February 14, 2024
4 Tips To Improve Your Website
If your website is getting some traffic but isn’t bringing you leads or capturing subscribers or selling products, then it’s time for a rewrite.
But rewriting your website can feel like a daunting task, so here are four tips that I give out time and time again to make it easier:
1) Start With Just Text
If the copy on your site isn’t strong, no amount of fancy web design is going to save you.
So when you’re ready to rewrite, crack open a plain ol’ blank Google Doc and start with just the text.
DO NOT futz around with images, colors, layout, or any design elements.
Basic formatting, like headlines, bullets, bold, italics, etc, is all you need.
But... what do you write? I’m glad you asked...
2) Headlines Are Critical
People will not read your page from top to bottom. They’ll scan the headlines first to decide whether it’s worth their time.
Ideally, a visitor would be able to understand your offer JUST from reading the headlines.
Unless you’re an experienced copywriter, I recommend starting out with a classic Pain/Dream/Fix sales page template.
It’s not fancy, but it’s easy, and it works.
Once you’ve got your headlines mapped out, braindump relevant content under each to flesh out your sections.
This will give you a passable first draft that you can show to a few people and revise over time.
3) Be Clear, Not Clever
I don’t know why but for some reason, people who are not professional copywriters almost always want to write clever headlines, CTAs, and other copy on their website.
DO NOT DO THIS!
Clever virtually always confuses people, and confused people don’t buy stuff (or subscribe or register or apply or whatever it is you want them to do.)
It’s 1000x more important to be CLEAR.
(If you really want to, you can add in the clever stuff after you are 100% sure your offer is clear. Just don’t start with clever.)
4) One CTA Per Page
People aren’t going to browse around your website. If you’re lucky, they’ll visit one or two pages before they bounce.
So...
Each page on your site needs to be really good at doing the job it was intended to do.
And that job is to get the reader to take an action.
Exactly ONE action.
More than one CTA (aka “Call To Action”) is confusing, and you don’t want to confuse people, right? (see above)
For example, if the purpose of the page is to get the reader to schedule a call, then the only CTA on the page should be a big button that says SCHEDULE A CALL.
In fact, you can (and probably should) put the SCHEDULE A CALL button on the page multiple times, formatted exactly the same way with exactly the same label.
DO NOT confuse the reader with a bunch of other requests, like LEARN MORE or READ MY BLOG or BUY ME A COFFEE or anything else.
I could go on for hours about building more effective web pages, but these four tips should get you started.
Yours,
—J