A potential customer has landed on your tradesperson website because they think you might be the person for the job! Fabulous. Now, how can you design your website to demonstrate to them that you are definitely the tradesperson they want?
Your website needs to have been created with the customer in mind. It has to be as easy as possible to navigate around and extract the required information from. A website designed to your customer’s expectations helps boost your conversion rate – do what the customer wants, grab more sales (hooray!).
Shake and Speare’s guidance on 5 elements customers want in a tradesperson website:
- Navigation at the top
- An about section
- Guidance on your processes
- Pricing structure
- Customer reviews
Navigation at the top
There are certain standards that are almost universal in the online world. One of these is finding the navigation bar at the top of a website. Huff industrial marketing and co found that 50% of consumers surveyed will immediately use the navigation bar to orientate themselves on a site.
Now knowing where a majority of your customers are looking first , it would be wise to assume it’s a good idea to pop your contact details – or at least a clickable telephone number – where they are easily accessible above the navigation bar. Make it super simple for your prospective customer to get in touch.
When it comes to your homepage, Huff industrial marketing found that 86% of the consumers they surveyed wanted to see products and services available on a website’s homepage. They were less likely to want to see a company’s about information, testimonials or blog on the homepage. This gives you a good guideline for the information you should be displaying on your homepage, vs the separate pages you should link to in your navigation bar.
An about section
Consumers want to know who you are! A personalised about section helps you to answer the vital question of ‘why is your business unique?’.
Think about what you want your customer to know about you. Do you have a unique selling point? Maybe you’ve been operating for a long time, or you’re a wholesome family business. Maybe you’ve got extensive qualifications or you’ve got a heartfelt backstory about why you love your trade. These are all things you should include to help your customer get to know you.
Think about having each of your employees write a small bio and couple this with some pictures of your team. If your visitor understands who you are, they’re more likely to want to spend money with you.
Guidance on your processes
It’s worth explaining to your customers how your sales flow works. If they understand your processes and know what to expect, they’ll find it easier to take that initial leap in getting in contact with you.
Guidance on your processes can include a step-by-step guide on your quote generation, assessment and installation process. It’s also important to let your customers know how you will handle the situation if things (and crossed fingers they don’t!) go wrong.
Pricing Structure
When it comes to providing pricing structure, we are sometimes met with doubt from tradespeople. We understand that your costs will vary from job to job and it’s likely very difficult to provide accurate pricing information. We also understand that you might be nervous about providing this information where competitors are able to access it.
However, having your pricing structure laid out for the customer can ultimately save you time and lead to more conversions. Providing a rough estimate helps a potential customer to know whether you are in their budget. It will also help you weed out any time wasters – people who might just assume they can afford you without understanding the real costs involved.
If you are going to include your pricing structure, optimize the page to ensure it leads to the most sales possible! Check out these 20 pricing page best practices that will increase your sales.
Customer reviews
Including reviews on your website is incredibly important for the success of your business. 90% of people take the time to read online reviews before visiting a business. The average consumer reads 10 reviews before they feel able to trust a business. This means that a) it’s important that you display your customer reviews online and b) it’s important that you collect as many reviews as possible!
Customers expect tradespeople to have their reviews on their website. Reviews legitimise your business – if your potential customer can see that other consumers trust you, they are more likely to feel comfortable providing that trust themselves.
After every job, you should take the time to ask your customer to provide a quote. You could ask them to provide one in person when you finish up. Alternatively, a set time frame after the completion of the job, follow up with an email asking them about their experience.
If you have a Google My Business account, direct them towards that. The benefit of having customers provide reviews here is that you can boost your local ranking. Remember, receiving a bad review doesn’t have to be as terrible for your business as it feels – take the time to reply politely and demonstrate your best customer service.
Whip your tradesperson website into shape!
Think carefully about the elements on your website and make sure you’ve considered how the customer wants things. Hopefully this guide has given you a good jumping off point for understanding how to make your website the best it can be.
If you need some help, Shake and Speare is a digital agency in Bristol who provide a myriad of services for tradespeople, such as website design, SEO, and more. If you need guidance on your tradesperson website, shoot us an email today!
