Sweet Sound PR’s unique website service: Web mapping
Visiting a new website for the first time seems to me to be more like following a GPS or road map to a destination for the first time than anything to do with technical ability.
Sweet Sound PR will visit your website as a potential new customer and find the best, quickest and easiest way to ensure that all first time visitors find their way easily to their destinations.
If new customers reach a junction on your website and do not know which way to go, they could walk straight to one of your competitors and you would never know they had ever considered buying from you. Every customer counts and I identify how to clinch their custom.
Ask yourself these questions about your website:
- Do people call your customers service asking how to use your website?
- Do customers email in saying they can’t buy from your website?
- Do you see many orders placed by new customers without calls to customer service?
- Do you have a much higher percentage of existing customers over new customers?
If you answered yes to 1, 2 and 4 than I can provide the quickest easiest solution to increase your first time customer traffic by visiting your website and identifying the problem and saying exactly what to do to solve it and allow new customers to buy from you without the need for help.
This could range from:
For new websites – a quick start up guide that you can link from the landing page that signposts customers along the quickest route road map from start to finish.
For existing websites – either text to be added or removed, which will leave new customers with a clear map to their desired destination on your website.
This is done simply by having the right signposts where you would expect to find them, on the way.
Route to your house
However, companies big and small face the same issue: they know their own website too well. This is exactly like giving someone directions to your house for the first time. You know the route by heart and they have never seen it before. You may tell them to look out for a signpost that doesn’t work, not give them the easiest route or confuse them totally.
Sweet Sound PR can solve this by going to visiting your website and identifying the solution. This is all about communication, not IT.
For example:
A train company covering various routes between London and Margate allowed customers to buy their tickets and asked them which station they wished to collect their tickets from.
The solution to ensure happy customers buying their tickets and getting the right train was simple, when pinpointed:
By removing red text which said they only needed to pick a train if they wanted to reserve a seat meant they could check the departure station and time of their desired train and be able to pick their ticket up from that station. I suggested removing this misleading text, which they did.
A coffee company used words which misled customers. By changing the headings, customers knew what they were getting and placed the orders they wanted.
An online farm shop asked customers to select a time slot for delivery before they could add items to a shopping basket. Like a one way street or a diversion, if you want customers to take a particular route through your website, you need to provide sign posts and direct them each step of the way. For this customer I emailed them screen grabs and a quick start guide which they linked from a banner on their home page.
An established print company changed their name and website, which was a whole lot more sophisticated then their previous one. The problem was that customers reaching checkout without knowing that they had missed options. Imagine wanting to reach France and only being directed to the longest ferry port, when planes and trains would get you there much quicker?
The company’s express printing and delivery option was only available with no lamination. Therefore, after the words ‘Lamination Options’, I suggested adding the words ‘for express printing please select ‘None’ below.
Give me an email: sophiesweatman@sweetsoundpr.co.uk or a call 07863554763 If you:
- Get too small a percentage of orders from new customers compared to existing customers,
- Get lots of calls or emails from first time customers asking how to use your website.
- Think your immediate competitors are doing better.
- Get complaints from new customers saying they didn’t get what they expected.
- Get many hits to your website that don’t translate into sales.
- People leave things in their shopping baskets but don’t buy them.
Even if you get one call asking for help with your website, it is worth a look. Every retail business loses customers without knowing as most people leave silently. Never say ‘you’re the only one with this problem’ or ‘no one else has called about this. Instead, call me for a quick, easy and very cheap to implement a no-brainer cost solution and watch those customers role in.
Sophie Sweatman 