Everyone gets a little woogy when thinking about making changes to their websites. They think they have to do this major overhaul - start from scratch, find a new provider, come up with a new "hook". This just isn't true (unless your current site really sucks). In actuality, little tweaks, incremental improvements can make all the difference.
Today, I set out doing a few of those. I upgraded the coaching platform web page (we have a new Steps to Success Coaching Program starting next month, so I wanted it to be more bionic for the students). Now it includes Amazon links to all of the books in the program as well as spiffy new pictures to quick-reference which entries are the coaching calls and which are the downloadable MP3s. It also references which products we sell that could help with various issues that the students will encounter along the way. They're not required to buy them, but it's a service if I make them available.
I also updated my web page that has my book on it (The Consultative Real Estate Agent) to include a reference to the fact that if you sign up for the newsletter, you get access to the free downloads of the forms in the book. Why did I do this? Because when I looked on Google Analytics a HUGE number of people land on my site that way for the first time and many of them (more than half) bounce off the page again without looking at anything else on the site. I wanted to hook them in immediately.
I also added links on my newsletter sign-up email and on the download page for those forms to the rest of the Procedure Manual that I sell that has 150 more forms and procedures that people might like to purchase.
None of these things are large changes. They all represent fairly small additions in fact. But, (and here's the important bit), I expect that they will increase conversions. If I can get even 2% more people, that's a vast improvement (roughly 1400 new people come to my site each month and that number is growing).
So instead of thinking about how you can overhaul your site, why not consider what incremental improvements you could put in place. Try something small and see if it makes a difference. If you're subscribed to Google Analytics, they even offer a program where you can A/B test your pages to see if your change really does make a difference.
You don't have to do it all at once. Just do one small thing. Small things add up.
Kelle Sparta is the author of The Consultative Real Estate Agent - Building Relationships that Create Loyal Clients, Get More Referrals, and Increase Your Sales, as well as being a speaker and trainer specializing in the real estate industry. Kelle is the founder of Sparta Success Systems, a real estate training company that provides tools, products, and training to empower agents and brokers to create lives and businesses they can love. For more information, visit her website at http://www.spartasuccess.com/. © 2007, Kelle Sparta.
