Kristen Doyle 0:00
News flash about your website. Just because a page is popular and gets lots of traffic doesn’t mean it’s actually helping your business in any way. We’ve been talking over the last few weeks about analytics and ways to see what people are doing on your website, but sometimes those analytics show us that the most visited pages on our website aren’t the ones we thought they were, and they might not be helping people do anything useful to them or to your business.
Kristen Doyle 0:34
Maybe those pages get lots of traffic, but they don’t explain what you do or build trust, or answer the next question, or make it clear what someone should do next. And if that sounds familiar, then today’s episode is for you. I’m sharing how to find those most visited pages on your site, decide which job each one of them should have, and make small changes so that your website is not only more useful to the people who are already visiting it, but it’s also working harder for your business.
Kristen Doyle 1:10
You’ve built a strong business with happy customers, but somewhere along the way, you picked up advice that says you need to be doing more, post more, sell more, hustle harder. But that’s not what you need. Welcome to Small Business Savvy. I’m Kristin Doyle, and I am so glad you’re here. On this show, we’re covering what actually works, business systems, website strategy, simplified marketing, the stuff that grows your business without burning you out. Let’s get into it.
Kristen Doyle 1:42
So first things first, we need to figure out which pages people are actually visiting the most already. This is where you would go into Google Analytics, which we installed and set up in episode 186 a few weeks ago. When you get into Google Analytics, go to Reports and then look for Pages and Screens under Engagement. This will show you your most visited pages. You can set a date range in the very top right corner of the screen. I like to set it to the last 90 days, so that I’m seeing a little bit bigger window of data than just the current month, which I think is the default.
Kristen Doyle 2:20
And look at what your top pages are. Typically, for most of us, your homepage is going to be in there, but what else is in those top pages? Remember, not everyone starts on your homepage, and so it’s important to make sure not just your homepage, but these other top pages, are also giving people the right next steps.
Kristen Doyle 2:41
So your first step is go and find your top five pages. Look at each of those pages, keeping in mind that every single one of them needs to make sense as a first impression that people were getting of you. So it needs to work well to introduce you to someone and give them a next step to take.
Kristen Doyle 3:03
Now, every page on your website needs one job, and that means each of these top five pages also needs one job. Obviously, we can’t tackle every page on your website all at one time, so we’re going to focus right now just on those top five pages. There are three main jobs that website pages can do. The first is to explain. Some pages are there just to explain what you do, who it’s for, where you work, those kinds of things. The second is to build trust. Trust building pages need examples or proof of your work. They need photos, reviews, credentials, those kinds of things. And then the third type of page is there to help people take action. Maybe it’s to give you a call, book a call, register for an event, sign up on your email list, request a quote, whatever it is. Those pages, the primary goal is to get people to take an action.
Kristen Doyle 4:05
Now I know, as I was saying those you might have been thinking, Yeah, but don’t all my pages need to do all of those things? And yes, in a way, those are the main three things that a sales page needs to do. A lot of times we treat our home pages very similarly. We want to make sure that we are doing those things across our site. But that doesn’t mean you need to do all three of those things equally on every page. There should be one of these that is the primary goal of each page, depending on where it falls in the ecosystem of your website, and in that, as overused as this phrase is, in that customer journey, that path that they take from discovering you to actually making a purchase.
Kristen Doyle 4:52
So for example, the goal of your homepage is not to get people to book a call. It is not to get people to register for an event. The goal of your homepage is to explain who you are, what you do, and who it’s for, and just to get them to take one next step, to get to those pages where the goal is to continue to build trust, or to get people to take an actual action. Examples of pages that are built specifically to get people to take action: your contact page, your book a call page, a checkout page, even a sales page. Sales pages have to do triple duty. They have to kind of do all the things, assuming people might only see that one page.
Kristen Doyle 5:41
But most of our pages really can do one thing, and not all of them. Some pages are there to build trust. Examples of those are things like your portfolio page or a testimonials or review page. The primary goal of that page isn’t to get people to book a call, it’s to build enough trust that they want to click the button to learn more about your services or to book a call. So keep in mind that while there might be pieces of all three purposes on any given page on your site, there should be one primary goal.
Kristen Doyle 6:14
So what I want you to do now is decide for those top five pages, what is the primary goal, the main job of that page? And if you’re making a list of these, or you’ve dropped it into your note taking app or something, go ahead and jot down what that main goal is for each of your pages. And then you’re ready to start asking questions. So step three is to figure out what those pages are actually doing and what is missing.
Kristen Doyle 6:44
So the first question to ask yourself is, what is this page supposed to help someone do? And then look at your page objectively. Is it doing that thing? What questions do people probably have when they get here, and does this page answer it? What proof or trust building elements are they looking for, and are there enough of them on here? What is the next step I want people to take from this page, and is it obvious and clear? Are there too many competing options for next steps on this page, or is this one of those orphaned pages that doesn’t really have a next step? Take a look at your pages and figure out, based on the primary goal, what is missing on that page.
Kristen Doyle 7:32
Let’s talk about some examples. If your about page is up there in your top five, then your about page needs to not just tell your life story or how you got into your business, it needs to work hard to build trust with people. The main goal of an about page is to build trust. So you need to make sure that it’s telling your story in a way that sets you up as the expert who can help your ideal client or customer with whatever they are struggling with, and then it needs to give them a clear next step at the bottom of the page.
Kristen Doyle 8:06
If your about page just tells your story and doesn’t give people anywhere else to go, then it’s not doing enough work for you. And I know a lot of us assume that those buttons in the navigation bar at the very top are enough, but imagine for these pages that those buttons don’t exist, that there is no menu at the top. What is that page guiding people to do next? Is it to contact you? Is it to learn more about your services? Is it to visit your shop, to get on your email list? And whatever that page is guiding people to do, is that actually the most important thing that you want them to do after they read that specific page?
Kristen Doyle 8:47
If you have a portfolio or a gallery page, this is another page that is meant to build trust. It needs a little context around what you do for those people who do land on this page first, somehow, but the goal of a portfolio page, a gallery page, a testimonials page, is to build enough trust to get people to hire you or to go to book a call, whatever your process is.
Kristen Doyle 9:13
So if that is one of the pages in your top five, then look at it. Is it giving context to the images or examples or reviews that you’re sharing? Does it have a clear next step? Are you including enough social proof? Do you have testimonials there along with photos, or is it just photos of the work you’ve done? Because a really good portfolio page is going to have both.
Kristen Doyle 9:39
Even something like your contact page can do a whole lot more than just have a contact form on it. It can do a lot to answer people’s questions, to build trust, to help them feel confident reaching out to you. Make sure that you’re explaining what happens after they reach out, what you need to know when they reach out, all those kinds of things that you can share to make them more comfortable contacting you.
Kristen Doyle 10:05
If your booking page is in that top five, then congrats, because that is an action taking page, and we want people getting to that page. But does your booking page just have the calendar to book a call with you, or a checkout form to schedule a service? If it does, if that’s all that’s on the page, then you’re missing a lot of opportunities, again, to answer people’s questions, to build trust, to help them feel confident booking with you. So make sure you’re including things like testimonials and a reminder of what it is that you do and how you can help them, maybe even a little FAQs section below your form.
Kristen Doyle 10:51
Once you’ve figured out what you’re missing, don’t be tempted to jump into a full redesign of the entire page. Start with those pages that get the most traffic and just make little improvements to each of those pages, one at a time, things like a better headline. If your contact page just says contact and then has a form, there’s a lot you can do to that page that we just talked about. Better buttons, better text on the button. If you’ve got generic buttons that just say contact or learn more, think about better copy that you could put on those buttons to cause people to take action.
Kristen Doyle 11:24
If you’re an in person service business, are you clearly highlighting your service area? And I don’t mean just by putting a map that shows a pin of your location. Are you calling out the areas where you work? Maybe you add a short FAQs to your services page, or work with me page, or even your contact and booking pages. If you have photos of projects you’ve done, are they captioned? Or are you telling the story to go with the photos, especially on something like your reviews page or your portfolio?
Kristen Doyle 11:57
Do you have testimonials? Almost every page in your website should have a testimonial or two somewhere on it, even if it’s toward the bottom, because it’s one of the best ways to show people that other people have worked with you or purchased from you and like what you offer.
Kristen Doyle 12:16
Do you have a super clear process laid out that shows people what happens next? Is there some sort of pricing guidance, if it’s on a page where you’re talking about services and products, or is it left completely ambiguous where people don’t know if it costs $100 to work with you or 100,000? Because people need some sort of guidance about pricing.
Kristen Doyle 12:39
Those top pages that you have, they are already getting a lot of attention. In fact, if your data looks anything like mine, you have top pages that are getting the vast majority, well over 70% of your website traffic, and then all the other pages are so far beneath it that when you really look at the data, it makes it super obvious which pages you need to be putting your time and energy into, and which ones you don’t.
Kristen Doyle 13:06
In fact, I’ll share a little reality check with you. As I was looking at my data to record this episode, I realized that there’s a page I’ve kind of been neglecting lately. It’s been in the back of my mind. I keep thinking, I really need to update this page because it’s not as current as it should be. Some of the things listed on there aren’t really what I’m focused on right now. And it turns out that page is actually in my top five. It is actually getting about 9% of all of my website traffic to that one page. So that tells me that I really do need to prioritize fixing this page, because, like I said, it’s not super current. It’s not one I really share right now because it’s a little out of date, but it is getting some of the most traffic on my site, so it needs an update, and I need to make that a priority pretty soon.
Kristen Doyle 13:59
Bottom line is those top pages are already getting attention and traffic. So instead of spending tons of time and energy trying to get more traffic to other pages, don’t waste the traffic you’re already getting to those top pages. Make sure every one of those pages is more clear, more trustworthy, and easier for people to take action right away.
Kristen Doyle 14:21
If you find that you have a page in the top five that doesn’t really have a specific action for people to take, that’s something that I have run into a lot on one of my other sites that is blog heavy. I had some blog posts showing up in my top five, and a while back, when I did an audit like this, I noticed that those blog posts that are consistently in my top five or top 10 didn’t really have anything outside of the menu bar in the navigation at the top to cause people to take action.
Kristen Doyle 14:55
And let’s be real about the menu bar. I kind of said this earlier, but it is there people know it is there, and sometimes, sure, they’ll look up there and click on something. But it doesn’t inspire action. It’s just there as a reference for people who already know that they need it and look up at the top, otherwise that can get ignored.
Kristen Doyle 15:14
What I noticed was there really wasn’t anything below the menu bar at the top to get people to take action on those posts. There wasn’t even an email opt in. So what did I do? I went back in and I put a really good email opt in on those posts so that now, if nothing else, it’s at least getting people onto my email list. Some of them, I was able to put some product references in and link over to those as well. So don’t waste that attention that you’re getting on those top pages. Make sure that they are doing something for your business.
Kristen Doyle 15:50
All right, let’s do a quick recap of your action steps for this episode. Your first thing to do is check your Google Analytics. You’re going to reports, pages, and screens, it’ll be under engagement. Set the date range to the last 90 days, and jot down what your top five pages are. Then, for each of those pages, decide what its primary job is, whether it’s to explain, to build trust, or to get people to take action. And then look for what’s missing from the page or what might be confusing based on that primary job.
Kristen Doyle 16:25
Make one little fix at a time, whether it’s a better headline, some added context, testimonials, FAQs, better calls to action on your buttons, whatever that one page needs. If you’re finding a lot of changes that need to be made, focus on just those top five pages and make the fixes one page at a time. Remember little improvements that you make on those high traffic pages make a much bigger impact than fiddling around and making things absolutely perfect on pages that nobody really sees.
Kristen Doyle 16:59
Now, if you are looking at your site and you’re thinking, Man, I have a lot of changes I need to make. Too many pages that don’t have a good action for people to take, then let’s book a website game plan call. If your site’s feeling outdated or unclear or just harder to use than it should be, then a game plan call is a great way for us to talk about what is working, what’s not working, or what’s getting in the way, and what I could fix for you. If you’re interested, head to kristendoyle.co/gameplan, and I’ll talk to you soon.
