I’m sure by now you’re just itching to learn more about the media you need to get as many qualified leads to your concrete coating website as possible. But what about the website itself? This article will talk about the Website Design For Concrete Coating Contractors that will surely help you get more sales! Without a good website, all the work you’ve put into this could be for nothing. In this chapter, I will tell you why that is.
Before you can or even should begin exploring those options, you must have your website up and running and built in such a way that will drive maximum conversions. But first, let’s talk about options.
Website Design for Concrete Coating Contractors; How to Build a Website That Converts:
Formats
There are different variations of website builders in the market today. Even today, web developers will build you a custom website right from the HTML code itself. Others provide templates that you can use to help you get started right away, efficiently, and affordably. However, I think it’s valuable to make some comparisons here to choose for yourself.
- Custom HTML Site – There are basic HTML pages or individual pages that web designers incorporate into a website. Up until recently, this is how web developers built almost all websites. They had multiple pages hyper-linked together.
- Template Based Site Builders – You can obtain Site builders through providers such as GoDaddy, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. You buy your domain and set up your website using the templates they’ve provided. This type is relatively less than ideal because you don’t have much control or flexibility. But there are still many sites using these formats that do ok.
- CMS Systems – Content Management Systems, like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal. I’m sure there are many others, but these are the big ones.
A content management system (CMS) like WordPress is ideal for concrete coating businesses for SEO purposes. I say that because you have scalability. You can change your navigation on the fly on any of these platforms, add as many pages as you need, and quickly scale out your site.
If you have your website built in an HTML format with graphics behind the website, and you want to add a new section, you will have to start from scratch.
You would have to go back to the graphics and modify the pages to add the new section to your navigational structure. With a CMS, everything is built behind code, allowing the ability to apply easy edits and to add multiple pages.
As you will notice in the search engine optimization section written in this book, you would be required to have a page for each one of your services. In addition, you’d also need a new page for each city in which you operate.
A CMS allows you to create your pages in a scalable format without messing around with the graphics or doing anything challenging to control. Also, it is easy to access, modify, and update.
Using formats like WordPress and Joomla, you may access the back-end administrative area at yourcompany.com/login. After entering your username and password, you will find a very easy to edit system with pages and posts that function like Microsoft Word.
Example of the WordPress Dashboard
You can input text, import images, and press “save,” forcing all new edits to update your live website. However, it is easier than it looks and is very search engine friendly.
Content Management Systems (CMS) have intelligently structured linking between pages and content, making it significantly search engine friendly. As a result, we have found this method tends to be the best option rather than regular HTML or template builder-type websites.
In many cases, a blog is part of the CMS-based website providing you with a section to feed updates. The SEO chapter covers the importance of creating consistent updates and blogging regularly.
Another benefit of content management systems is introducing a variety of plugins you can choose to incorporate on your website. For example, you can easily pull in your social media feeds, YouTube Videos, and check-ins.
You may also syndicate your website to post new updates to your social media profiles automatically. You can add map integration where people can click to either get instructions or view a map to find out your organization’s areas. There is a surplus of features available within a CMS like WordPress that you can’t necessarily do with a non-CMS type option.
Whether you are looking to build a website from the ground up, just getting started, feel like you need a redesign, I highly suggest that you do so using a CMS, ideally in the WordPress platform.
WordPress is a fantastic platform and very easy to use. It’s the most adopted website platform available, with many developers using it. It’s constantly being updated and improved, and I have found it to work very well for different businesses.
So, if you are trying to decide, I would highly recommend building your new website on WordPress.
How Your Users Read a Website
You’ve probably already answered the title as soon as you read it. You probably said it gets read like a book. Some of that is true, and some of it isn’t.
Because of the typical structure of your standard-looking website, we are conditioned to read and scan websites a certain way. But, as mentioned earlier, the “above the fold” section is the most crucial section of the entire website. The “above the fold” section is where over 80% of decisions to even do business with you at all are made.
Users scan a website in a zigzag pattern, almost like reading a book, from left to right. First, they start at the top left corner, then move their eyes across to the right corner. From there, they roll their eyes diagonally to the bottom left corner of the page or screen, or better yet, the bottom left corner of the “above the fold” section. Then they proceed to scan across to the bottom right corner.
So, is it safe to say that some essential and valuable elements should be there? Like a button or phone number and a catchy SEO-optimized title, for example?
You have to remember that your users are used to certain website conventions. In addition, they’ve probably visited your competitors’ websites and ten other websites before you that day. Therefore, it’s essential to follow the actual tested science in the market from marketing agencies, web developers, designers, and even past psychologists.
You may have noticed that I mentioned that they scan your website. That’s the truth. It takes much energy to read text, whether a book or a website. You’ve probably even had to reread a couple of paragraphs of this book after you realized your thoughts were trailing. However, your eyes were still reading, and you did retain a thing! That’s normal. So, the same goes for your website. There needs to be specific media and elements placed on your website to perform its best for you.
What Should Your Website Include?
So, what pages should your website have? What navigation structure should you create? Depending on your business, you will need to showcase different things. For most companies, though, the basics should be:
- Home
- About Us
- Our Services
- Our Service Area (You will understand what I mean once you read the SEO Chapter)
- Online Specials or Coupons
- Reviews and Testimonials
- Before and After sections or a Work Showcase
- Buyers Guide
- Blog
- Contact Us
These are the core pages. Within “About Us,” you might incorporate a drop-down menu for subcategories including “Meet the Team,” “Why Choose Our Company,” etc. I think that’s very powerful. You want to direct people back to a “Why Choose Us” section. In some cases, if you have issues recruiting and retaining good quality talent, you might want to have a “Careers” page under the “About Us” navigation. Then a visitor can go and fill out an application and learn more about your organization.
Within “Our Services,” you want to have the ability to list a drop-down listing the types of services that you offer. Again, we discuss this to a great extent in the SEO chapter.
You want to have landing pages for each of your services because the different keyword combinations will help optimize the page. For example, most service businesses like concrete coating have an area to service customers. A “Service Area” section will give you the ability to show a heat map of all of the locations to where your team goes. You can also include a drop-down menu that lists the sub-cities in which you operate within your market.
A “Reviews and Testimonials” page will provide a section to showcase what your customers are saying about you in text or video form.
You can also pull in reviews from Google Maps, Angie’s List, Yelp, and Facebook. Finally, you will need a “Contact Us” page where web visitors have your general contact information.
These are the core things you should have on your website.
A Clear Description of Who You Are
A visitor who stumbles upon your website shouldn’t have to do a thorough investigation to figure out who you are and what exactly you do. It’s essential to mention your business name and sum up your products or services “above the fold” section of your website. A clear and specific description will immediately attract the visitor’s attention within two to three seconds and encourage them to spend time on your website.
Above The Fold: Think of a newspaper you first buy at a newspaper stand. It’s always folded in a way to show you, the reader, the best news story to sell the paper. This term was adopted for web design to highlight the importance of that section of the website, which you first see when you land on a website before you start to scroll down.
Your Primary Contact Details
Outside of your navigational structure, what else should your website have? What other elements are going to help with conversion?
Well, you should always provide a primary phone number on every page of your website, in the upper right-hand corner. When somebody visits a page, the user’s eyes are naturally drawn to the top section of the website, where they can see the logo and the phone number. It’s also a good idea to have the phone number clickable and throughout the body of the page whenever possible.
If you want to achieve higher conversion rates on your concrete coating website, the goal should always be to make it easy for someone to contact you by phone. Phone calls now are typically the best quality leads because they picked up the phone to call you, which these days doesn’t happen often. The reason is that we are now much more accustomed to more convenient ways of communicating, like Direct Messaging, Chats, Emails, or Web Forms.
By the way, if your phone number isn’t clickable to send the user to their phone’s dial pad while they’re on your website via mobile, you are losing out on leads. No one will write down your number or try to remember it to go to the dial pad and call you manually. So, it has to be clickable.
An Obvious Call to Action
I believe business websites should always make a web form available from which a customer can quickly request a quote. However, remember that every visitor to your website is in a different situation and frame of mind. For example, you may have someone on their phone or just leisurely looking to contact you for your business services and can pick up the phone and call you.
On the other hand, somebody who’s in a work environment may not have the ability to stop what they are doing and make a phone call without drawing attention from their coworkers. However, they may browse around online to find out what options are available. Your potential customers may reach your website, but they are torn between making a call scheduling the appointment. Or maybe they want to have someone from your team contact them right at that exact moment.
Make it easy for them to enter their information into a web form to provide their name, phone number, email address, and a note detailing their requests. It makes it easier and doesn’t create any pressure.
Having an easy web form is by far the most effective lead generation method today.
Social Media Links
You also want to provide links to your social media profiles. Link to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Profiles so customers can quickly jump off and engage with you on social media. They can see what you’re doing and be able to press that important “like,” “follow,” or “subscribe” button. It helps create a sense of authenticity when your customers get to see your social media content.
We would typically have the social media icons in the website’s footer. Because they may be ready to buy now depending on their buying cycle, we don’t want them to stray away from your site; we want them to call you or contact you by web form. Suppose the icons are in the footer. The user browsed through for more information to better understand your business. In that case, they will find those social icons in the footer and click them to go there if they want to.
Customer Testimonials
Have a direct link that drives visitors to your online reviews and testimonials that we discussed previously.
You should also post your accreditations either in the sidebar or in the header graphic. For example, it proves that you’re BBB-accredited or a member of the local chamber of commerce or industry association. Trust badges and accreditations allow potential customers to rest assured that you are a credible organization. You’re involved in the community, and you’re less apt to provide them with poor service. As a result, they’ll feel more comfortable doing business with you.
You can also create a reviews page and embed reviews from 3rd party applications like Nice job, Elfsight, or Lead Crusher. They stream your reviews live onto your website, and you’ll have the ability to filter bad reviews in the application’s settings, so they don’t show up there. This way, your users have a quick and easy way to see your reviews without having to leave your website. Of course, the longer they stay on your website, the better.
Authentic Images
In the beginning, it can be tough to get into the habit of taking pictures of your work and your team. However, make it part of your daily routine, as well as your team. Then, you’ll not only have fantastic engagement on social media, but you’ll have authenticity on your website.
Google praises authenticity on websites over stock photos and bare minimum written pages. Therefore, they will consistently rank an authentic site over the other generic sites.
Showcase your company, feature yourself, the business owner, and the people in the business: the office team, the technicians, etc. Showcase the office itself, the trucks, and the equipment if you have them. Don’t use stock photography, but authentic imagery. Giving the visitor the chance to know, like, and trust you before they even pick up the phone should be top of your list. It’s a highly effective tactic that will prove its worth many times over.
Say a potential customer visited two different sites for a similar business offering. One of them is generic; here’s the same image they have seen before of the same dentist with the patient and the weird smile.
The other website highlights a genuine picture of the actual dentist, the team, and the equipment used. This authentic page converts 10 to 1. You must let your real personality reflect on the website to build trust.
Mobile Website
Google focuses a lot on websites built as optimized for mobile devices. So, for example, they will rank websites with an excellent mobile version over others every day of the week.
According to Statista.com,” Mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide. In the first quarter of 2021, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 54.8 percent of global website traffic, consistently hovering around the 50 percent mark since the beginning of 2017.”
More and more people access the Internet via smartphones such as iPhones and Android phones. But, even more will come as technology rapidly increases on networks like 5G.
Make sure the mobile version of your site isn’t the same as your regular site. It should be condensed, fitting the screen, and giving the user the information, they need. In addition, it should integrate with their phone, so all they have to do is press a button to call you.
People searching or accessing your website from a mobile device are in a different state of mind than the people who are browsing and finding you on a computer. So, make it easy for them to get the information they need and to get in touch with you.
I will also note that Google recently had a core update to monitor the mobile website. The algorithm determines if buttons are too close together, font is too hard to read, etc. So be aware that your website must be mobile-friendly to search engines.
Now that you have a good understanding of what to do on your website to increase conversions as much as possible, you should understand SEO and how search engines work. SEO falls in line with why websites are structured a certain way, and it’s the next ideal topic to discuss.
Onward and upward!
