The Power of Strategic Website Design To Build Trust & Guide Visitors To Book Your Services

From Clicks to Conversions: The Power of Building Trust & Guiding Visitors To Get More Leads

Is it manipulation or is it just good website design? The importance of guiding your website visitors through your website, that gets you more leads. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about the importance of how guiding your visitors through your entire website can result in more leads for your business. Good website design knows exactly how to strategically build trust and gently guide your visitors through your website that will actually convert them.

The Role Of Guiding Your Visitors Through Strategic Website Design

Now, what do I mean by guiding visitors through your website? Why do we do this and how do we guide them? How do we actually guide them and tell them where to go? So what it means is that when you’re guiding your visitors through your website, it’s a way of telling someone that they want something, telling them what they want when they don’t exactly know what they want, right? Most of the time, our potential clients are coming to us with a general idea of what they may be looking for.

So for instance, if you’re a photographer, Someone’s on your website because they generally know that they want a photographer, but they don’t know the specifics of what they might need to be looking out for or who they. Should trust and what they kind of are really looking for in that specific realm. Right? And so this is where the funny saying of manipulation kind of comes into play. It’s because, we are kind of telling them, Hey, we are what you’re looking for. This is what you want. And we’ve got it. So we’re telling them we’re the only you know choice for them. We’re manipulating them to think that way. And, you know, manipulating in a good, strategic moral. Kind of way, right? We’re not actually, hypnotizing or, you know, making someone do something that they don’t wanna do. But we are guiding them to think the way that we want them to think.

Why having a strategic website is important

So when they are browsing and researching and trying to find someone that clicks, how do we tell them that we are who they’ve been searching for, right? We need to tell ’em and so we want to do that through giving them different options and journeys that they can partake in. We want to give them reminders and build their trust. We want sections and buttons and images and words that can help guide them to look for what they want to do right, all while keeping in mind what we want them to do and keeping them engaged on the next step and how they are going to actually book, right?

And so why you should want to guide your visitors and really keep the journey and the strategy and the goals of your website in mind is because, your clients want to and need to know what to do next. If they don’t know what to do next, they would scroll be like, okay, cool. Looks good. Bye. See you later. Right? People have tendencies and triggers when it comes to purchasing, so when they come to your website, they either want all of the details, or they might be wanting to see an overview and get straight to business, right? They just wanna go straight to your contact form, they already know they already love you, bam. Done right? But we want to cater to all of these tendencies and to figure out how we can get them to pull the trigger. And we do that by guiding them, by giving them the information, by giving them permission to seek the different ways that they want to feel comfortable enough to say yes to you. So you want to give the information seekers guidance on where they can see that very detailed list oriented information, right? You want the people who are just wanting an overview of you know, what to do, how things work, what your portfolio looks like, right? You want to. Be able to guide them. Say, Hey, here’s an overview of my portfolio. Here’s how we work with people. Are you ready to go? Let’s do it. Right? And at the end of each of those things, we want to tell them what their next steps are and exactly what to do as quickly as possible. So they don’t have to think. They don’t have to second guess. They know, oh, that’s what I do, right?

How to guide your visitors through your website to convert them into leads

So here’s a few different ways that you can go about guiding them.

1. Easy To Use Navigation – Clean and clear navigation throughout your entire website that is only focusing on what’s most important at the top and is easily accessible. So this means most of the time we will want a scrollable menu, something that, or a way for them to access the menu that’s always scrolling with them and we wanna make sure again, only the important things are in that menu.
2. Clear Call To Actions – The second thing is that we want clear call to actions, which means that at every section and every relevant location that you wanna guide somebody somewhere else or want them to take action on. We want descriptive buttons that will guide them to the relevant page. And going to the relevant page is very important because we don’t wanna guide them somewhere that isn’t relevant or isn’t serving a purpose.
3. Visual Cues – And then the third thing is visual cues such as arrows and animations and graphics and movement. That can also really guide visitors down a page or to a next page, or kind of highlight and emphasize certain things.
4. Repetition – You can also guide visitors through repetition. For most of you guys, your overall purpose for your website is probably for someone to book you or to buy something, that sort of situation as you’re mostly wedding pros, right? And so we want to make it repeatable. We want to make it super known, Hey, this is how you book. Don’t forget to book. This is where you need to go. Are you ready to book right now? We don’t wanna do that every single section, right? And like 50 times on a page. That would be excessive, but you also don’t want to assume that they’ll just move forward or they’ll just know how to book with you or that once they finally feel comfortable. They’ll go up to the contact page. Right. Especially after you’re building someone’s trust, through a piece of content or you know, your portfolio or a certain section that was very, converting focused or let’s get booked focused. It’s important that you say things like, are you ready? Let’s get started. Ready to book. So don’t be afraid to repeat yourself multiple times because people need those reminders. Don’t assume that they will self-initiate those kinds of things.
5. Having enough sections – And then lastly, another way to help guide visitors is making sure that you have enough sections that give short little snippets of certain important things, content information that’s elsewhere on your website, so that they feel comfortable with knowing that you are providing what they are wanting and feel confident to pull the trigger and book with you. I think that this one is very often overlooked because. They think, oh, if I have less things, they’ll be less overwhelmed, and then they can book. But if you’re not guiding them through strategic and thoughtful sections that help give them kind of some of the insights or the direction to seek out more information. Like your process or your packages or your portfolio, then they’re not gonna feel super confident and taken care of, and the experience just won’t be as pleasurable. Right? They’re gonna feel like they had to work really hard to work with you. If you only have a few sections, they’re going to be like, okay, cool. Next. Okay, cool. I guess I’ll contact them maybe. And then once you tell them that you have packages that start at $5,000, they’re gonna be like, but I had to do all the research for me. I’m not wowed by you. I’m not wowed at the experience I’ve had so far. Why would I pay $5,000? Right?

The number one reason we are guiding visitors through our website

So the number one reason at the end of the day that we want to guide our potential clients through our website is really to enhance their user experience and empower them to feel confident that they got all of the information they need.

In order to book us without hesitation, right? You want them to feel like you’ve got their back, that you’re taking care of them, that you are not holding things back and being, you know, sleazy with your information. They know exactly what to expect. They know exactly what they’re gonna get from you, and they’re going to quickly fill out that inquiry form to move forward with you.

If you want a stronger conversion rate on your website, you’ll need to focus on the user experience.

And that really ties in to that user-centric experience that we want to have for our visitors when they come to our site. Meaning that in order for your visitors to feel guided, And understood. When you hire Lenya Creative for a full brand and website design, project, strategy and purpose is at the core of our designs, which means that we’re always thinking about that user experience, that journey through your entire website. We align your goals with the different pages and the design that actually goes into each of those pages so that we have the seamless experience for your clients, that they’re taking the right path, that they’re doing the right things, to give them that confidence to get them to quickly book through the inquiry form. So just know that when you are guiding your visitors through your website, you’re creating that user-centric experience. You’re really thinking with them in mind and you can totally do that by yourself, but just know that when you hire a designer, they will typically have that perspective at the forefront, and they’ve done it so many times, they know how to think of things in a unique way that will be catered towards your specific business, your specific big goals and mini goals, and then also your specific experience that you want to cultivate for your future clients and current clients.

How you can use metrics & analytics to understand where you can improve your website design for more leads.

Something that I always suggest to my clients when doing a full brand & website design package, called our Fierce War package. I always include a way for you to actually use metrics and analytics and how to actually evaluate the effectiveness of this client journey. and so I wanna take a second to share with you some of the metrics and analytics and tools that I geek the fuck out on. I have a very logical brain, so I love analytics and user experience, and so I want to dive into this last section of this podcast real quick where I kind of talked to you guys about how to evaluate the effectiveness of their website and the way that they’re guiding their visitors and their user experience. And I’ll actually give them some training on this as well. Um, that is very important to me. And Lucky for us, there’s so many free tools at our disposal for us to analyze how these things are working and how we can make improvements. So I want to touch on this a little bit, share with you a few tips on how you can analyze them and hopefully guide visitors to book and get yourself some more leads on your website.

Lower your bounce rate

If you don’t know what bounce rate is, it is how long someone is actually staying on your website. So the moment they come in till the moment they leave and they present this in a percentage. The average bounce rate is about 40 to 60%, and the lower the bounce rate the better. That means that it took them less time to go in and go out. So the lower the percentage, the longer they were on your website. And you can actually find this on Google Analytics.

Increase your engagement rate

So this is how long someone is engaged with your content. So the hire is better here. You find this on Google Analytics, and it’s similar to the bounce rate in the sense that the bounce rate is how long they stay on your website but it’s given as a percentage, not as a time. So the engagement rate is actually a average amount of time that each visitor is spending, and so it’ll say something like two minutes and 30 seconds, right? That’s the average time that someone is spending on my website. So that’s also a very helpful metric to know if your website is guiding people, if it’s engaging, if it’s interactive, if it’s keeping the interest of your viewer. If you don’t have very much information, your bounce rate and your engagement rate will be so, so short because there’s not any kind of interaction there. Again, if they’re just coming there to go to your contact form, that’s great. And you can see that um, in one of our next metrics, which is the path exploration.

Get familiar with the path exploration page inside of google analytics

The path exploration is what pages each person is actually navigating to, and in what order. And so it literally shows you the path that your client is going on. So it shows you what page they came to your website on, and then from there, what page did they go to next and to next and to next, or where they left. So if your user came in on the homepage and then went to the contact page and then left, did they convert or did they just go see and leave? Or did they go to your homepage and then they went to your services page, and then they went to your portfolio page, and then they went to your contact page? Right? This is a really good indicator of what your clients are wanting to view. Maybe you’re noticing that people are coming and going straight to portfolio. Or maybe they’re coming to your website and going to the contact form, but you’re not getting any inquiries, right? Where’s, where’s the problem? So the path exploration is super, super, super helpful, um, in telling you some really interesting analytics, and again, you can find this on Google Analytics for free.  So that’s all the items on Google Analytics, bounce rate, engagement rate, path exploration. There’s so many other things, but those are three really helpful quick ones for this specific podcast and topic that we’re talking about.

Track your button clicks

The next thing is button activity. So this is a bit more technical, a little bit more advanced, and I won’t go too far into it, but if you’ve heard of UTM trackers, they’re super helpful in giving you information about what links or what buttons are being clicked so you can track how many times a certain button is being pushed. Right? So if you have like a links page you can figure out, okay, which buttons, are they going to, are they going directly to portfolio? And then on portfolio, are they at the bottom clicking the services page? Where do the buttons work the best. What doesn’t work best. So are they clicking the very top button every time? Whether that says portfolio or get started, is that prime real estate being used? Well, right. So you can change out the button. Wording or where it’s being directed to in order to see what’s working. You can also test the colors or the words that you’re actually using. Maybe sometimes, maybe for a month. You’re testing book now as the button and then some, and then the next month you’re testing, let’s work together. Right? Which one of those words are converting more? How many people are booking. How many people are pushing the button in one month using one word versus the other, right? And I use Bitly to create my UTM trackers, so that’s super helpful. Again, more technical, a lot more testing involved there, but it is very cool and unique to see what happens on your buttons, where they’re taking action, where in the page and the content type how that all influences, um, when they reach out or when they take a next action.

Utilize heat maps & screen recording applications

And then the last thing is page activity. This is really cool because you can see what people are doing on each page. It’s a little creepy, a little cool, but also we don’t really know exactly who it is. We can just kind of see their actions. So I use a tool called Hot Jar.

Again, it’s free. You install it on your website and you’re actually able to watch like their mouse click on certain things where they drag to. You know, sometimes when you’re looking at something, you’re kind of dragging your cursor around as you read, right? So you can actually see what they’re reading, what buttons they’re clicking. So if you don’t wanna use the UTM tracker, you could just use Hot Jar and kind of take note of that. But you’re gonna have to, actually like manually figure out those statistics rather than, just having a quick snapshot. Right? Um, and then you can see what they are navigating. Like for instance, if they are actually going through your testimonials. That’s one thing that I noticed, my people were actually going through my testimonials on my services page. And so that’s really important to make sure that I have those because people are actually spending their time there. Right. And I can note that, oh, they are clicking on. Certain aspects of the website. Oh, there’s a lot of people who don’t even make it halfway through my website, right? They also have things called heat maps, which tell you, you know, how many people are making it all the way down your site and how many aren’t. So there’s a lot of really helpful analytics inside of Hot Jar as well.

This post was all about user experience and guiding your visitors and the importance of that. And so if you are like, I’m not really sure if I’m guiding my clients in a clear and concise way that has very nice call to actions. If you want me to take a look as a professional and give you some feedback, I do offer a short free website audit, typically about one to three minutes long, or a full in depth website audit that’s typically 20 to 30 minutes long, to which you can sign up for using the form below.