Top 3 Website Mistakes: How to Align Your Website With the Buyer's Journey [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 77]

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:00:00
So a lot of businesses out there are optimizing for technical SEO or search engines, right, for Google, but they forget altogether just optimizing for the user journey. And I always find that there's three areas that they're forgetting. And these three areas are.

Alex Winter
0:00:15
Welcome back to Endless Customers.

Alex Winter
0:00:16
I'm your host, Alex Winter, and today we're joined by a web strategist here at Impact, Janet Mendez-Latouche. Welcome back to the show.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:00:33
Hey, y'all. Excited to be here, as always.

Alex Winter
0:00:35
Well, we are excited to have you, as always. I can't wait to pick your brain. We have a really great topic today. We're talking about how to optimize your website, but more specifically, for the buyer's journey. And it's so important that we talk about this

Alex Winter
0:00:48
because I feel like a lot of businesses optimize their website to what they think it should be optimized for, and not what they actually need to optimize it for, which is their potential customers. Am I right in saying that?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:00:59
Yeah, I think we get so focused and fixated on our everyday day-to-day that we kind of have this bias or these blinders on, and we're not even thinking about the user journey or the buyer's journey as a whole, and so we just kind of start

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:14
putting things on the site as we assume that the users are doing, but it's not really backed by data, it's not really, even just like, we don't take the time to reflect on how people are actually using our site. And sometimes it's that simple, Alex.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:28
It's all we have to do.

Alex Winter
0:01:30
Keep it simple. Yeah, I love it. You're keeping it real, keeping it simple. Simple is important, and usually it's the simple things that we go right down the rabbit hole to the complex stuff and we skip over step one, right?

Alex Winter
0:01:41
So for business owners, we know that your website's valuable too and if you know they ask you an answer, we know how important your website is, but how do you optimize it for your buyer's journey and what does that look like as far as the stages

Alex Winter
0:01:54
and let's get into the weeds a little bit of how someone does that.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:57
Yeah, it's actually probably more simple than you think it is. Like I said, it's really centered around just meeting people in their journey and on their way to buying, right? So when you think, I wanna talk about specifically

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:11
just the three focus areas because we can go on so many tangents when it comes to website optimization and I feel like a lot of people get overwhelmed. They're like, where the heck do I start? So I'm gonna be just like.

Alex Winter
0:02:24
One, also too, just to interject, like there's so many different industries, B2B, B2C, that I think if we keep it high-level principles versus trying to get into what specifically each industry, we'll be here all day, it'll be a five-hour episode.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:37
All right, so we'll keep it, for the sake of the time, we'll keep it to just three simple things. And it's really like, I want you to think about it like you're buying a product yourself. We're stepping outside of ourselves, we're in our industry, in our webpage,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:52
and just thinking like a buyer. So the last time you kind of came to a site, the first thing you probably saw was your navigation.

Alex Winter
0:02:59
Definitely.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:00
You took a look at the navigation to see what you're offering, what the website has to offer, and what you can find. So clear navigation is the first thing. We're gonna talk through that today. Then next in your journey,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:12
you're gonna visit probably a solutions-focused page, something that tells you about the services that you're offering, right? That should be guiding them through the options that they have and helping them to understand what the heck it is that you do, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:25
And how it's going to benefit their lives, right? Once you have a good understanding of that, you might be looking for things like pricing, cost, but ultimately you're going to land on that conversion page or what we call a landing page. That's any page that has that form filled, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:39
That thing that you want them to do. And that's basically the entire user journey. You go from awareness to consideration to that final landing page, which is your decision.

Alex Winter
0:03:48
Wow.

Alex Winter
0:03:49
I like it, three easy steps. And it's true, those are really the top points. And I always look at the navigation first. And sometimes if the navigation isn't clear, it's like such a turnoff that I instantly go look somewhere else for a different site.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:00
It is, and we have this thing of just stuffing everything in there just to make sure that they have everything that they need. And it's like they really don't need all that because if you look at the data, if you're, let's say you have heat mapping on your site, they're likely clicking one or two places to really get where they need to go. And then on those internal pages is where they're finding their way through all that

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:20
other stuff that you want to stuff in your page. Yeah, that's a key.

Alex Winter
0:04:23
And that's something too where like some places will get tricky with it and they'll have like the hamburger menu so it looks clean and you're like wow this site's really clean I like this homepage. Yeah and then you open it and pfft exactly. It's like what? It's like the Cheesecake Factory menu of stuff in there that like you're just flipping through

Alex Winter
0:04:41
pages right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:42
Right, right.

Alex Winter
0:04:43
And we love the Cheesecake Factory, don't get me wrong, but it's a lot to digest.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:46
I'm more of an in and out, you know, Cali in and out burger type of thing, give me four things on the menu that I can choose from, you're gonna make my life so much easier.

Alex Winter
0:04:55
See, this is why you and me are friends, okay. So let's talk about the buyer journey specifically when it comes to navigation, yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:03
Yeah, so I mean, essentially, the main thing that you want your navigation to do is really reflect the buyer's journey. So we're thinking about the different stages, right? We said awareness, consideration, decision. When you're in the awareness stage, again, thinking like,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:17
you just bought a product yesterday, you just bought a new pair of jeans, or you're looking for some HVAC services, right? The first thing you're gonna go through is that solution. You're gonna try to figure out what services they give and how you fall into that, right? So maybe you might be looking for an industry page,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:33
do they have residential services, or do they have commercial services, right? And maybe even something like their service area, so location pages. Those are typically the things that we see users go through when they're looking for awareness. They're just kind of trying to get educated

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:47
about what it is that you do. The next stage that they have is the consideration stage. So they might be looking at your process, they might be looking at your learning center or your resources to figure out more into the service and exactly what it is they need.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:06:03
They're almost certainly looking at pricing in case studies, or learning to know more about the company itself. Once they feel confident enough and they can trust you moving forward, that last decision stage is that landing page. In each one of those, you can hear that I've been calling out

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:06:22
specific pages that you might potentially focus on in your navigation. So what I would say is it should follow that same, and reflect that same touch points throughout their process. Those are the most important touch points. So your navigation might look like something like, hey, here's our services, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:06:41
Here might be our service areas. Then you have pricing, you have your resources or your learning center, and ultimately your primary call to action. And that one's that big button, that beautiful yellow, orange, bright button,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:06:55
all the way at the end. That's the one thing that we want them to do. And I will say, so that's the general flow of it, but I will say the two most important pages that I do find are lacking, or I'll say three, the Learning Center, Pricing Page,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:10
and the Primary Call to Action. Those are three that 100%, and you have to have those in your navigation.

Alex Winter
0:07:16
Have to have them. And why is that? You interagate with a lot of clients, a lot of companies, you help a lot of companies with this, but we talk about this a lot, and I hear this from you a lot,

Alex Winter
0:07:26
and from pretty much everyone on the web team, that those three pages in particular you just mentioned,

Alex Winter
0:07:31
they're not positioned correctly,

Alex Winter
0:07:32
or they're an afterthought, or some people don't even have those pages, some people don't even want to talk about price. And we know how important this stuff is. We're talking about endless customers. We know how important this is.

Alex Winter
0:07:43
But what do you say to people like that? Or how do you get people to understand the importance of those pages? And how it plays into having that on your navigation right up front?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:51
Yeah, when you think about it, it's the psychology behind it. It's all about building that trust, right? We talk about that all the time. Your learning center builds trust because you are providing valuable resources

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:01
that is gonna help answer the questions that they're asking, right? And a lot of companies maybe don't have those resources. They're not writing the content. They're not writing the blogs. They're not getting their SMEs to talk all about this, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:12
So, education, simply just educating your customer can help to build that trust. We all know pricing is a huge thing, right? It's the taboo topic. Nobody wants to talk about pricing because, you know, we don't want our competitors to know our pricing. We don't want them to be shied away or turn away customers

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:31
because they think that we're not cheap enough or whatever that is. All of that, your competitors probably already know your pricing, because you probably already know their pricing. For sure.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:42
Yeah, we seem like we're always hiding something. So having pricing right there in the navigation is all about transparency. We need to be straightforward about what our pricing is. And it doesn't mean that you have to give an exact number because I'm already hearing somebody go,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:57
but Janet, I can't give an exact number. We're custom tailored.

Alex Winter
0:09:01
You can range it. You can give a ballpark.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:03
You can range it. Yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:05
Or you can just explain the factors that go into it. Most people don't even know what those factors are. And so you have to be able to really be transparent in a way that is, yes, suitable for your company and your industry, but making sure that we're being as helpful

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:19
and upfront about pricing as much as we can so we can essentially, yes, weed out some of those who might not be best fits for us, but also just be very transparent and be forthcoming about that so we're building that trust.

Alex Winter
0:09:31
No, I love what you're saying, and the transparency piece is huge because you said it earlier, if you're an end user, which you should be thinking about your end users and their journey, if you don't put this stuff on your website or they can't find it in your navigation,

Alex Winter
0:09:43
they think you're hiding something. And that does the opposite of building trust. So that's a huge, like, when you said that, it just totally resonated with me. Like, yeah, duh, that's the aha moment. So how does, I get the navigation piece, I get how important this is. How does that play into the second piece of the solutions page?

Alex Winter
0:10:00
And what does that journey look like for the buyer? So I like the navigation, I clicked on something because I'm intrigued, you got me. Looking further down the page or onto another page, what's the solution page, what's that look like and how does that play out?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:13
Yeah, so similar to your navigation, you're going to kind of cover multiple stages of the buyer's journey, right? So if you think about it, you're gonna have people coming from your blog, right? Maybe to your homepage and they're coming

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:26
at different stages of that journey. Some are gonna be first-time visitors who are just looking to learn more, and others are gonna be those returning visitors who are probably ready to make that decision. So you wanna have a good mix of content on that page

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:38
that's gonna speak to both of those people. So when we're talking about, yeah, when we're talking about awareness, we need to educate them on what is a service, right? What exactly does it do? Who is it for?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:50
You might wanna speak to your different personas. If you're serving a residential versus industrial, that content might look different. Then you want to talk about who's a good fit or a bad fit. Who is going to be a good fit for this solution versus who's not? I know that there's probably going to be some hesitation,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:07
like why would we turn people away and tell them they're not a good fit? Well, because you and your sales team know that there are certain people who are just not a good fit, right? And by being transparent about that, we are actually building more trust with the right customers versus wasting our time on someone

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:24
who might not be really good.

Alex Winter
0:11:26
That's a huge point is if someone can self-select and disqualify themselves before they have to talk to your sales team, how much time does that save your sales team? How much time does that save your company from wasting it on something that ultimately

Alex Winter
0:11:37
isn't gonna convert, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:38
Exactly. Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:11:40
Very cool.

Alex Winter
0:11:41
Very cool.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:42
The last thing I do want to mention is that we need to be able to also speak to you how it benefits them, right? And also build some of that trust for those who are in the consideration stage. And we do this through, you know, making sure that they're understanding the key benefits and

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:56
the values and not just like features, but the actual outcomes of what they're going to expect to get from this, right? Speak to pain points, speak to, bring some empathy. Like, hey, I know that you are struggling with this, this, and this,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:10
with maybe some of the competitors or in this industry overall with this particular pain, right? Here's how we solve that, here is how you can benefit from this, and here's some testimonials of people who've done it before. Here's some FAQs on all the questions

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:25
that we've gotten in our sales process, we're allowing it to be very, very helpful. And all the while, throughout our content, we are directing those who are ready to make some sort of decision, whether it is a low-level commitment,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:39
that we call these our transitional calls to action, or our high-level commitment, which is our primary call to action, right? So a transitional call to action might be a guide, right? I call this like the first date, right? It's asking someone on a date just for a cup of coffee,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:56
it's low level, you know, you can say no, whatever that is, right? But there's some value that will, and some sort of commitment that we can move forward with. Those are people who are probably still just considering and trying to trust you more,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:13:09
versus those who are gonna click that primary call to action, they're ready to go. They're ready to talk to sales.

Alex Winter
0:13:14
Yeah, no, that makes sense. I like the relatability factor because ultimately to build trust, you have to be relatable. So talking about the pain is okay. I think most of the time when people are searching

Alex Winter
0:13:23
for something on the internet, I'll speak for myself, when I'm searching for something, it's because I can't figure something out. I have a problem, I have an issue that I'm trying to solve. And that's the basis of where that starts. So I think that's a great touch point to just highlight.

Alex Winter
0:13:35
So good segue here to where once people make the decision, like okay, cool, I have the info, I feel informed, I'm ready to make a decision, then we get to this third step, which is the conversion point or the CTA or this conversion page.

Alex Winter
0:13:50
So what does that look like as we get to this final step in the process?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:13:55
Yeah, when we're talking about landing pages or conversion pages, I think a lot of people probably take this for granted because they just assume that if somebody's ready to make that decision, they click that primary CTA, they're just ready to buy and fill out the form, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:09
But I think the biggest, this is really the biggest commitment someone is making on the site. Like again, that's that marriage proposal. So how much more trust do you really need to build on this page to get them to fill out that form? Right, so you've gotta have a few things in mind

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:26
when it comes to this. You gotta really make sure that your landing page reduces hesitation and reduces friction. That's my, every single landing page I look at, that's the top things I think about. Like, how am I going to reduce some fear

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:40
or calm some fears about filling out this form? And how am I going to build more trust? And you've got to do that in a few ways.

Alex Winter
0:14:47
The first. I was going to ask you, how does one do that? That sounds great, I would love to do that, but how do I put that into practice?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:53
I think the first thing is just be clear in your messaging. A lot of the times I'll see maybe inconsistent messaging or this feeling of bait and switch. So for example, I had a client I was recently working with that the button said, launch a free trial. So I kept kind of going down this

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:10
because I hadn't yet worked with them. I wanted to experience the page myself. So I clicked launch a free trial. Everything is going launch a free trial, launch a free trial, great. And then I get down to the bottom of the page

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:23
where the form is and it says talk to sales. And I'm like, wait, I thought I was launching the free trial, like you know? So it kind of seemed like a little bait and switch. I didn't really want to talk to anybody at that point. I wanted to launch a free trial like you told me I was going to do.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:37
So you want to make sure that you're delivering what you're promising, right? And being clear about the expectations that you're setting. And that drives me into the next point. Like, it's all about the expectations. And a lot of the times we get this vague and generic kind of like, hey, fill out the form and we'll contact you in a couple of days.

Alex Winter
0:15:55
Great.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:55
I have a lot of questions. What's going to happen after I fill out the form?

Alex Winter
0:16:05
You know, you-

Alex Winter
0:16:06
No, as soon as you said that, I'm like, a couple of days, is that two days, is that four days? What are we, what, like, there's no definition there whatsoever, it's so open-ended that, like, I'm already getting anxious thinking about it.

Alex Winter
0:16:14
Yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:15
I don't know who I'm talking to, I don't know when you're expecting to get back to me, I don't know if there's an email, like, you gotta give me something. So, I don't want my landing page to leave people with more questions because they're just going to bounce right off, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:28
And go to somebody a little bit more transparent. So we need to set the right expectations. And that looks like telling people what's going to happen after they fill out that form, right? Telling them who they're going to talk to, answering all the top questions that you might be asking,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:41
and then telling them what the process looks like afterwards. Hey, you're going to sit on this call with one of our sales reps or our associates, right? Our team members. You're going to talk with them for just 30 minutes. This is a free trial session,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:54
and we're gonna walk you through each and every stage of that free trial, so to make sure that you have everything that you need before you launch.

Alex Winter
0:17:01
Yeah, I love that.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:03
So much more clear, and it helps to build that trust and ease some of that fear. And oh, by the way, we're not gonna spam you after this.

Alex Winter
0:17:10
Oh, that'd be good, too, yeah. What are you gonna do with my information after I give this to you, right? Yeah, that's a good one. So, you got me thinking, and this is, I have to ask this question,

Alex Winter
0:17:18
because I'm the video guru here. How important is it to have a video on a page like this? Would you recommend that? And in your experiences, have you seen that to be helpful?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:27
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Video can be, yeah, such a powerful tool, and it's amazing that some people in businesses are just still not doing it, because we're so used to video by now, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:38
And it's not that like some people are visual learners. It's really about building that subconscious trust, right? I'm getting to actually see the man behind the curtain, so to speak, right? It's that personal touch that really makes all the difference and it helps reassure me

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:53
about my decision. Because you're being clear, you're being transparent, and I'm seeing the person that I might probably be interacting with once I fill out this form. And I know video, like we are big video production people,

Alex Winter
0:18:06
right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:07
Yes, sir.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:08
We have this, this looks great, and you guys do a great job, by the way.

Alex Winter
0:18:10
Thank you, thank you.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:11
So, for the rest of our people, it doesn't really have to be high quality production, right? It's a simple Zoom video is really, really good, and it works. And in fact, I actually tested this with a client of mine.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:23
They put together a video. At first, they were super hesitant like, Janet, I've never been on video before. I don't know what to do. I said, don't worry, we're going to coach you through the process. Maybe we'll do a couple iterations until we land on something that works. And so they thought it was kind of

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:37
going to be this big production. I said, no, you're going to use Zoom, right? You're going to get in front, you're going to talk about the expectations and what they should do. And we're going to put that up on the landing page as an A B test, just to see if it works, right. So they did all that. They got on the Zoom call.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:53
She was super nervous for the first couple of months, but we landed on something that was really great. And in fact, when they gave it back to me, they kind of like added all these great things, like a look at the form, and started walking people through the process.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:04
Like you could see they actually got into that process and started to love video a little bit more.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:09
Nice.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:09
So we actually tested this. Like I wanted to test my assumptions on whether this video was gonna be good or not, right? So what we did was we take an A-B test and have Spot to say, we're gonna test a page with the video and test the same page without the video.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:23
And we actually saw, in the three months that we tested it, we saw a 3% increase in leads versus the one without the video. So it was about 20 more leads for the page with the video versus without it. So that was huge for us.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:37
20 more leads is big.

Alex Winter
0:19:40
That's enormous.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:40
Yeah, that's the power of video.

Alex Winter
0:19:43
That's 20 leads that you wouldn't have had if you didn't have a video on that page. So I don't know what other proof you need other than that. That's a pretty impressive stat there, right, wow. So in case anyone's wondering how critical video is to add to this page, there's your answer right there.

Alex Winter
0:20:00
Wow, so if someone's listening to this, I feel like you did a great job breaking it down. This all makes total sense to me. Maybe other people out there are going like, yeah, this is awesome, this resonates with me, but how the heck do I do this?

Alex Winter
0:20:12
Where do I start? Like how do I get this going? What would you recommend to them to start doing to get their website dialed in and to do exactly what we've been talking about?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:20
Yeah, I'd say start with the easiest part, which is probably your navigation. Clean that thing up. Just take a look at it, take a good audit and look at it. Maybe even have some people test it out and tell you, give you some feedback on what's clear, what's not clear.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:36
Take out pages that just really don't make sense. By the way, if you have a home button, just take that off. Most people are clicking in your logo, right? But it's things like that. We wanna try to reduce the confusion in the navigation. So I would say, start with the navigation,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:52
then move on to some of the content pages. So once your navigation is clear and you know where to go, start working on your service pages, and then eventually to your landing pages.

Alex Winter
0:21:03
All right, cool, so now this is my favorite part in the show, I feel like I've learned a lot from you. We kept it simple, we kept it high level, I think it was just like a really great conversation. For people out there listening, what's the one thing they should take away from this?

Alex Winter
0:21:14
If I'm a business leader, if I'm a content manager, I'm a VP of marketing, whatever the title is, what do I need to do to implement what we talked about today? Like, what's that one thing?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:21:24
Yeah, I would say take time to reflect about the user journey, honestly. I mean, we started the conversation saying that most people really just don't think through it, and I think that's where we fall short, because the things that I've shared today, it's not rocket science.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:21:39
It's really just taking that moment to sit back, think through what you would do as a user and make sure that that process is as clear, as efficient, and as helpful as possible to the user. So that's what I would say. Take the time to actually reflect and audit your site before you go and make those optimizations.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:21:59
But that's what's going to lead you to the actual action items that you need to take.

Alex Winter
0:22:04
Awesome, Janet, great insights. Thank you so much for your time and for being on the show. We really appreciate it.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:22:08
Thanks for having me.

Alex Winter
0:22:09
Absolutely, and for everyone out there watching, listening, this is Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. I'm your host, Alex Winter. See you on the next episode.