I’m going to keep this post short. The piece of advice we’re going to impart on you today is so simple that even a ‘waffler’ like me should be able to keep it short and sweet! It relates to websites and specifically what makes an effective website that actually generates real enquiries and revenue for your organisation.

Now, whilst we’ve always known the different elements you need to get right to make a website successful, actually explaining this is a different kettle of fish altogether. Clearly there are a number of different factors that make a website effective but a recently launched project has made me realise that there’s one common element that all effective websites have.

The website launch was for VanLeasing.com and it marks the culmination of a 12-month project to completely rebrand and relaunch this business and their online presence.

The website (and mobile app) allows users to search from over 1,000 vans from every manufacturer and model available in the UK today. Once they’ve selected their van, they can get a completely customised online quote in less than 60-seconds. Once they have their quote they can print or save it – or if they really like it - apply online to lease the van in less than 5-minutes.

This website was launched last month and, from pretty much a standing start, it has generated results beyond even our own expectations. At the moment the site only gets around 4,000 monthly visitors but from that generates 450 enquiries – that’s an 11% conversion rate (the industry average is around 2-3%)!

So what’s the secret behind such a high traffic-to-enquiries conversion rate? The answer is insanely simple:

 

This site actually does something!

 

In other words, it gives users something back in return for making an enquiry. The site has multiple interactive elements but the 2 most popular actions people take on the site are to get a customised van leasing quote or check online if they are approved for finance. These 2 interactive elements of the site don’t do anything special – they just give a user a simple way to answer the 2 questions they came to the site to get answered:

How much will this cost me?
Am I approved for vehicle leasing?

This isn’t rocket science but it’s amazing how often people get it wrong when launching a new website. How often have you been onto a site and there’s absolutely nothing to do on that site but fill in a boring old contact form? Think about this – when was the last time you filled out a ‘contact us’ form on any website? We asked this question in the office and most of us couldn’t remember a time in the past five years!

It’s all very well having a website that tells your customers all about you, how great you are and why they should work with you, but the harsh reality is that no one cares! Customers only care about what’s in it for them and, quite frankly, a boring old brochure-based site with a simple contact form just won’t cut it.

But never fear; the solution doesn’t need to be as complicated or costly as you might think. Even offering something as simple as allowing customers to book appointments or events online is all you need to turn your lacklustre conversion rates around. There are even creative ways to turn a simple contact form into something much more appealing – you just need to think of them!

So if you’re reviewing your current website or wondering why you’re not getting any enquiries then look at your site and answer this simple question: Does it actually do anything?

If not, maybe it’s time for a new approach.

 

Corporate brand design and identity is the starting point for everything in business. It is the first thing a company needs to create before... well, anything! Without a brand... without a logo... without an identity you are nothing!

Brand identity is one of the most important parts of a good business – it helps people get to know you, it communicates so much more than just a name, and, if your branding looks disorganised, dull, frantic or indeed anything negative then this will be reflected on your company the second a potential customer sets eyes on your brand.

When you consider that a website has 3 seconds to capture the interest of an average visitor before they go elsewhere, branding can be said to be even more important for an online business! So when it came to creating the brand for VanLeasingQuotes.com we knew we had to get it right.

Where to start?

When creating a brand we start off by doing 4 things – reviewing the initial brief, speaking to the client, reviewing the competition and reviewing the ‘non-competition'.

The initial brief is a document we refer back to throughout the process. In this case it reminded us that VanLeasingQuotes.com want to create some new and different – this will have a bearing on the brand identity concept.

The client is also a great place to start because, not only do we want to create something that they buy into, but they also have good knowledge of their marketplace and any things to definitely avoid. In this case the team at VanLeasingQuotes.com were really keen to let us take the reigns and they were keen we didn’t get tied down by their perception of what might work and what might not (it’s great to get a client like this who really just wants us to flex our creative muscle!)

Reviewing the competition is a key part in the initial process because it lets us see what our brand will be up against. When we reviewed the competition in this case, we found that there wasn’t much out there that was particularly strong.  Most competitor websites made the mistake of trying to draw attention and say too many things at once (the end result looking a bit messy).

Reviewing the non-competition is a great way of finding inspiration from other industry sectors and using it in a new place. In the case of VanLeasingQuotes.com we found that their competition wasn’t strong so we knew we wanted to create a brand that stood out a represented something completely new.  We wanted to create a brand that represented a clean, fresh, approachable and easy-to-use website. One of the major industry sectors we looked at was price comparison websites – these sites are really easy-to-use and the best of these companies have great brand identities – we took inspiration from this.

Brand Concepting

This is where I start to get down some ideas. I’ll work with Ryan initially to think about the kind of look we want to create and we’ll sketch down some shapes and general sketches. After that I go away and spend a lot of time trying lots of different things (some I quickly abandon!) before coming back with 3 or 4 solid concepts for discussion. We all review this internally and there’s usually a couple of days of reviewing and tweaking each concept before we present 2 or 3 to the client. In this case we went back to the client with 2 concepts – both we felt were really strong.

It’s not just the logo we create at this stage, we also think about use of colour, font and language and how this would be used across the whole site.  

Client Approval

Presenting a new brand identity concept to a client is always a bit nerve racking – after spending a lot of time and energy going down a certain route with a brand that you really like, you just hope to god that they like it too! In this case they quickly chose one of our concepts and the process was fairly painless from here – just a couple of minor tweaks.

The Final Brand Concept:

Well this is the logo, what do you think? Hopefully you agree that we’ve created exactly what we set out to – a clean, fresh and approachable brand identity. Although we can’t show you the full brand manual we created for VanLeasingQuotes.com, the new logo is just one part of the overall look. We’ve also chosen corporate colours and fonts as well as developing how we will use language and tone across the new website. So this initial branding stage will really inform everything else we do when creating an online business for VanLeasingQuotes.com – it will give us a clear guideline on where to go with the look and feel of the website and the marketing material to follow after that.

It’s Ryan next week on keyword analysis and website planning.

Speak to you soon!

Before I even post this I already fear the backlash from all you talented web designers out there. Give me a chance to explain though before you arrive at our offices with pitchforks!

I’m not challenging the great work of web designers here – especially not the ones that work at Brinn Marketing!

What I’m more challenging is the steps that many businesses take when it comes to building a new website. That is usually just one step – ‘best call a web designer’

9 times out of 10 what do you get when you ask a web designer to build you a website? A website… sounds obvious right? You get a website and if you pick the right web designer you’ll also get a website that looks great. It’s more what you don’t get that makes all the difference between success online and failure though.

It is the job of the web designer you take on to design and, usually build, your website. If you run a small-to-medium sized business that doesn’t have the luxury of your own marketing department to create your online offering, the chances are you’ll be telling the designer what you want the site to look like and do. You’ll then get a website very much inline with what you had in mind…

WHAT”S THE PROBLEM THEN?!

The problem is that what you had in mind wasn’t necessarily an online presence that would do anything more than be a nice brochure for your company. Sure, it will tell potential customers about your business but it won’t do much else and will they even find it?

Firstly, if you’re looking to just create the kind of site described above then you don’t need to pay a web designer to do it. The technology is there to be able to do-it-yourself. With the 30-day free trial of our Framework platform we will let you create your site on your own selecting from over 100 templates for completely free and only a very small ongoing monthly charge for hosting.  That’s not really the point though.

Today, a website is not enough – websites are dead! It’s a given that any business has a website but it’s the ones that invest the time and effort in creating something great that reap the benefits.

What you need to create is an online business. Your online presence should sit at the very centre of your businesses marketing efforts regardless of what line of work you’re in. Remember, the first thing 99% of people do when looking for products or services is search online first – so you need to be well represented.

HERE’S SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

You have your new website but how are potential customers going to find it? Is your site built with SEO in mind and do you have other planned marketing activity to drive traffic to your website?

Once you get potential customers to your website how are you engaging them, does your site have interactive elements and do you have effective calls-to-action to make them take that next step?

What happens once a customer takes that first step on your website? Do you have a plan in place to continue the process seamlessly?

A website needs to be dynamic and constantly changing. Do you have the ability to add to and improve on your website on an ongoing basis? Do you have a software system to allow you to manage your site easily and cost-effectively?

Is your site a side thought or is it an intrinsic part of everything else you do to market your business?

CAN’T A WEB DESIGNER DO ALL THIS?

If you find one that can then let me know his details so I can employ him/her to replace our whole team (including myself)! A web designer’s job is to design your site - create a look and feel and build it into a functioning site. Hopefully what I have demonstrated is that really that is only one, all be it vital part, of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle. By just employing a freelance web designer what you will get is a website – not an online business.

There are actually a vast amount of skills required to create a worthwhile, revenue generating online presence. Actually, a lot of it is about marketing expertise, planning and effective ongoing management.

This all sounds expensive but it doesn’t have to be. There are many companies, including ourselves, that offer this full marketing service at a fixed monthly cost and it needn’t cost the world.

Really this is about starting thinking about your online presence as an ongoing, constantly evolving asset and finding the right partner company to work with to achieve this.

I’ll leave you to get searching to find one then– hopefully you’ll end up back here in the end though…

WANT MORE INFO?
Watch the Framework video:

Since branding and rebranding are a big part of what we do, we thought we'd show you an example of a logo we recently created for a company called Blimey! Loans.






In this logo Blimey! is the brand. The use of lower-case font, choice of typeface and bold colour give the brand a young, fresh and  approachable look whilst still maintaining a professional, sleek and corporate feel at the same time.
This logo is designed to last – it won’t date quickly. 

The way in which the word ‘loans’ is separated into a rounded grey shape still keeps loans as a prominent feature but tones it down somewhat to make the Blimey! brand really stand out.

Over time if Blimey! diversify into other areas then the text inside the shape would change accordingly – continually building on the brand.

So as you can see there is a reason for everything when designing a logo from the use of colour and shape to considering the future of a company's development.

What do you think?