3 Website Content Tricks To Keep Small Business Customers Coming Back

3 Website Content Tricks That Keep Small Business Customers Coming Back

Chris Williams
Blue Ferret Communications
June 14, 2006 (originally written)

If you looked up “necessary evil” in the Small Business Dictionary, I think there’d be a picture of a website. Small business owners are so busy, a website is often placed deep in the “Set it and forget it” category.

Which is too bad, because the content on your website can not only bring you customers, but help you keep them.

Here are 3 ways your website’s content can keep customers coming back to you.

1. Use the Personal Voice – Relationships Can’t Be Built on Corporate-Speak

We’ve all read websites that felt like we were being lectured. Robotic “corporate-speak” is bad enough, but on the Web it’s suicidal. Users have ultimate choice on the Web; talk to them like a corporate drone and they’ll choose to ignore you.

Talk with your customers on your website like I’m doing now. Customers spoken to in a personal voice perceive that they’re being given better service from an actual person. They respond by giving the same kind of loyalty you’d give the Italian restaurant on the corner.

Also, since many other companies use the stiff language of corporate-speak, your personal voice jumps out even more. It cuts through the droning, reminding readers that these are still people they’re doing business with.

2. Respect customers’ interest level-s- (plural)

It’s easy to think of your market as one big block of people. It’s an old print-advertising tactic. It’s also irresponsible to use on the Web.

A customer could be browsing through your site for a dozen reasons. He could be a tire-kicker, just browsing. He could be shopping around. Or comparing you to a competitor. Desperate for a fast answer to his problem. He could even be a non-customer – a member of the media, or an industry researcher.

The key to respecting customers’ multiple interest levels is to provide specific types of content geared toward what they want. Which is:

a. Tire-Kickers – Lure them in with detailed product/service descriptions and clear statements about how they solve specific problems. The Personal Voice is most valuable here, because it can draw Tire-Kickers into becoming Shoppers.

b. Shoppers - They want clear answers to their questions without having to ask them. You can solve this by putting articles on your site about your products and industry. Or, you can anticipate him through landing pages – several versions of a page with slightly different content aimed at specific questions.

c. Comparison Shoppers – They want to hear exactly how your product will solve their problem. Unfortunately, if they hear that from you, they’ll be skeptical. Who they would like to hear from are your previous customers. Offer them case studies and testimonials from people just like them.

d. The Desperate Customer – He needs assurance he’s in the right place. Here’s one way to show him. If you have articles, success stories or newsletters, make sure you have them listed on an index page, sorted by title or publication date, and link to it right off the homepage. Think about it – he can immediately check to see if someone else had his problem. Then he reads the article, sighs in relief, and calls to get that solution.

e. Non-Customers – They’ll want information, lots of it, and they want it fast. If you anticipate media attention, put a Media Kit section on your site with statistics, article clips, bios, and success stories. Non-Customers can get an overall impression of your company in one spot.

3. Give Them ”Scheduled” Reasons to Come Back

If I go to a website four times in a month, and never once see anything new or updated, does it matter how good their products/services are? No, because if I’m the average consumer, I’m very likely to get bored and go somewhere else.

Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to encourage customers back using regular content updates. You can:

A. Add new articles, as I mentioned before. These articles can talk about various ways to use your services, industry news that your customers would benefit from hearing, and so on.

B. Send a monthly/quarterly newsletter. Which is also an extremely effective self-promotion tool, as several of us can attest to. I think Constant Contact is a good bet here – the pricing’s good and they include several easy-to-use templates.
www.constantcontact.com

C. Put up a blog. Ideal for sharing your expertise and talking one-on-one. Plus, a blog can serve as an entire website with only a few small modifications.

CONCLUSION

Websites were never intended to replace brochures. So how come over two-thirds of small business websites contain less than 20 pages, and are updated maybe twice a year?

Use the Personal Voice. Respect customers’ multiple interest levels. And give visitors scheduled reasons to come back. You instantly move to the top tier in small business website quality.

Any website can use these 3 tricks, from a “set it and forget it” to a corporate-assigned template to your own blog-site. It takes some effort to get into the rhythm of updating your website regularly, but once you do, you’ll see customer numbers going way up.

(PDF Download of this report available here.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Williams (chris@blue-ferret.com) is a Web copy writer in the Bay Area, CA. A true tech-head, he spent 6 years in corporate IT before venturing out in 2002 years ago to help companies communicate more effectively with their customers online. His writing clients include IT consulting firms, union committees, insurance companies, and networking firms. You can find his copywriting website at http://www.blue-ferret.com. He blogs about technology, writing and the communication that occurs between them at http://www.blue-ferret.com/category/blog/

Copyright 2006. This content is free to use and distribute, so long as it remains unaltered. Citation must include the author’s credentials.