How the heck can I possibly know your building material website isn’t performing as well as you’d like?
(Just in case you were wondering, that’s what “sucking wind” means… I learned it back in the Army when we were having trouble keeping up the pace with our drill sergeants…)
So how did I know? Am I wizard? Do I have a crystal ball or something?
Naw — Just a lucky guess.
Actually, based on the thousands of building product & building material websites I’ve visited over the past 20 years or so, it didn’t take much luck…
Most of the websites I see are a far cry from where they need to be from a marketing and lead-generation standpoint.
No offense. It’s not your fault…
You were just doing whatever everybody else seemed to be doing. Or putting out what somebody told you your website should look like…
But a website done right should be a round-the-clock, 24-hour salesperson for your company.
So what’s missing?
What you got there, is what we call a ‘brochure site’…
So, a LOT of the websites out there in the building industry fall under the category of a brochure site.
That simply means the website has a lot of beautiful images and product descriptions. But not too many compelling reasons for an architect or other visitors to want to learn more.
This type of website usually is focused completely on you and your company. And very little on addressing the problems the potential customer or specifier has that you can help solve.
The 5 C’s of great content
To have a truly effective website, the pages of your site need to be optimized to connect with your visitors.
Your pages need to follow the 5 C’s of Great Content for Building Industry Web Pages that Work:
Customer-focused:
Speak one-to-one with architects with problem-solution oriented messages
Competitive:
Use relevant SEO (search engine optimization) keywords and phrases in your copy. To clearly show how you’re solution is different (and better) than your competition
Clear:
Offer helpful, easily digestible information placed in a user-friendly structure.
Conversion-optimized:
Guide your visitors with offers and links that lead them to take some kind of action. Download something… contact you… read another page… Something. Don’t expect them to intuitively know what you want them to do next. Tell them.
Consistent:
Connect all your pages with a constant brand voice and SEO approach.
How do you get there?
If you don’t already have an effective website strategy in place, you need to get one — pronto.
I can help you get there quickly with a Strategic Content Audit of your website.
I’ll dig into your website and evaluate the pages using a 35-point Usability Checklist, as well as the 5 C’s Content Guide we just covered. Then I’ll put it all in an easy-to-follow, customized report to give you a clear guide for tuning up your website.
Contact me here to get started. Let’s see if the audit a good fit for your company.
Make it a great marketing day!
Neil Sutton