3 Ways To Ensure Your Customers Can Find You Online

We have more information at our fingertips now than ever before, and when a prospective client makes the decision to look for a new service provider, they jump online to do it.

Referrals worked well in the past, but increasingly clients are researching businesses online before they make any kind of purchase decision.

It is estimated that 67% of a buyer’s journey is now done digitally. When clients are searching for new services online, you want to make sure you’re at the top of that list.

We’ve put together three simple tips to help make sure that both your existing and potential customers can easily find you online.

Double down on website content

Your website is not just a visual masterpiece. First and foremost, it’s a supercharged, online information portal and buying tool for your customers!

Clients

The most important thing to remember is that your website is not for you, it’s for your client. Think about your perfect potential client and what information they need to get from your website. Why have they come to your website? What do they really want to know? Is the most important info up front and easy to find? Is your main message highly visible? Whats the one thing you want them to know before they click off to another site? Is that the first thing they will see?

Pricing

Ensure your pricing is easy to find and written in language your customers can easily understand. Price is a factor in your customers buying decision process. If this isn’t clear, they will move on with limited information with which to assess your services.

Staff

Keep your staff profiles updated and interesting, and get some photos in there – people like to see who they’re booking with. Staff profiles are one of the most visited pages on a business’s website, so take some time to get them right.

Contacts

Lastly, check the basics! Make sure your physical address, phone number and map are up to date and accurate.

Finally, remember to update your website regularly. New and interesting content is extremely valuable for getting you in front of prospective clients. Google finds fresh content more easily, and outdated information can reflect badly on your business’s brand.

Make sure you’re not just a pretty face

We want our websites to look visually amazing, showing off our creativity, but it’s important to stop and think about the purpose of your website.

Responsive

Is your website responsive?  When a website is ‘responsive’ it means that your website can be viewed on any device, be it a desktop or laptop computer, tablet, or mobile phone. A good designer or developer will be able to make sure your site is beautiful on any device.

Searchable

While visual elements and design are absolutely important, text content is even more so as it not only conveys your message to your customer but is also one of the primary ways Google finds, and ranks, your site. Google regularly crawls your site to look for new and unique content and regular updates will ensure that Google keeps picking you as one of their favourites.

Keywords

Finally, check your content is keyword rich. Getting to the first page of Google is your goal, searchers rarely move to page two of a results page, and in fact, they rarely scan much past the top 3 or 4 results.

It would be difficult to rank on the first page of Google for every possible thing your customers might search for, so choose what is most important to you and ensure you keep those keywords in your website copy. For example, ‘Brunswick Hairdresser’ or ‘laser treatment Sydney’ might be terms you use fairly regularly and also terms you would expect your customers to use when they try to search for services.

Using these keywords on your site and in your content regularly will help your website to be noticed by Google. A good tip to remember is to also ensure your website developer has put those words in your page titles, meta tags, image descriptions and pages descriptions.

Book Now Buttons

Once customers have checked out your site what will they do next? Call and book with you on the spot? Come back later? Or will they have moved on by then? Make sure you make it easy for your customers to seal the deal with you, right then and there!

The internet is about convenience. People are easily frustrated and feel inconvenienced if they reach a dead end. Make sure they can book with you on the spot, online, and at any time!

Ensure you have an online booking button on your website and Facebook page, and remember that not all booking systems are made equal.

Here’s a quick checklist:

• Mobile Optimisation: Can your clients use it without having to squeeze and pinch? A booking page should respond to the device it’s being viewed on. Remember, more than 60% of people who are on the web are on a mobile device, so make it easy for them.
• Can your client’s book, reschedule and cancel? To maintain customer loyalty it’s important to provide your clients with the flexibility to manage their own time. You’ll also save yourself interruptions and admin with less incoming re-scheduling phone calls.
• Ease of use – is it simple and easy to navigate for your clients?

Do you have a Book Now button visible on your site? An increasing number of people are spending time online after 8 pm – if you don’t have an online booking mechanism you’re missing out.

Your website doesn’t have to be flashy to ensure you a steady flow of bookings and sales, it simply needs to cater to your unique audience. Think about what kind of experience your customers want. Think about the purpose of your website and why people are going there, and then design (or re-design) it to ensure your customers can find you online.