Our website should be an extension of the sales and marketing efforts of your business. In other words, if your website is not helping you attract and retain customers, there is something wrong. The best way to make your website effective at generating sales is to have clearly defined objectives on each page.
An objective is an action you want the visitor to take as a result of visiting the page or your website in general. Examples include:
- Call your business
- Visit your business
- Send a query
- Become a lead
- Download something
- Make a purchase
- Register with your website
- Sign up to your email list
All the examples above either generate an immediate sale or give you the opportunity of making the sale at a later date.
You Can Have More than One Objective Per Page
You don’t need to pick just one of the above for the pages on your website. In fact, it is better to offer multiple options relevant to the particular page, as well as multiple options per page.
For example, a visitor might research the products or services you offer but are not ready to buy immediately. In this situation, you might encourage them to sign up to your email list. In other words, this page will have two objectives depending on the visitor’s intentions.
The Importance of Defining a Page’s Objectives
Your website developer will be responsible for implementing the objectives on the pages, i.e. the developer will add the forms, call-to-action elements, shopping carts, maps, and more that will deliver on the page’s objective.
In addition, a good website developer will help create the right user flow, so the visitor gets presented with objective one and then objective two if objective one is not immediately applicable.
Defining the page’s objectives, however, is crucial to this process. Here are some examples using the objectives in the list above:
- Call your business – include your phone number in a highly visible location on every page as well as including it as a call-to-action with the text on each page.
- Visit your business – ensure there is a prominent and easy to use map on the contact page of your website and possibly also the home page.
- Send a query – include a form that enables visitors to send a query. You should also ensure the form is in a highly visible location on each page.
- Become a lead – include a positive and persuasive message as well as a prominent form encouraging the visitor to send you their details for your sales team to get back to them.
- Download something – you have multiple options with this objective depending on the download. They include offering the download within the page, in a timed popup, or in a popup that appears when the visitor goes to leave your website.
- Make a purchase – include large and highly visible Add to Cart buttons and ensure the checkout process is as easy and secure as possible.
- Register with your website – make the registration option visible on all pages, give a compelling reason for registration, and make the registration process easy to complete.
- Sign up to your email list – strategies for this objective include adding welcome mats, in-content calls-to-action, popups, and more.
Whatever industry you are in, and whatever type of website you have, every page should have a clear objective. By doing this, you are more likely to make it clear to the visitor what you want them to do next. This will improve the results you get from your website.
