 4.5, not 5! People feel distrusting of perfect reviews, and want realness.
When you provide your audience an option to experience your raving reviews, and maybe some 3-4 stars too, you increase their trust factor, and increase your probability of being chosen.
