Forget SEO... Do You Have A Conversion Problem?

MICHAEL:
Hi guys, Michael here. Do you want a second opinion on your SEO? Head to theseoshow.co and hit the link in the header. We'll take a look under the hood at your SEO, your competitors and your market and tell you how you can improve. All right, let's get into the show.

INTRO: It's time for the SEO show where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Hello and welcome to another episode of the SEO show. I am Michael Koston and I am joined by Arthur Fabik. Hello. How are you doing? I'm doing very well. I'm very excited.

ARTHUR: You're always excited. You're excited every week.

MICHAEL: Well, this week we're not even talking SEO and I'm still excited.

ARTHUR: Because what are we talking about this week?

MICHAEL: Well, we've taken the S and the E and we've replaced it with C and R. CRO. Forget SEO. Do you have a conversion problem? That's the topic.

ARTHUR: So let's start with what does CRO stand for? Conversion Rate Optimization. For those that don't know at home.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So basically traffic, you know, SEO will get you traffic. Once the traffic lands on your website, it's your website's job to turn those people into a lead or a sale or whatever it is you want them to do. That's known as a conversion. And there's things you can do to your website, to your offer, to your copywriting, to make it more appealing to the people landing on it and get more conversions. That process is known as conversion rate optimization. And, um, we wanted to talk about this because, you know, a lot of people will often say, you know, I need more traffic. I need more, you know, run, spend more on Google ads, or I need to get more SEO rankings. They're looking at the traffic. They're trying to pump more people in when really they should be looking at their site and trying to improve it and get more value out of the people that are already going to it.

ARTHUR: Yeah, it's often an area that's a bit neglected. Massively. People just don't understand.

MICHAEL: Yeah. You look at any business when they launch a website, the very first thing they're going to do is- Your favorite. Owl, like we- Welcome. Welcome. Your pet peeve. Welcome to Johnny's surgery. Yes. You don't need to say welcome to on a website. It's implied that you're welcome by the very fact that the website exists on the internet, which is public. Anyone can go to that website. So don't say welcome, don't talk about yourself. We, we, we, ow, we've been in business. This is common stuff that websites do. Contact forms don't have any like.

ARTHUR: Save that for your about us page.

MICHAEL: I'm ranting. Yes, you are. There's common things websites do or business owners do with their website that hurts their conversions. So we're going to run through them all and trying to help you make some improvements to your conversion rate. Sound good? Sounds great. Fire up, get excited.

ARTHUR: I'm excited. We're talking CRO. Okay. So the first thing let's talk about the offer. Okay.

MICHAEL: Oh, I thought you came in hot and then just do it to me.

ARTHUR: I feel like this is your part here. Cause well put a little time into this.

MICHAEL: The offer can make or break your conversion rate. Because it's the first thing that people see when they land on your site. It's your offer is what they're comparing your business to against the competition. You know, it's basically what is the exchange between you and them going to be? So it's super important. But a lot of websites, when you land on it, it will just say, Plumber Sydney, get in touch. Yes. That's not an offer. No. So more than just that headline on the sales page, the offer needs to be, you know, the service you're providing, what price it will be, how you're paid, the terms and conditions, the benefits to the offer, bonuses, all that sort of stuff, all bundled into one thing. So it's not normally just summed up with one line on a page. No. It's a whole bunch of stuff.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Essentially it's your opportunity to entice the person to get in touch. Yes. So basically telling them or giving them every reason to whatever the conversion is to phone or leave a form submission. That's your opportunity. So like you said, often people will neglect that completely and have some rubbish on the, you know, irrelevant stuff on the page. Like you said, welcome to the site. We've been in business for 50 years. Yeah. No one cares. Get in touch. No one cares. They want to know why they should get in touch. The benefits. Contact us.

MICHAEL: But why? What am I contacting you for? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So when you land on the page, you need to hit them over the head with what makes you different and what's so compelling about you that they should get in touch with you. So your offer needs to be super value packed. So like it needs to be so filled with value that people will be like, well, I better get in touch with these guys. I'm an idiot if I don't.

ARTHUR: So what's a good offer. Let's break that down in terms of, let's just say you're a plumbing. Well, one sec.

MICHAEL: I'm just, okay. Sorry. I'm jumping the gun here a little bit. Yeah. Then we can do some examples. Okay. So it needs to be super value packed. So it needs to try and remove risk to the customer. So we call it risk reversal or removing perceived risk to the customer. So things like a free trial or a money back guarantee, you know, if you, if you invest in this and it doesn't work, you get your money back. That sort of removes risk. So they're going to think, why not do it? Or, you know, free trial says you can test it before you even pay us. Like a free call out.

ARTHUR: If you're like a service based plumber or electrician or blind installer,

MICHAEL: Yep. And then bonuses are important. So adding in additional products or service or extra time on the guarantee, bundling stuff in again, it's normally just perceived value to the customer. It doesn't necessarily have to cost you too much on your side, but you're just packaging it up in a way that makes it appealing. So you get by, by this computer from us and you get 12 months of monitoring or something like that, you know, additional warranty. Yeah. Yeah. That sort of a thing. And then urgency and scarcity. So expiration date to the offer. So like a good example of that is an EFE.

ARTHUR: Yep.

MICHAEL: give you an example of an offer. We ourselves in our business in June, we ran our first ever EFC sale, our first ever like sale, just to see how it went. And we offered like a percentage off. If the customer came on board in June, it had the end of the month as a cutoff date. If you're not subscribed by the end of June, then it goes away. It had a discount. So there was like that sort of, I guess, value to it. That's an example of an offer right there. So that's one. I don't know. Do you have any others up your sleeve that you like the sound of?

ARTHUR: I was going to make one up on the spot. Go on, let's have a free selling offer. Okay. So let's just say you're a service business, air conditioning dealer, plumber, electrician, pick one. Air conditioning. Okay. So I have to think about this.

MICHAEL: I've got one. Okay, go. If you get the ducted air conditioning system supplied and installed for X amount of dollars, it's percentage off this month because the manufacturer deal, you know, like Fujitsu or whatever. And then they also get a bundle in.

ARTHUR: A free controller.

MICHAEL: Free controller. And then maybe servicing for the first year.

ARTHUR: Okay.

MICHAEL: for a fixed price, but you have to have it done by the end of this month. As opposed to landing on another air conditioner site where they say, we are Sydney's leading air conditioning company, contact us.

ARTHUR: Okay, so the offer would be, we have this ducted air conditioning system, this month only, we'll upgrade your controller to a premium controller, give you one year's service, and also throw in an extra zone. So instead of having three zones, you get four zones.

MICHAEL: Are you chucking zones in there? That is an offer that is so good you can't refuse it, if you're in the market for that sort of a thing. So anyway, I think the point is clear, right? Like think about what is going to compel people to do whatever it is you want them to do on your site. So a lead gen businesses fill out a form, get in touch so your sales people can get in touch with them. Yes. Front load that offer with all sorts of value and reasons to get in touch.

ARTHUR: Yeah. So I guess in this case you'd be removing the risk by giving a free quote, for example. Yeah. So no strings attached, someone can come out and quote you.

MICHAEL: Yeah. It's like our site, right? We do. We ask for everyone's information and then we say, we're going to put together a strategy that helps you get more customers for your business. We're going to use the goals you've told us. It's going to be totally custom to you. You get one hour with one of our specialists to run through that strategy. At the end, you can take that strategy, do what you want with it. You don't have to engage with us. If you want to, we'll let you know some pricing, but. That's a pretty good offer for someone that's interested in that and you're leading with value. You're providing them with value. So it's all packaged up nicely. Yes. That's better than just saying contact us.

ARTHUR: Of course. Yeah. I guess that kind of leads into our next point here. So the call to action. like I said, a lot of websites and landing pages will have a call to action, you know, contact us, um, get in touch something that, you know, doesn't mean anything. So people want to know what, I guess what the call to action is, what, what they're getting. So what happens next? What happens next? Yeah. So like, for example, we have get a free,

MICHAEL: Ours just says free proposal, but then all the signage says like, we'll show you how to get customers online and submit it, we'll be in touch. So you're sort of framing what's going to happen when they fill out the form. So coming back to the air conditioner, it might be get in touch, we'll get back to you within one business hour, let's say, and that's super fast, but let's say that. And you're going to get a no obligation free quote, and you're going to get a in-home inspection or virtual visit. And at the end, you'll know the exact system for your needs. taking into account your electricity. It's a long call to action. No, but this, this can be as simple as having a few icons with little labels, you know, like summing that all up. So, cause you think about it land, like a lot of pages you land on it and they might not even have a form or a call to action, like a, like a clear, bold, colorful button. It just has a contact link in the header. You click it, it drops you on a page with a form.

ARTHUR: You don't know how long it's going to take for someone to get in touch. You don't know what the next step is. Goes into the ether and never hear from them. Yeah, exactly. I remember you getting in touch with some shutters.

MICHAEL: Well, I've actually just done it with the soundproofing in this room, right? I hit up maybe three or four businesses yesterday. Lots of them were just really sort of basic sites form on the contact page. You submit it. You don't get any confirmation email saying, thanks for that. What member of our team's reviewing will be in touch. And you don't hear back from them. That's all too common, particularly when dealing with like service businesses. Whereas if you have something totally opposite to that, like a really slick form and experience.

ARTHUR: That's what you said, like a good confirmation email or even like a pop-up. Yes. Thank you for submitting the form. And these are the next steps. Here's what happens next. Someone's going to get in touch with you within this time period. They're going to do X, Y, Z. Yeah. And you know exactly what to expect. You know what you're waiting for. You're not, I guess, you know, flying blind, waiting. Like you said, you might be waiting forever. So.

MICHAEL: Imagine if I only inquired with one of those guys and I was just adamantly, steadfastly waiting to hear back.

ARTHUR: I'm sure it happens. I'm sure there'd be plenty of service-based businesses that just let leads slip away.

MICHAEL: I know this isn't really related to call to action, but when it comes to handling leads, you need to be getting back to them pronto. Like the first, five minutes are vital. The first 10 minutes, the first hour, if you let it go days, all those businesses that got back to them quickly are in the box seat because the process has already started with them. And before you even get back to them, there's tons of studies about like speed of response.

ARTHUR: I was going to ask you a question, maybe at the end. Okay. Against it's I can ask it now, but essentially if you've got a landing page and you've got a form and you've got a phone number, would it be better to get or encourage someone to get in touch straight away than it would be filling out a form? Because I feel that's instant, you know what I mean?

MICHAEL: It depends on what your goals are and the way your business operates. Like in our case, for example, we have our phone on the site, but our prominent call to action that we push all the way through the page. Free proposal. Free proposal. And when you go into that, it asks like 11, 12 questions about their business. That's not just for fun. That's so we can pre-qualify. And when the lead comes in, we can tell if that business is going to be the right fit for the services we offer. So if you just have people calling you all the time, that means your resources are spending a lot of time on the call, figuring out if you can help them or not. Whereas if you use a proposal form, you already know that. So it sort of depends on your goals.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Cause in my head I'm thinking on the flip side, imagine you're a, let's say a locksmith. People lose their keys, they're not waiting to hear back from a form submission. So like, I would even argue that you don't even have a form on the landing page, just a phone number. Emergency locksmith, call.

MICHAEL: And people will be on mobile, so tap to call. Like that's the call to action all the way through. A phone icon, the number, call now, fast response, we'll be with you in half an hour, no matter where you are in Sydney, just talk about speed, speed, speed. All the way through. Yes. So of course, like everything, it depends on your business and what you're trying to achieve. But the next one doesn't, doesn't matter what you do. You need to use benefit driven copywriting on your website rather than what a lot of businesses do, which is just talk about them, their offer, not their offer, their product, their features, them, them, them, them, them. Their history.

ARTHUR: Yep. They're always the best or the leading.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Cause I'm most trusted. Yeah. Number one, number one. It's very arbitrary. There's no, um, I don't know where that number one came from. It's just in their opinion. In our opinion, we are the number one landscaping company in Sydney, but most trusted as well. Yeah. People don't care about any of these unproven statements you make about yourself. They care about them where they are in their situation and how you're going to help them achieve whatever it is they're looking to achieve. So your copy needs to make it clear that you are the business for them and their problem. So very simple. Us, our, we, that sort of stuff replaced with you, yours. Talk to the end user, talk to what it is they care about, address their needs. So one of the ways of doing this is focusing on benefits rather than features. So features are just a list of, of things that's, you know, something does. Benefits are the difference it makes in their life or the end, the end result, the outcome for them.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And that's the number one mistake I see all the time on business.

ARTHUR: So you're just taking the feature and you're essentially rewording it to solve a problem that the end user might be having because they're getting in touch because they have a problem and they need a solution. Yes. So you're essentially providing them the solution.

MICHAEL: Yes. And you're using language that frames it in a way that is compelling to them. So an example I had here is about carpet drying. Like if, if let's say your kids block the shower drain, water overflows and goes out into bedroom, floods the carpet, there's companies that come and dry the carpet quickly. Does that happen to you? That exact scenario has happened to me, so I'm speaking from experience. If you land on a website that's just using features, a feature might be drives carpet quickly of like whatever the unit is or something. If you're trying to reframe that to focus on benefits and outcomes to the end user, it would be… Our system's so fast it will prevent further costly damage to your house, get your place dry and livable, and you're using the room within 12 hours. Okay. So very different sort of, I guess, approach to copy. The second one is what works. It's what's going to compel people to get in touch. Rattling off features, people don't care. Talking about yourself, people don't care. Yeah. So just be very careful with your copywriting.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: That makes sense. All right. Let's talk social proof. I love social proof. You do. The way to explain social proof that I always use when I speak to various businesses is if you look at a restaurant or a cafe, there's a massive line out the front. Every seat is packed. People, it's actually absolutely heaving. What's, what are you going to say? Like, let's say you're going past that with your wife. What would you say to your wife about that place if you saw it?

ARTHUR: I would say, wow, this place must be good. Yeah. We got to go there, right? Yeah. That's a bit less busy though.

MICHAEL: Yeah. But that is social proof and that stuff applies online just as much as it does offline.

ARTHUR: Yes.

MICHAEL: So what are the things that we always bang on about to our clients when it comes to social proof that they should be trying to accumulate? Maybe just let's rattle them off and then we can go into detail a bit more on them all.

ARTHUR: So you want to rattle them all off at once or do you want to go one by one?

MICHAEL: Let's rattle them off.

ARTHUR: Okay. So case studies. Yep. Do you want to go through all of them or do you want to?

MICHAEL: Testimonials, reviews, awards, all of those sorts of things. Yes. Are important. Yes. But let's chat about each of them.

ARTHUR: Okay. So case studies, um, I think probably one of the most valuable people want to know, you know, examples of your work. So, you know, for example, for us, you know, whenever we work with a client and we get good results, we'll try to write up a case study because people will find these case studies and then read, I guess, you know, what we've done, the strategy, the results that we've achieved for the client. and then they can visualize us doing that for them. And if they can see a portfolio of 50, 60, 70 different case studies across different industries, different websites, service, e-commerce, then obviously they'll start to have this perception of us that we obviously know what we're doing. Because if we can achieve results across all these different types of clients, then there's no reason why we can't do the same. for them.

MICHAEL: And also, even if you have enough chances that you're going to have case studies that are super relevant to them as well, which is even more powerful because it's like, they're like, well, here's this business and they've done this. So yeah. Um, people just love to see examples of work you've done and their specific scenario to make them feel at ease that you've been there, done that and can do it for them too. Yeah. A lot of businesses don't do much work on case studies or building it up. No. Such low hanging fruit. Look at your previous customers where there's been really strong results and write up what happened and put it on your website. Cause the other interesting thing is that we're talking about people filling out forms before. And like in our case, we have the form that really qualifies people out based on, you know, whether we think they're the right fit for us. Yeah. 95% of the people that are filling that out have already really looked into us. They've looked at our case studies, our testimonials, our reviews, the awards, been all over our website, been on our social media profiles. They really know that they're, they really know they've warmed themselves up to inquiring with us. So these case studies are a super vital part of that. Another one is customer testimonials. So video testimonials. Your favorite. You love a good video testimonial. I do. I get excited when someone's willing to do it.

ARTHUR: This is true. This is not an exaggeration.

MICHAEL: No, I'll be excited for weeks. Talk about it like everyone's sick of hearing about it. But the thing that we like about video testimonials is it's so powerful. It's authentic. It's a real business owner going on camera. And in an ideal world, from our point of view, they're telling a transformational story. Like here's where I was, over there's where I wanted to be, spoke with local digital, they put together a plan, then they executed it and now I've achieved my goals and then some. That is super powerful.

ARTHUR: Yeah. I'll tell you one thing. It is tough to get someone to do a video testimonial. So you have to be doing a real good job for them to agree to jump in front of a camera and do it.

MICHAEL: It is a process. Cause it's scary. Like the camera, the lights, you got all these people looking at you. You're all mic'd up. You're trying to talk like it. It's an awkward situation they're putting themselves in. So the fact that they've gone ahead and done that is in and of itself very powerful.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

ARTHUR: And it's like you said, it's hard to forge, you know? Like- Yeah.

MICHAEL: Really, like very hard because if it's a real business, you can just go and see if this person actually works there or if it's not, it's an actor maybe.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Cause there would be, I guess, situations where I've seen online, people would have testimonials from people just in front of a webcam with no context, not even like not mentioning who they are, where they're from. It's just, you know, Tony from Tony, you know, and them just, rattling on about how good whatever the service is. So that's stuff that is obviously made up. Suspect. Suspect. Suspect at best. But if you're looking at like a well-shot testimonial with a clear, you know, you can see the brand, you can see the person, you can see the title, you can research them, you can find them on LinkedIn, then bang.

MICHAEL: B-roll showing the office and whatever, like the product or service being made or done. Yeah. Hard to forge that. Yeah. So like anything, people will use their ability to perceive, let's say suspect advertising and like authentic advertising. Obviously the authentic approach is what we're talking about here. But as businesses, just like you should be creating case studies, you should be canvassing your customers to see if they'll give you video testimonials. And when they say yes, jump on it and make it happen quickly. And then that should be going on your website, customer testimonials, case studies, embedding in your website, you're going to get more conversions.

ARTHUR: The second they give you any sort of praise, there's an opportunity for you to slot it in. Incentivize it maybe as well.

MICHAEL: Yeah, if you can. If there's a way that you can make that happen, like give them a month free or give them, maybe you're offering a new service line and they can have it for a while for free, whatever. It's going to be relevant to your business. The other one on this note of incentivizing or when you hear people are happy is reviews. Yes. The minute someone is interested, not interested, if they're happy with you or telling you that you've done well, say, thanks for that. Really appreciate it. Would you mind leaving a review? And you have your link ready to go so that all they have to do is click it, go on your Google profile, leave you a review.

ARTHUR: Surprisingly hard to get them sometimes. Super hard. Yeah. Real ones. We make it really easy for them, but yeah. I guess there are situations where the client doesn't want anyone knowing that they're working with a specific agency, which is fair enough. But then a lot of the time people are maybe lazy or they'll say they'll get to it eventually. But yeah, it is hard. You've got to keep pressing.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So yeah, I'll do that. And then they get busy and then the review doesn't happen. So we bang on, we're constantly asking and we slowly accumulate them over time. That's what you should be doing in your business. Sites like Google, Facebook, product reviews, big Australian site, maybe Clutch. That's what we do. But like there'd be industry specific sites that you can get reviews on. Yes. Just constantly request. We actually did an episode on the topic of reviews in episode 30 of the SEO show. Did we? We did. So you can go back and listen to that if you want. We won't recover that ground now. But one thing I would say is wherever possible, try and automate your review requests so you don't have to manually remember to do it.

ARTHUR: Are you sending an invoice or something? Just have a little link at the bottom saying, you know, thank you, we appreciate you. Feel free to give us a five-star review.

MICHAEL: Not even feel free, it would say like any business we rely on positive word of mouth. If you think we've done a good job, please take 10 seconds to leave us a review.

ARTHUR: Yeah. There's also like e-commerce platforms where you purchase something and after the purchase you get that pop-up asking to leave a Google review. So having that sort of thing set up as well.

MICHAEL: The key point is you've got to be canvassing and getting them. And then once you do have them.

ARTHUR: You've got to be providing a good service as well.

MICHAEL: All of these advice on social proof, we're assuming that you are actually good at what you do and have happy customers as a caveat.

ARTHUR: Yes. Don't go asking for reviews if you're doing a bad job, because that will probably not end very well.

MICHAEL: Yes. And once you do have them, show them off, put the badges on your site, put them all over your landing pages, even in your email signatures, in your sales decks, in your proposals. Everywhere. Yeah. All this social proof. Get a shirt made. It would be Google rating. Um, the last one I wanted to say on, uh, actually second last one on social proof is awards, their business awards. I think that every business, some of your marketing budget should go towards entering awards. Yes. Some awards are free, some cost money to enter. Yes. But, they are a marketing tool in that they're just another form of trust. You know, like if, if someone's weighing you up versus someone else and you have industry awards or you have like sort of generic business awards that you can point to and the other people don't, then that can be a little tick in your column that they're not getting. So I'm not saying that awards aren't normally going to be the sole reason that people are beating down the door to work with you, but they're a trust building exercise.

ARTHUR: Yeah, absolutely. Especially if they're industry based and it makes, makes you a leader in that industry. Yeah, but I guess on the flip side, it does take effort. The same caveat applies. You'd have to be doing a good job in order to win an award. So yeah, there is a bit of effort and like you said, maybe a cost involved in entering. So.

MICHAEL: But definitely worth doing. I was going to say not all awards are built the same. Like an industry specific one for, you know, like in our case, let's say campaign success, that's judged by like digital marketing practitioners. That's good. But then there are awards just for growing your revenue, you know, like fastest growing companies. Best places to work. That's pretty good because if you're winning that, like it shows that your team's happy. But I feel that if your business is just growing, like as a customer, who cares? It's not really, it could even be a bad thing if a business is growing super fast. It could be, are they maintaining their customer service at the same rate? So I don't think like it's fine to get them, but I would say industry specific ones that deal with like you delivering your service are more powerful as an award.

ARTHUR: Yeah. That makes sense. All right.

MICHAEL: And then the last one is just, if you happen to get any press or media coverage somehow, you know, if you're covered in the local paper, if you're covered on news.com.au, that sort of stuff, put it on your site. All of this stuff, it's like little, what would I say? They're just, as I said, checks in a column. So the more of it you have in your site, when people are doing that initial research before they ever get in touch, it's just like, yep, yep, yep, yep. Building up trust, building up.

ARTHUR: Start with the easy stuff, you know, Google reviews, things like that. And then build up, you know, as you grow.

MICHAEL: Yep. All right. So we haven't really spoken about design and how it comes into this. And I know we have no notes. I'm going to freestyle because we're talking about frantically looking through the sheet. We're going to talk about copy. We've spoken about copy, we've spoken about social proof, but I think what a lot of sites are guilty of with the design of them is they don't make it easy for people to do whatever it is you want them to do. So you're talking about like a design of a form or a landing page or? So I'm saying, let's just think about like a, let's say landscape is landing website. You land on it and it's just talking about who they are and then they have maybe a contact page. You have to go into the contact page and then it doesn't even have a form. It just has a Gmail on the page. You have to click that and then write an email as opposed to one where you land on it in the hero banner at the top of the page before you scroll like the main thing form built in. Yep. Ask for the details. It makes it clear. We'll get back to you within one hour. Free quotes, servicing, whatever area. Big prominent headline, sub headline. And then the three main benefits with like a little icon thing, like text supporting it. Maybe badges for their social proof.

ARTHUR: Sticky header with the call to actions. Phone number. Call to action to fill out a form. USPs on every page. Stuff like that.

MICHAEL: testimonial, like a strip of testimonials, a strip of case studies, all built in. So you've got to think about the design of this stuff and how you lay it out on the page and not just go with a like basic WordPress template or a dodgy design.

ARTHUR: If you're focusing just on the homepage and you've got, you know, the CRO in your homepage is immaculate, but then you neglect deeper pages. People might land on a, you know, a category page. If you don't have your USPs there, you don't have that call to action. You don't have all the benefits. People might not go back to your homepage. So, Yeah, they miss out on seeing all that important information.

MICHAEL: Yeah. The other thing I would say is about pages, about pages shouldn't be about you as a business too much, like a little bit about page is another chance to talk to the person reading it and make it about them. I wonder how many people actually read about pages. It's the most popular page on our site after the homepage. Okay. Good that you have the stats ready. Yeah. And that's common across a lot of businesses.

ARTHUR: I don't do it. Like personally, that the reason I asked that is because I very rarely ever look at an about page for a business. I don't think I ever have.

MICHAEL: I do. I know I do. If I'm looking for like service, what around the house or something, I'll look at the homepage. I'll go on the about and just try and see.

ARTHUR: Cause I think a lot of people would also just go, You know, if they're searching for a service, they'll open up the first three ads that pop up, go bang, bang, bang, have a look at them. They're not even scrolling. Just have a look at the, I guess, whatever's above the fold and then get in touch with all three or base a decision based on those three. People obviously do things differently, but.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I would like, I would say like within an about page, it's a chance to see like the size of the team. Like if you go on an about page for a plumber and they have like, you know, a photo of 10 people and they've got a couple of utes in a van on the road, that's probably means that they're trustworthy. And you combine that with really good Google review ratings. Yes.

ARTHUR: To me, I'm going to inquire with that as opposed to just stock photos with the logo photoshopped poorly onto which like a polo shirt with some Eastern European bloke. Yeah. Or like an American guy with a wrench, like working on a generic high vis vest and a hard hat. Yeah. Like just putting a spanner to an air conditioning unit. Yes. Yeah. With a big smile on his face. Yeah.

MICHAEL: So, um, that's a big red flag for me. But the about page in general is talk about you and your value proposition, like what makes you different, but then tailor it to how you're going to improve your customer's life. The whole website is like a message board. It's a, it's an ad, basically your website. It's a big brochure. Sales brochures should be compelling.

ARTHUR: Make it as fancy and as appealing and not fancy. Not fancy, but you know what I mean?

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, it should be as salesy as possible without being sleazy like it. Yes. How are you going to improve this person's life? That should be your, your mantra when you're creating your website. How is your offer so awesome that it's going to make a massive difference in these people's lives and everything you do with the design, the copy and everything should be better than what most people do, which is talk about themselves. But I think that's pretty good as an intro to CRO. Yeah, I think we covered most things there. It's a big field, CRO. Yeah, we can talk for days about it. Yep. A lot of the stuff, you know, in the CRO, you should test.

ARTHUR: Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot of the stuff is probably not, you don't have to test.

MICHAEL: This is all basics. You should have this on your site in the future. You can start testing and seeing which combination of this stuff works best, but we won't start. I've already gone off on one tangent about design. I won't go on one about testing. We're going to wrap things up.

ARTHUR: Maybe we can do an episode one day on testing.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Why not? Once we've run out of SEO topics to talk about, we can go into the SEO and CRO show perhaps. Why not? But look, that's it for now. You might not have a traffic problem. You could have a conversion problem. So go test some of this stuff out. Look at your site through this lens. Make sure you have all the stuff we spoke about today. If you don't chuck it on there, your conversions could probably improve. So until next week, happy CROing. See ya. See ya.

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