Today I’m going to be talking about THE magical moment. The moment you have been working so hard for. Someone has arrived at your site! This is one of the most pivotal moments – and you need to make a great impression.
Actually, I’m going to guess that you already know this matters but HOW do we do it? What’s actually important? Let’s look at that instead.
1. Attractive
I know, I know, I’m the owner of a web design business telling you that your website needs to be attractive. But, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll share two basic reasons a site needs to be attractive, and you can decide whether or not you agree with me.
Human beings love being around pleasant things. You know this is true for shops and restaurants. Don’t you think the same is true for websites?
2. Fast Loading
If people can’t even see your website, you’re in trouble. This is one that a lot of people get wrong because they don’t realise how slow their website is loading. It might load fine while you’re sitting at home on your broadband connection, but what about the person sitting in a hotel room struggling with a bad WiFi connection? What about someone sitting on the train to work browsing on their iPhone?
3. Mobile
This year, over 50% of the visitors to your website will be on mobile devices – that is, smartphones and tablets. The technology to make websites mobile – which is known as Responsive Design – was only developed in 2011. It wasn’t until 2013 until it became widespread, so if your site is 2 or more years old, you need a new one before it’s too late.
To check your site’s speed and whether it is responsive, check out this tool(opens in a new tab) which shows you how Google sees your website. Very handy.
4. What You Do and Why They Should Choose You
Everything above is super important, but THE most important thing that people need to see is what you do and why they should choose you.
‘Who you are’ doesn’t really matter that much until you have convinced someone to hang around.
What I recommend is a BIG headline saying what you do and then a SUB headline underlining what makes you special.
5. Clear Jumping Point in Navigation
The typical tour operator website will often have a welcome message, a bit of text about the business and that’s it. If you want to know more, you have to go browsing the menu or figure your way around.
This is crazy. What you need to do is give people a clear jumping off point in terms of navigation, a clear shiny thing to click on to get them to begin their experience with you.
And those are the big FIVE factors to nail in the first few seconds that a visitor arrives to your website.
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