As a business, you always need to make sure your website communication is clear, concise and easy to understand.
Your homepage is usually the first place where people land and where they’ll check out what you’re offering. Proper communication is crucial, as you need to make sure the reader is understanding correctly the message you’re trying to communicate. Are you telling your audience all they need to know?
Common Mistakes Businesses Make in Website Communication
Working with different startups, I had the opportunity to see lots of websites with differing styles, layouts, and messaging. One of the most common mistakes I’ve seen was the communication from the business perspective, instead of focusing on what the customer needs to know. This is one of the reasons why you should get to know your customers and their needs before creating any type of communication strategy.
So many times we visit a website and we don’t understand what they’re actually doing. What happens after that is that we need to get in contact and ask for more information. “Great!” you might think. But is it? It’s true that the audience might be contacting you but at the same time, it’s not guaranteed that they might be an actual lead.
We once helped a platform connecting travelers with homes change their website communication and messaging. What I understood immediately, as a person outside the company, was that they’re providing travel experiences. Imagine how many messages the company received of people asking for an all-inclusive holiday when they were actually the link between travelers and housing-providers. This all translates into a waste of time for the business, but also for the customer - asking questions, replying to those and only after realizing that we didn’t find what we were looking for.
So how should you overcome this first communication obstacle?
Here are some of the first steps you can take:
Start with a survey for example asking random people what they understand about your business when reading your website.
Collect all the questions and messages you receive from your audience and make some changes to the text on your website.
Use FAQ: when you collect information in the previous step, you can additionally create an FAQ area where you reply to all the questions from your audience.
Shift the communication from WE to YOU. This shift will make it easy for the readers to relate to the text they’re reading and identify with that situation. For example, instead of using “What we do” or “why us” use “how we can help you” or “why we can help you”.
By doing this you’re not only making your communication engaging but you’ll also have a message clear and easy to understand by your visitors.
Create that empathic connection that makes the person feel they’re in the right place for the kind of problem they need to solve or need they need to satisfy. You can also use our examples of empathy in business to get a better understanding of the communication concept. And if you’re having trouble analysing your communication or improving it, get in touch with us, and we’ll help you!