8 Website Mistakes Costing You Customers
As a pool service, you’d think you’d get most of your business in person. After all, you work with people face to face, and you’re driving around in a branded van all day. Word of mouth is powerful, but your website is still crucial in driving new business to you. Here are some of the most common mistakes you’re making with your site, and how can you can fix them.
1. It Has No Specific Goal
When you build any kind of website, you need to have a goal in mind. What are you hoping to do when you create your site? Are you looking to inform potential customers of what you do? Are you trying to bring in pool owners in a specific area? Are you hoping to create a wider internet presence, using your website as a base?
You need to have the answer to this question before you even begin building the site, or you will have a site that has no clear purpose. If this happens, it will put leads off, as there’s no obvious point to them visiting it.
2. You Don’t Explain Your Services
As a pool service, you may not think you need to go into detail about what your business offers customers. Many have built websites and quickly listed off what they offer, and left it at that. That leaves customers confused, as they don’t know what they will get here.
When creating pages about your services, make sure you go into detail. Customers want to know exactly what they’re paying for, so give them everything they need. The more informed they feel, the more likely they are to hire you.
3. The Navigation isn’t Clear
All good websites have excellent navigation, clearly leading customers to where they want to go. For example, say a customer wants to find your contact details. Are they clearly listed on the site, or is there an obvious ‘contact us’ page? If not, that’s going to be off-putting. No one will stick around for long to puzzle it out.
If you’re not having much success with your site, then take a look at the navigation. Is it easy to find the main menu? If you’re using a hamburger menu, is that easy to spot? You also want clear calls to action on each page. If you can’t find them, there’s no obvious next step for your customers to take.
4. There are No Customer Reviews
Think back to the last time you bought something online. Most likely, you checked the customer reviews first. You wanted to see if the item or service you wanted was up to standard, and that’s the best way to find out.
If you want customers to hire you, then you need to have testimonials on your site. They’re an excellent trust signal, showing customers that you are a genuine service and good at what you do. The more you have, the better. Encourage your clients to leave you reviews, and have them visible on the site.
5. The Site Loads Slowly
Did you know that in most cases, a visitor to your site will spend around 3-5 seconds there, deciding if they want to stick around? That’s not very long at all, and you want them to spend longer and see everything you have to offer. If your site is slow to load though, the visitor will get impatient and leave without seeing what you’re all about.
If your site is slow loading, you’ll need to work out why. This is simple if you work with a website developer, as they can see what’s causing the slowdown and what can be done to fix it.
As well as loading times, consider what you’re presenting on your home page. Does it clearly define your business and what you do? If not, it’ll take longer for visitors to find out what you’re all about, and again they may just leave. Have a good summation of your business on the home page, so they can see who you are right away.
6. There’s No Personal Touch
Customers are more likely to hire you if they know who you are. That’s especially true for home service providers, like pool services, that need access to property regardless of whether the homeowner is home or not. Your website needs to give them a glimpse into who you are. If there’s no indication of the people behind the business, they can’t get to know you.
It’s a very good idea to include some information about yourself as the business owner, as well as some photos of you and the team at work. These can go into the ‘About Us’ page, so visitors can see who are. It certainly helps them decide to hire you.
7. There’s No Blog
If you have a website, you want to bring more visitors to it every day. They need to have a good reason to visit though. One of the best ways to keep them coming back for more is to run a blog. If you don’t have one, then you’re leaving money on the table.
To bring in more leads, you need a blog that gives readers what they need. As a pool business, you might create blog posts about seasonal pool issues or child pool safety. You’ll be imparting important info that they’re looking for, and then they’ll have you in mind if they need to hire pool services for their pool.
8. There’s No Mailing List
It’s amazing how important mailing lists are to your marketing strategy. You can send special deals and important details through a mailing list. If you don’t have one, you don’t have an important branch for your marketing.
Create a mailing list, and invite your visitors to join it. You’ll soon have plenty of potential customers on the list that you can reach out to.
Use these tips to improve your pool service site, and you’ll have new customers coming in no time.
