After doing 300+ website reviews for photographers and after watching how people move around my own website, I’ve learned a few huge lessons in getting people closer to your contact me button.
People don’t go further than halfway down most pages
So put the good stuff at the top. Also, your homepage is BY FAR the most visited page on your site, so make sure it totally kicks ass. Pricing, about me page and portfolio are the next most viewed, before individual blog posts, so make sure you have great testimonials and your best photos on them! Interestingly, my blog posts almost all have a 100% “scroll to the bottom” rate!
Calls to action do get clicked – more than your menu
I’ve noticed that if you put a few calls to action (a link to another page on your site) at the bottom of a useful blog post, linking to more useful blog posts, people will click. Keep them moving around your site and they’ll have more chances to fall in love with your work, they’ll see you as an authority (from your useful blog posts) and your bounce rate will go down (this is a good thing for your Google rankings). Put the right call to action on the right pages to take the user on a journey towards your contact page.
Homepage slideshows do get watched (but SEOs will tell you to get rid of it)
Just don’t put too many photos, 3-5 will do. Remember they must be your VERY BEST photos. An autoplay with arrows is the best option. They can slow down a website, so SEOs hate them – but you need to weigh up the importance of page speed vs user experience.
Our clients speak a different language
Use words your couples use. This means they’ll understand what you mean, which seems really simple and obvious, but we are so familiar with certain terms that we forget a lot of people have no idea what we’re talking about! If you hear them describe what they want as “capturing all the small things in the moment” then say that instead of “documentary”. Speak their language! One way to do it is to look through past enquiries and see what language they use.
People want to get to know you!
Stop being professional and writing how you think you should write. Add personality, make jokes, be yourself. People relate to other people, and this is a great way to stand out, too!
Great tips Anna. I’m going to add some more call to actions buttons!
Yay I’m glad it was helpful!