What a ‘Smart Sales Tool’ Website Actually Looks Like

You’ve probably heard me say this before… 

Your website should be your smartest sales tool. 

But what does that actually mean? 

Because a lot of websites look good. 
A lot of websites exist. 

But very few actually work. 

In this episode, I’m breaking down what separates a brochure website from a smart sales tool… and how to know which one you have. 

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Transcript

From Brochure To Sales Tool

Carrie Saunders 0:01

You probably heard me say this before. Your website should be your smartest sales tool. But what does that actually mean? Because a lot of websites look good and a lot of websites exist, but very few actually work. In this episode, I'm breaking down what separates a brochure website from a smart sales tool and how to know which one you have and some tips on fixing it. And I'll share one subtle difference I see between websites that convert consistently and ones that just sit there looking nice. Let's dive in. Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about what a smart sales tool looks like when it comes to your website. So let's first talk about the two different types of websites that I see generally. A brochure website, which is just listing the services, it shares some information, it might look nice, it might say contact us, but it's what it sounds like. It's a brochure, it's a non-feeling like it's interactive type of website where it looks like it's just information and not having a conversation with you. And then versus a smart sales tool type of website guides visitors intentionally to the next step. It anticipates objections from those visitors, it builds trust significantly with several different types of trust signals. It also leads people towards a clear next step. So what's the difference between the two? They both could have commonalities, like they both might look nice, they might be worded well. What you know, the brochure one doesn't lead you though, as well. But what's the difference between the two? Is intentionality. On the smart sales tool one, there's a lot of intention behind what goes into the website, not just how it looks. That subtle difference I mentioned, smart websites are designed from decisions, not around design. Obviously, we want to have a website that does look nice, but that's not where it begins or ends. That's actually the icing on the cake. We need to have the cake be great and enticing in and of itself. So let's next talk about five characteristics of a smart sales tool website. First off, we want to have clear positioning above the fold. We talk about above the fold a decent amount on this podcast. So above the fold is what you see before you scroll, whether that's on your mobile device or on a desktop or laptop. It needs to clearly state who it's for, who that website's for, what problem do you solve, and what to do next. No guessing, it needs to be super clear and guided. Nobody wants to think we have so much decision fatigue in our worlds that we want to be guided on the next steps. It just makes it easier. We don't then overthink, we don't get distracted as much if we're guided. And then number two is a defined conversion path. So what is that clear next step? We want to repeat any call to actions when necessary. If you have a long page, whether it's a product e-commerce page or whether it's a sales page for some services, we need to have multiple call to actions for that next step. We also need to have a logical flow. Don't get too confusing in it. Um, think about like a grocery store. There's a logical flow through a grocery store. Now, if you get to a grocery store where the aisles are kind of offset and jagged and weird, you know, you're gonna probably walk back out. So we want to have a logical flow through your store, which is basically your online presence, your website. So we want to avoid that wandering, the roaming around, the decision fatigue, the not sure what to do next. When visitors are guided, they are not left to explore aimlessly unless they really get all the information they need and then are more curious. That's when that aimless wandering can be a good thing when they've already gotten what they need and they're curious about more about you and your products or your services. But we don't want them to do that in the beginning. We want them to be very guided on the next steps. And then number three is strategic trust signals. Testimonials with context behind them can really help boost your trust. Proof of results can really boost your trust. This can be for products as well as services. Also, faces can really help. Having your own personal face if you're a brand is absolutely recommended for almost everybody. And even if you're maybe a brand that sells e-commerce goods, it's probably a good idea to have your face at least on the about section or maybe on the contact page. That way they know who's behind the brand. It really provides a lot of trust. And then you can place credentials where doubt naturally appears, whether that is business credentials or certificates or things that you have earned. You know, depends on your niche, of course, but those credentials can be very helpful. So we want to have this trust layered into the website, not just dumped at the bottom. It needs to be flowing through the website and in appropriate places where there could be some trust issues. And then number four is aligned funnel integration. So funnel integration could mean several things here for both products, people who sell e-commerce as well as services. When you sell services, many times you have something called a lead magnet or a freebie where you're giving the visitor something in exchange for their email address. Um, your sales page can also be a funnel. We want to make sure it's consistent with their your branding if you have dedicated sales pages. And then email follow-up that matches the promise. This can apply to any online business that is also part of your funnel, that your email follow-up matches what you promised them, whether it was a product that you sold them, a service you sold them, or something free that you gave them. We want to make sure that email follow-up matches everything. We want to make sure that everything is working together here. And then the fifth element is data informed decisions. We want to be aware of our bounce rate and we want to be aware of our mobile optimization. So if you are not paying attention to some of your Google Analytics, particularly bounce rate, that's when a visitor lands on your website and doesn't go to any other pages. They only land on one page, so that's why it's called a bounce. They come in and leave. So if your bounce rate is high, then that means that something is disconnected. Something we're talking about here is likely disconnected, or it could be your messaging. So maybe what they expected when they went were going to your website was something different than what they found. Or maybe what you what they expected was there, but they weren't guided. They didn't know what to do next and they were confused and they just left. And then we want to go back to that mobile optimization. Many people are looking at your website first on mobile, then they might transition it to a desktop or a laptop if they want to, you know, really dive into it. But we want to make sure that mobile works great for our visitors. And then page speed. We have several podcast episodes on page speed, but we want to make sure our pages are fast and are coming in at two to three seconds max time to load. Less is even better. And then we want to test our headlines and call to actions. That can really help us make the the visitor make informed decisions, is those headlines and call to actions. They sometimes seem as an afterthought we have found with our clients, but our headline is one of the most important things on our website. We want to make sure it's very clear who they who the website's for, what you do, and who you serve, and not clever. So we want to test some various different headlines so we get one that lands really well with our clients, as well as those call to actions. They need to be very action-oriented and very clear. And this is where people many times for don't do or forget to do is a smart website is adjusted based upon behavior, not guesswork. So we're looking at the data, what we see, how much bounce rate we're getting, whether our mobile is working right, whether our page speed is fast enough, whether we have the right headlines and call to actions. They look at that and then they adjust it based upon the data they're getting back. So that can really help. Those little things can really just propel your website's conversion rates really fast. So then what are some indications that you might be more on the brochure side of a website than on a smart sales tool? Let's go over a few signals for that. One of them is traffic, but no inquiries, no questions, no uh form, you know, feedback forms filled out, no um requests to do a call, things like that, no calls to you if you have your phone number at the top. Um, another thing could be visitor stay and they don't stay any longer than 10 seconds. They are in and out pretty quickly. That is a signal that we need to be working on your website. Also, no clear call to action. You can ask one of your business friends or somebody who's not super duper familiar with what you do would be good to see if it's clear on what to do next on your website. Another thing to look for is the contact form is the only option. It is a good idea to have multiple ways to get a hold of you. Contact form is great, email is great, phone number is great, have multiple ways. A chat, a chat widget if you have one, is a great way to really open those doors for uh a back and forth conversation. And then another red flag is that you rarely look at your analytics. I know, I know this is so easy to do, and we see clients, you know, ignoring their analytics all the time. I get it, is it can be it can make your eyes gloss over, honestly. But I want to challenge you, let's look at this once a month. Surely you can find a Friday or maybe it's Monday, whatever day works better for your brain, and take an hour and look at your analytics. I want you to look at your bounce rate. I want you to look at how long people are staying on your website, your average traffic in that previous month. You know, make some metrics that's going to help you measure how well your website is doing. And those are some of the top ones. And then the next month, come back and compare. Have you improved things? Has these little changes you've done improved your bounce rate where it's going down, where people are staying longer, more people are staying, you know, over 10 seconds. You know, are you trending in the right direction? We can't improve what we're not um looking at and what we're not evaluating. So make sure that you do this. I know some people are like, no, Carrie, please don't make me look at my statistics. But it's kind of like a financial advisor will also tell you if you're not looking at your finance numbers, you're gonna be in trouble. So let's look at our numbers on our website. Make it simple, pick five max things to measure until you're really comfortable with it. And then you can add on the things that might be a little bit more scary or a little more complicated to look at. But choose up to five and let's get moving and getting our websites improving and doing much better. And then let's talk about the mindset shift we need to have here too. It kind of segues really well from actually having you look at your analytics. Most business owners think that I need more traffic. But honestly, what you really probably need is you need your website to convert the traffic you already have better. What does more traffic do if you're not already selling to those who are coming in the door? Right? So if you have a store and the people who come in look for a few seconds and leave, what does having more traffic come in that door do for you? It just is, you know, has more traffic in the door and that's it. No more sales, right? So we need to make sure we're making the sales before we bring in the traffic. So first we need to convert better before you even consider things like ads and trying to get more traffic into the website. A smart sales tool warms up the leads, it pre-qualifies them, it builds authority and move people forward even when you're not there. So that's what your website's supposed to be doing. It should be working at 2 a.m. while you're still sleeping. You should be still getting sales, you still should be getting inquiries, you still should be moving um visitors to the next step, no matter whether you're awake or not and working on social or whatever other marketing aspects you use. So if you feel like your website is just existing and not doing the things it's meant to do for you, then I would challenge you to come into our Facebook group. Just head on over to Smarteronline Business.com forward slash Facebook, and that will redirect you to our Facebook group where you can join and ask questions at any point in time. We also have a great course called the Converting Website Course. It's an implementation course on helping you implement many of the strategies we talk about on this podcast. To learn more about that, you can go to smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash TCW. So then a bonus tip I want to give you. I want you to ask yourself, if someone landed here cold, landed to your website cold, would they know exactly what to do? Would they know where to go next? I want you also asked, does my website answer the questions I repeat on sales calls? This is this is quite the key. Does my website answer the questions I repeat on sales calls? Okay, I want to let that one sink in. And then I want you to also ask yourself, is your website working even when you're not working? If the answer is no to any of these, that is your sign that we need to be doing some steps to get your website converting better and getting it to be that salesperson, that extension of you while you're not online, while you're relaxing, while you're having dinner with your family, while it's the weekend, while you're sleeping, any of those other things that you love to do besides working all day. So take a look at it. See what you really need to do next. And if you ever get confused, you're always welcome to find us on social media. Just head on over to smarteronlinebusiness.com. Um, definitely the forward slash Facebook. We'll get you into our Facebook group where we would love to help you. That's all we have for this week's episode of the Smarter Online Business Podcast. We hope you thoroughly enjoyed this and this will help give you courage to look at your website numbers to make those adjustments so it can be your partner in your business. And we will see you next week.