help your website win (& grilled cheese recipe)
PART 1 OF 2 SERIES
Alright, let’s be honest, there’s more than simply two things that can help your website to perform at its best, but if you’re new to the game or just don’t know, this is a great start. Many times we look at the items we’re trying to accomplish as merely a checklist – a box to mark saying we completed it. However, like almost everything in life, these items fall along a spectrum of quality. Not all websites are created equal. Either are grilled cheese sandos.
When my kids make a grilled cheese sandwich, they grab two slices of fall-apart-in-your-hand white bread & some yellow “cheese” that they peel off a plastic wrapper. The pan on the oven is sprayed with some kind of synthetic, nonstick butter-like spray & they’re off to the races. If I’m hungry enough, yah, it’ll do… (intermittent fasting, anyone?) & frankly, their juvenile palettes don’t know any better either until…
Daddy cuts deep into a crunchy loaf of mom’s homemade sourdough. It’s crisp & thick outside crust beguiles a dense, soft & ultra sour inside that brings a tear to my eye. The customary, quality assurance slice is had by myself before dropping the other two on a cast iron tabernacle bubbling with real butter. The sound of sizzle echoes off nearby mountain while doves cry as I use a knife three times too big to cut into soft cheddar cheese from a local farm. The cheddar is laughably defiant as it sits on the bread amidst a swirling storm of steam & smolder.
“I’ve got plans for you,” I whisper.
”What, dad?“
”Nothing son. Watch & learn, my child. Watch. And. Learn…”
I dust the melt with a few bleu cheese crumbles just before closing the sacred book of bread - slice on slice, hot cheesy magma pushing out the sides & earning that cast iron char. So hot. I struggle a bit to wield the weighted pan, but decades of experience pay off as I slide the perfect grilled cheese onto my plate. The wonder & delight on the faces of my offspring as they tear into the sandwich qualify me & validate my position of Father to these younglings. I’ve ruined them & I don’t care who knows it! Kraft has me on their hit list, along with Wonder Bread, among others – a small price to pay to bring a little Heaven to Earth on a Saturday evening.
And what exactly does this have to do with websites? Everything. I’m talking about quality. I’m talking about the level at which you complete those things you must do in order for your business to win. Having a website made with cheap bread & fake cheese might be clickable when someone sees a link, but it doesn’t make them want to stay – find out more & enjoy the melty-cheesy experience. Hand to God, if you’re still reading, we’re doing something right!
Read on below through the lens of quality. The question you should be asking yourself isn’t, Do I have the things? Rather, Do my things have the customer/user in mind? Are my things working as well as they could?
1. That Fickle & Free Wind Blowin’
Your website is a ship. The wind is organic (or free) traffic/visitors that surges & fades as it sees fit. A great social post or story resonates & they flock to your page. The amount & quality of those ship sails AND their position means you can catch more wind… more wind means you will move faster & farther. The trouble with wind is that we can’t control it, we can only harness the stuff. When we have “holey” sails or not enough fabric flying, we struggle to move forward.
Adjusting the sails even a few degrees means higher rates of conversion (visitors to paying customers) – people being helped by your product or service & more money in your pocket. Furthermore, many folks fear the wind that pushes against them - a headwind that feels impossible at times. Positioning & repositioning the sails in a way that allows it to shear against the flow is known as tacking & it means we’ve deployed some strategy toward overcoming this opposing force.
So, you’ve got to have enough sails up to catch enough wind. Those sails must be in good repair or you’ve got a let-down of swiss cheese doing a whole lot of nothing for you (please see grilled cheese story above). This is the quality & quantity of great content on your site. The evergreen copy & imagery is a solid foundation, but you’ll need targeted landing pages that answer the questions these users are looking for. They search for how your site can improve their life in some way – solve a point of pain they are ready to pay you to remove. We call this SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & it means your website makes the Search Engine God’s happy – they move you higher in ranking & even feature you when the mood strikes them right. Your path to purchase must be easy & your buttons to buying, simple & straightforward. There’s no sense in checking the box that says “sails up” when they’re not actually helping you. Why spend money on ads pushing people to a site that struggles to convert?
I don’t know, Reader – I’m asking you. : )
We can help you focus your efforts & identify quality gaps. It’s our pleasure to set your website up for greater success. Here at Heave Ho! Creative, we provide that extra oomph to push the boundaries of design & thinking by pulling together. With over 50 collective years in creative & marketing services, we still love doing what we get to do. We believe great strategy, design, processes & subsequent execution can move people from merely seeing what a brand/company offers to something special. It pulls them through to feeling & believing how a product or service can solve a problem & change their life for the better (kind of like that perfect grilled cheese sandwich). We are the bringers of ‘wow’ & are grateful to be at your service.
we can help your website win
Fill out the form & let’s pull anchor today.