I spent all of last week trying to buy a rug.

Go to shop. Buy rug. Doesn’t sound hard, right?

But we don’t live near any rug shops and we have the internet, so choice is effectively infinite.

This is a nightmare for someone like me. What if I settle on a rug and then later discover that there is a better rug out there? 

The thought of not finding the very best rug tortures me.

So I spend three solid days in a rug-buying internet black hole. Every ad I see on the internet is now for rugs. I’m discovering more and more rugs. I’m paralysed by choice. How do I get out of rug hell?

I realised my biggest worry was ordering a rug that turns out to look cheap and synthetic once I unroll it, instead of cosy and luxurious.

And it needs to be stain resistant because it’s going in a high traffic area.

This means that I can instantly rule out any rug-sellers who don’t show me a close up of the rug on the floor AND the ones who don’t give me any information on weave and quality.

Finally, I find my dream rug. Not only does this company have close-ups, they actually have videos of the product.

And…it’s washable!

It’s also twice as much as I was planning to spend, yet somehow I feel like I’ve gotten a bargain.

What’s going on here is that I stopped making my decision based on price. And once that happens the sale becomes so much easier.

This company did what the other rug companies weren’t doing.

They directly addressed my biggest worries meaning that buying a rug from them didn’t feel risky. Instead it felt like a good investment.

Now have a look at your own website.

• Are you clearly solving your customer’s biggest pain points?
• Are you positioning yourself as the expert who can reduce risk for them?
• Most importantly, are you building a genuine relationship?

Or are you competing on price alone like every other rug-seller out there?

In this post, we’re going to be focusing on the pages in your website that show your visitors how you can solve their pressing problems – from sign-ups to sales pages.

We’re going to dive into the psychology that removes risk and unlocks price resistance, making you an irresistible choice.

Your Home Page

Hands up if your secret hobby is browsing RightMove and playing ‘fantasy house’?

As any obsessive RightMover knows, the secret is to get the search right. I don’t want to waste my time on houses in the wrong area or with the wrong number of bedrooms.

And of course, as soon as you land on a house listing page, you just ‘know’ whether or not it’s going to make your shortlist.

It’s kind of an instinct. Or is it?

Actually, the best house listings lead with an image of what I call a ‘deal maker’.

If it’s got a pool or a huge garden or the kitchen of dreams…boom! Deal maker. Of course you’re going to lead with that.

The same principles apply when it comes to your website home page.

You need to attract or repel. You need to make sure YOU are leading with a deal maker.

You don’t want tyre kickers and potential clients don’t want to have to trawl through your website looking for clues to whether you might be a good fit.

Now is the time to audit your home page.

Here are the features you need to have to make your offer irresistible and tap into your visitors’ instincts that they are making the right choice….

Offer Clarity

Is it crystal clear what you do? Is it summed up in one sentence or phrase and can be seen as soon as visitors land?

The Hook

Do you make it clear how you differ from your competitors and what you believe in? If you have a fresh take, your visitors need to hear it on your home page.

Hand-Raising Copy

Do you directly address your ideal client so clearly that they feel compelled to say ‘that’s me!’

Evidence of Expertise

I’m talking about your portfolio, case studies, awards, ‘as seen in’ badges, testimonials and results – but don’t use them all at once.

One or two ‘expert evidence’ teasers are all you need to get people clicking.

And just one more click is all you need.

Your About Me Page

People agonise over About pages, I know, but to be honest, if you’ve done things right on your home page (shown your face, communicated your hook, established yourself as the expert they need), then your About page is really just the icing on the cake. 

But here’s what most of us do when we sit down to write our About page…

We panic. Because – spoiler alert – no one likes writing about themselves. It’s awkward AF. 

So we fall into listing our achievements, or our awards or our ‘journey’.

Here’s the good news.

You don’t really have to talk about yourself at all. The purpose of your About page is to explain what you do (and love to do) that either solves a problem for your ideal client or creates attraction between you.

How not to do it:

“I’ve been interested in photography from a young age and love to shoot landscapes when I’m not shooting weddings.”

It’s a bit boring, right? And doesn’t do anything to help the client build a relationship with you or understand your expertise. 

Let’s tackle it another way:

“I fell in love with photography because it allows me to capture special moments that are easily missed. When I’m at your wedding, I’m like a ninja, making sure that I capture the hidden treasures you might miss because you’re too busy having a good time.”

It’s a great trick to use the next time you hit a wall when you’re meant to be writing something personal.

Simply ask yourself, “What do I do or love that will help this client trust me more?”

 

Your Portfolio

If you’re selling any kind of service or product, you’re going to have a portfolio or even a shop area and as ever, the question is still going to be the same.

“How can I build trust and solve my visitors’ pressing problems?”

Let’s start by talking about portfolio psychology. If someone is browsing your portfolio, then they are definitely going to be comparing you to your competitors and making a shortlist. 

At some point, they are going to sit down with someone they trust, to make a final decision and you need to make sure you’re giving them the tools they need to sell you. That’s right. Your prospective clients are going to need to see you to someone else. 

Firstly, you DO need a selection of your best work…whether that’s projects, case studies or a ‘best of the best’ image gallery. Please don’t make them trawl through your blog, looking for the excellent thing they saw but now can’t remember where the hell it is. 

They’ll get bored and give up on you, especially when they are feeling the pressure of trying to show you off to someone else. You need to give them the ideal tool to do that.

But they do also need to be able to dig deeper into what you specialise in and this is where your blog comes into play. 

Below your portfolio, or at the foot of each project or gallery, display a selection of ‘featured posts’ which are perfectly designed to speak to your ideal client or demonstrate your unique selling point. 

Eg. If you prefer to design e-commerce websites for beauty products, you better make sure that your very best projects in that area are being prominently showcased. A deep-dive blog post is the perfect way of doing that. 

This is hand-raising content, designed to make your visitor say, “Yes! That’s me!”

Your Sales or Offer Page

If you offer a service or a creative product, you might not have a sales page. 

And I think this is a real missed opportunity. I see lots of business owners, particularly photographers, sticking to the portfolio/pricing/contact page formula and not having a page that not only clearly sets out your offer, but also presents your unique expert solution.

A sales or offer page is designed to bring into focus the problems that your audience has, help them imagine the journey you can take them on and to understand your unique ability to solve their most pressing concerns.

A good sales page should tell the story of your product and your client, without feeling like a hard sell.

It needs to…

• Introduce your product
• Present the problem your audience is struggling with
• Introduce your unique selling point or hook
• Create empathy and belief in your expertise
• Explore the features of your offer
• Provide evidence that other people have benefitted
• Understand what will happen if they don’t buy
• Ask for the sale or offer the call to action

Your Contact Page

The contact page, and its friend, the contact success page(the page you redirect people to when they submit your contact form) is where many business owners miss a huge opportunity to drive engagement and build a relationship. 

Firstly, knowing how many people visit our contact page is interesting but it doesn’t give us any hard data that we can use. What we really want to know, is how many people actually fill out the contact form and the easily be able to find them…

Why? Because when we know who submits our contact form, we can directly re-target them with personal messages AND use paid retargeting ads that gently surround them and make you ‘famous in their feed’.

And we can only do that, when we have a ‘contact success’ page, where we redirect anyone who submits the contact form. 

Finding out who arrived on the Contact Success page can be tracked with the Facebook pixel, your email marketing platform or Google Analytics and it give you the hard data you need to measure the amount of time (or money spent in paid ads) vs how many people actually give you their email 

Secondly, the Contact Success page gives you the opportunity to get more personal. Before people get in touch, they are probably seeing the ‘polished’ version of you. Nice headshot, snappy copy. To be honest, you might even seem a little unapproachable. 

You can change all of that with your Contact Success page. Here’s what you should include:

• A very informal 1 minute video which reveals the real person behind the brand
• Links to your social channels
• Show or signpost your visitors to your best expert content

In summary, the secret to higher conversions is making every page in your website work smarter. The answer is always focusing on your audience’s most pressing problems. 

Now, go out there and convert!

If you need a hand kicking your marketing pages into shape, check out our membership for small, but courageous businesses – The Marketing Fix.