Sarah: Good morning! It's 08:00 AM. We are live. Welcome to Marketing Mix, we have a good show today! We want to start off by asking you... Well, let me start off by saying this. We all know you need a website, right? I mean, that's pretty obvious.

Glyna: Yep.

Sarah: But it's more than just looking pretty. Your website needs to attract customers and we're going to show you the 10 must-have features that you need to have on your website. Let's go.

Glyna: Hello!

Sarah: Hello!

Glyna: Welcome to Marketing Mix everybody! Every week we talk about different digital marketing topics. We like to mix it up a little bit, and this week's going to be a lot of fun.

Sarah: It is going to be a lot of fun. My intro was a little longer, I just had so much to say.

Glyna: I know.

Sarah: I couldn't get it out.

Glyna: Well, let's take a look at those broadcasts. Where can people find us?

Sarah: Yes. Yes. Don't forget that we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and we have our awesome podcast, Marketing and a Mic. You can always follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. Don't forget to subscribe to our awesome YouTube channel, Fusion One Marketing. Every single week, we are churning out new videos, helpful videos, all in the name of marketing.

Glyna: I'm excited about our YouTube channel. It is very busy, it has so much information. I mean, if you need some marketing tips and marketing info head on over there.

Sarah: That is true. That is true. Okay. So today we're going to talk about how to put together a quality website. It needs to have all the right features and ingredients to increase users, to get you some conversions, to increase visibility, all that stuff. Really your website should be considered your headquarters. That is your headquarters online, where people can go to find everything that they need to about your business. So we see a lot of trends out there. We see what works, we see what doesn't work. These are the top 10 that we feel you got to just have on your website.

Glyna: Exactly. So let's just jump right on in. Number one, you really need to keep your website updated. So, have an updated modern design, and there are new designs coming out all the time. You should really freshen it up or do a redo every five years or sooner. Think about 2015, I mean, shoot, I can't even think back that far.

Sarah: I know.

Glyna: So much has changed, especially in technology. So your website has to be a part of that. I am a huge, huge believer in first impressions, whether it's personally or about your business because you're telling the world what you're all about when they first come to your website. You want to make sure that it is top-notch and it looks great. The sites also need to contain useful pages. You have to have quality. I mean, you have to have quality info on there. Just a bunch of junk, oh my gosh, I saw one this week. I mean, it had all the information, they didn't leave anything out, but it was crammed all on the front page. It made me dizzy just to look at it. So, we don't want that.

Sarah: No, you definitely don't want that. That leads us to number two, which is easy navigation, straightforward navigation, clear navigation, however you want to look at it. You've got to think of it as like, let's say you go into a grocery store and you see the aisles, each aisle it tells you what you're going to find down that aisle. You read a book, it's got a table of contents, it's got chapters, you can follow along easily. Your website should be no different. It should be a roadmap that provides the users an easy way to find exactly what they're looking for and it should provide different ways to help them navigate your most common purchases or services. In other words, when they're on your website it needs to make it easy for them to get back to where they want to go. Or if they want to go back to services, they can't be looking all over the page like, "I'm lost now. I just clicked on another page, and I don't know how to get back." So it needs to be very easy for them to find what they're looking for and additionally, for the search engines to crawl. I mean, really what this comes down to is your website needs to please two things, your users and the search engines. They got to have both. It's like we said at the beginning, it's more than just looking really pretty. Always have that navigation bar at the top. Make sure all that's good with your nice drop-downs, and everything is clear and easy to follow. Again, just make sure that they know exactly where to navigate once they click on other pages.

Glyna: Yeah, and it's really important. Some other things about navigating on a website, I still run across websites that when people click on another page it takes them off that main page. It opens another window. That's definitely not what you want to do because again, "How do I get back? Where am I?"

Sarah: Right. "Where am I?"

Glyna: "How do I get back?" Yes. Some people like to scroll. Some people like to find stuff right away. So you have to have that information available in different places on the website. It may look repetitive to you, but you have to meet the different criteria of the people that are looking at your website for sure.

Sarah: Yeah. That's true.

Glyna: Then you know what everybody wants to look at these days? Reviews, reviews, reviews. I was trying to buy something even just as easy as a coffee maker this weekend and I was like, "Which one has the most reviews? Which one has the best reviews?"

Sarah: Yeah.

Glyna: Another thing I was trying to find some help for my parents who live in a whole other state, I was trying to find a handyman for them. And guess what? I don't know any of those people, but I chose the person that had the most reviews, and I read every single one of them. So testimonials and reviews, please, please, please. You should have one or both of them, front and center. So have a feed that's coming on your main page, but you can also have a page where people can go and look at all of them all at once. Again, it's very, very important. Nobody buys anything anymore without checking them out.

Sarah: Yes. Yeah. It's one of those things, have them displayed, easy displayed, like a scroll at the bottom, whatever it is, but just have it so that, "Hey, look, check us out. Look at what we got. Look at what people have to say about us." So, so important. Okay, number four, about page. I mean, this should be...

Glyna: Should be pretty obvious, but it's not.

Sarah: Should be pretty obvious, but this is kind of the personalization section of your website. This is where you can talk about you, hear your story, how your business came to be, provide a picture or a video, helps people put a face to a business, and it's just really important because they want to know, "What kind of company am I dealing with?" Tell them your story, tell them how long you've been in business, tell them how it all started. All those things are so good because it builds that level of trust of, "Okay, these guys have really put together something really special and I feel like I understand them a little bit more." So it's real important. Those videos are so helpful too.

Glyna: Oh yeah, if you can do a video on an about page that would be awesome because people feel like they get to know you a little bit better. Do want to say good morning, we have some early birds. We have Steve Johnson joining us this morning. Good morning, sir!

Sarah: Good morning, Steve!

Glyna: And Cindy Edmunds. Good morning to you too!

Sarah: Good morning. Good morning!

Glyna: All right. The next thing you need to have are pages for your services and your products. Hate to go down the SEO road again, but here we go.

Sarah: Here we go.

Glyna: There's a lot of reasons to have separate pages for your services and products. First of all, to give as much information as you can. You don't want to scrimp on this information, and pictures plus descriptions are the best way to go. The search engines love to see it separate. In other words, if you have four main services that you offer, you need a page for each one of them, if possible. Same with products, show them. The more description that you have the better.

Sarah: Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Number six, frequently asked questions page. This is so helpful and such a good piece to have for a multitude of reasons, but one of them is you want to really put in there the most frequently asked questions that you receive. What are the common questions that everybody's coming at you at? And so important because not only are you helping and you're serving as a resource or an expert that people can come to and look at, "Okay, I've got this question. Oh wow. They've already got it answered on their page." But another thing is it helps save you time. So you don't have all these one off-calls of, "Hey Mr. Handyman, do you do this? Hey, what do I do if I do this?" I mean, it just helps save time, and again, when you're a resource, and we talked about being a headquarters when everything is in one location and you're getting more activity to your website, and that's really what it's all about. So having a frequently asked question page is very, very helpful.

Glyna: It definitely is. And wanted to say, hello, Lavon! "Hey y'all", is what she said and also Melissa Keck, who just found out she's having a baby girl!

Sarah: Yay!

Glyna: It's so exciting!

Sarah: That is so exciting! Congratulations Melissa!

Glyna: Yes, congratulations. So good morning to all of you. The next thing that is really popular, some people have no clue what it is, but a blog. And we say that- we kind of joke about that because I think the term blog intimidates people and I get it, because immediately, what do you think? I don't know how I'm going to keep that up. How many times do I have to write? How many times do I have to post? Blogs should not be intimidating. In fact, we have some customers that call it news, or our latest news, or something, they call it different than a blog. Something different than a blog because...

Sarah: Yeah, sometimes blogs get a bad rap and I think it's just because of a misconception, they'll think it's like, somebody's personal journal-like, "I'm blogging." It's like that's not what this is.

Glyna: So, what do we have to blog about, about websites?

Sarah: Right.

Glyna: It really can serve as a resource. That's the way I would look at it. You're the expert in your field. Think of all the things you know, oh my gosh, you can just sit down and write all day long probably all of the things you know. So tell... It's for you to tell the viewers or the visitors all about what you do. So, give them a deep dive into your products and services, or tips, or just help people out, because again, just like the FAQs, the blog is a great place for people to find information. It's also great for SEO. Again, I have to plug SEO because you have that churning content, just like we talked about last week, and then you have relevant information for the end-user to find. So, I don't know about you, but when I'm searching out something, the more info the better.

Sarah: Yeah.

Glyna: I mean, I may not read every single thing, but I like to have it available. Now, I do have to caution you on this because blogs, just like anything else, if you're not going to keep them up, it's better not to have one.

Sarah: Right.

Glyna: And you need to be realistic about that. It's not the end of the world if you don't have a blog on your website, we're just giving you best-case scenarios, but if you can't blog and post at least once a month and that's minimum, then I would just skip it altogether.

Sarah: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's one of those things you either got to commit to it or don't bother.

Glyna: Yep.

Sarah: For sure. So, okay, number eight, which is the contact page. Again, this should go without saying, but we come across it a lot. What your contact page should be, what's the best way to get in touch with you? What are your hours of operation? What's your address? Your location and directions. How do I get to you? Include as many forms of communication as possible.

Glyna: Yes. Please.

Sarah: Yes. As well as a form for somebody to fill out the information. Do you want more information? Click on this, contact us, give us a little bit of your info, so valuable. I mean, again, we still see this. Just this week I went on a website and all there was, was an email address. When I clicked on the email address, it didn't even lead me anywhere. So I thought, well, this is pointless!

Glyna: Make sure it works too. That's another great thing.

Sarah: Well, and an address too is another way of building that credibility if you don't know where they're located, you're like, "Are they even located in the United States? What kind of operation are we running here?" So yeah, the contact page, be as thorough as possible and make sure it all matches across the board, even on one's search engines. We've talked about that on Google My Business listings, make sure everything is consistent. So it's a valuable one, but one that people often don't get complete.

Glyna: Yeah, exactly, and we should have a bell every time I say SEO. And for SEO, ding.

Sarah: Yeah. SEO, ding!

Glyna: You can put a map on that page and it's going to help the crawlers come along and find out where you're located. So again, it helps with SEO, but yeah, come on people, contact page, make sure the info works. Make sure your form works, that's another thing. All right. The call to action is always important for several different reasons. You want to offer something to people in return for their information, that way you can take their information and use it as a marketing tool in other places like email marketing, marketing automation. So, offer them something, but you know what? Make it valuable, make it something that they can use. I don't know whether it'd be tips, or a guide, or a free handout, or whatever, but make it useful and worth their time. Also, you can use, like I said, too you can use that information to come back around and market to those people again about their interest in your products and services, so if you have a call to action you know what they're interested in is what I'm trying to say. So you can guide your marketing towards what they like.

Sarah: Absolutely. Okay. Number 10, social media icons, it's 2020 here. There is no reason that you should A, not have a social media presence, but B, have those icons on your website to navigate from. Make them clickable, make sure that you put, "Hey, find us on Facebook. Find us on Twitter. Find us on Instagram." Those little social media icons should be on your website and it should make it easy so that the end-user can find where you are on social networks. It's so important. And we have another caution for this.

Glyna: Yep.

Sarah: Caution. Ding! If your social media pages are not up, skip this until you can improve that. Or excuse me, I shouldn't say up, kept up.

Glyna: Kept.

Sarah: Kept up. Not up, kept up because...

Glyna: Or both.

Sarah: Yeah, up, kept up, no, this is kept up. So, you can have a social media page, but if you don't have it going on, if you don't have consistent activity, I would probably skip that until you can improve on that because wherever you want to navigate them, you want to make sure you're proud of what they're going to navigate to. So if they're going to your social media page and you don't have it... It's crickets over there then let's not hook it up until you can get it going on. So very important.

Glyna: Yeah, the top two things people do when they're searching or when they go to a search is they go to the website and they go to social media and that may be interchanged. They may go to social media first, but they always go to both places if they are looking for information. So, we had 10 things, the top 10 things, but we have a bonus, not so fast!

Sarah: But wait, there's more!

Glyna: Yeah. A chat feature, again, we're in 2020, and people are used to that instant gratification and that's what chat can give you. And again, it can ask all the FAQs, the things that people want to know the most, but it's really great to have that feature. It doesn't cost much and it really, for the value it gives you, is worth it, well worth it. And it's not that difficult to set up and that's something that we could help you with as well.

Sarah: Right, and that's that little box that comes up that says, "How can I help you?" Or, "Do you have a question?"

Glyna: Yep. Yeah, exactly, because especially if it's after hours or something, you want to still be able to give people information as much as you can, and that's a great way to do it so people get that instant gratification.

Sarah: Yes, very much so.

Glyna: Wow. It just was... Flew by, all this great information!

Sarah: Yeah.

Glyna: So, those are... Do you want to just recap real quick the top 10?

Sarah: Yes. I think that's great. I'm so glad that you said that. So let's start off real quick. We're going to go all through it real quick. Okay. Number one, updated modern design. Okay? If it's more than five... If it's been more than five years, since 2015 if it's been longer than that since you've updated your site, get on that. Easy navigation so important, make sure it's really easy and user-friendly for your consumer to get through it, to a user to get through it. Number three, testimonials, and reviews. This is very important to be on there. Number four, about page. Number five, services, and product pages. Number six, frequently asked questions page. Number seven, logs. Number eight, contact page. Number nine, call to action. And number 10, your social media icons.

Glyna: Yay. So that's it. That's a great start, if you have all of those things, that's a great start to your website. So, as always, if you have any questions about website design, what you should have on your website, creating a brand new website, we would love to help you and have that conversation with you. As always, we offer free consultations and you can find us at fusiononemarketing.com/contactus. Or if you go to our website, it's really easy to find our contact page. So you can use that and just give us a shout and we would love to help you.

Sarah: Yes. Well, thanks, guys. That's it. Don't forget to tune into Biz Talk. We have a really good Biz Talk on Friday. We've got Mary Beasley with Let's Be Frank Designs. Oh my gosh, this is one talented woman. We are so excited. So tune in Friday, 08:00 AM for Biz Talk and we will see you next week. Bye guys!

Glyna: Bye!