Thirteen Signals Your Website Should Send
David shares a quick list of website elements he sees is missing from a lot of creative firms’ websites which could help them attract more new business.
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“13 Signals Your Website Might Send” by David C. Baker for punctuation.com
Transcript
Blair Enns: David, are websites still a thing?
David Baker: I almost made fun of you, and then I realized, oh, you're from Canada. You probably haven't caught up with the news.
Blair: Oh, burn.
David: This will be a thing in Canada soon, we're hoping. [chuckles]
Blair: [chuckles] Websites are coming to Canada, people. I can make some money here. 13 signals your website might send. Websites are still a thing.
David: Yes.
Blair: A lot of the people who listen to this podcast are in the business of designing or developing websites or both. What was it that made you think that you needed to tell these people how to do websites?
David: No, I'm tired of looking at shitty websites. It's like, oh my God. I'm not talking about not having the time to do a website. Fortunately, we're past that stage, but these could be so much better. I'm talking about agency websites. I'm not saying websites for other kinds of companies. I'm just talking about for the people listening to this podcast. I didn't criticize websites. Well, I guess I did in a backhanded way, but I essentially just said, "Hey, here are the things that you could do on your website, each of which would send a really cool signal about your firm."
Blair: You said there are 13 signals that your website sends about you and your firm, whether they're there or not there, they're done well, they're done poorly, or they're missing. Let's go over all 13. Some we'll just skip through pretty quickly. Obviously, the ones at the top of the list are of the higher importance. The first one is insights. You have to have insights on your website. How many expert firms, let's just guess at the audience here, what percentage of them would not have any, what you call insights, thought leadership on their website?
David: Oh, I would guess 85%. Don't have them. I use the word insights specifically. I think you ought to call it insights. Don't call it blog.
Blair: Okay, because you want to make the distinction between content and insights?
David: When I hear blog, I think of somebody that's at home and has made a commitment to write something every day, so they just write it, but it's not all that useful. Insights signal something, and I think you ought to call it that. You ought to have them on your website. I think the reason people don't have them on their websites is not because they don't know how to write. It's not because they're not smart. It's because they're not tightly positioned, and so they don't know what to write about because the stuff they could write about is so general that it's already on the web everywhere. Once you've got a tightly positioned firm, goodness, insights are easy to write.
Blair: Okay, I've just done a quick check of our website. Our blog is indeed titled Insights, so pass that test.
David: Oh, good. Okay. Yes, 1 of 13.
Blair: Second, good imagery. Of course, good imagery is important, especially if yours is a creative firm. A listener and reader who runs a design firm also teaches in design school. He wrote me recently, and he said, I had my student do a business analysis of your website, and this is a design student. His first reaction was AI-generated images was an immediate turnoff for him. He said, if the audience is creatives, his first thought was you shouldn't have AI-generated images on it. Then he came around to it. That prompted an interesting discussion internally here at Win Without Pitching. My argument is, well, the alternative was shitty stock photos. What constitutes good imagery? Do you think AI-created imagery could be included in good imagery or no?
David: Probably not, unless you just are really good at prompting that stuff. It's just so easy to spot. It's oversaturated. It's caricatured. I was reading a Facebook group for our neighborhood the other day. There were hundreds of responses on this Facebook post where somebody said, this was a college student at MTSU, which is right next to where we live, Middle Tennessee State, the original post said, "Hey, I've been noticing a lot of AI imagery for your local restaurant and your store." He's talking to small commercial family-run businesses. He said, "If you use AI imagery, I am not ever going to buy anything from you, and I'm encouraging everybody to not buy from you. Instead, you should contact the art department, and we'll do all that for free."
Blair: What?
David: I thought, wait a second, what kind of message is that? It went back and forth by hundreds of comments. I weighed in, which probably was a bad idea, but what are you saying? Anybody that buys a car and doesn't buy a buggy whip, I am not going to give them my business anymore. You can go to homeschool. You just can't dress like you went to homeschool, right? [chuckles] I went to homeschool, so I can say that. You can use AI, it just can't look like AI, I think. It could be very simple illustrations, even, which could be very effective.
Blair: You use an illustrator, Emily Mills. Shout out to Emily, very good. You have this consistent use of imagery across your website and your books and your presentations and all your materials. If you're familiar with your work, it just jumps out. It's a look that nobody else has. That's good imagery. Also, just think about website. When you talk about imagery, are you talking about imagery for the insights, because that's the regular content that gets posted, correct?
David: Yes. I think it could be there, or it could just be like avenue-ink.com in Chicago. They have a section about where you are in the journey and how we work with you. There's illustrations for each of the, I think it's six or eight different things. Those are really effective, I think. It could be to illustrate when you might hire us as an agency or how we work with you, or it could be in the insight section. You can't have all text, so what are you going to have? Stock images are a really bad mistake, I think. Like somebody at a conference table, I can't believe people are still using that stuff, but they do, right? AI would be better than that, but really personalized AI would be even better than that, I would think.
Blair: Okay. You're talking about using good imagery to tell a story, and it's not just about making things look nice. You gave an example of somebody who's communicating a concept through a visual rather than stock images or obvious AI. The third one on your list of 13 things your website signals is your primary CTA. You think it should be for insight emails?
David: Yes, I really do. I don't see hardly any firms doing this. It's one of the first things I look at when somebody wants feedback on their website when we have an engagement. The call to action is not contact us because that's not what you should expect from somebody visiting your website the first time. Instead, everything ought to drive an email subscription, and then you let them get that thing regularly from you, and then they reach out to you and say, "Hey, let's talk about working together." In other words, most people are not going to come to your website and say, "Hey, let's work together."
The way it should work is they have some assumptions about you based on your website, and then those assumptions are confirmed over time as they get your regular emails. I would like the primary call to action is to sign up for the emails. Now, if you're not doing emails, obviously, that's not going to be all that useful. [chuckles] You send out one Christmas email, that's not going to be useful. If you're actually doing emails, make that the primary call to action.
Blair: When we redid our website two months ago, we made the primary CTA insight email subscription right at the top of the website, just as you have it. I haven't looked since, but 30 days in, opt-ins were up 240%.
David: That's amazing.
Blair: Too many competing CTAs.
David: Yes.
Blair: Fourth, you say you should have a speaking page. What if I've never given a speech? Should I still have a speaking page?
David: Yes. You just view it as hope.
[laughter]
Blair: I like your thinking here because you're saying it signals that you're in demand, right?
David: Yes, it signals that you're in demand. Then when you do get that occasional thing, then you just send them to this page. I don't have a speaking page, so I'm not eating my own dog food here. Yes, speaking page, it just sends the right signal. Ideally, you would have multiple people who speak, and they could invite this person or this person or this person. For each speaker, you would have some bio material they can pick through and use. You'd have multiple portraits that they could choose from, some sample topics, and so on. It just sends the right signal. We're professionals. We've got expertise everywhere, and we love to share it.
Blair: I think that's really smart. I think it's good advice, and I, too, do not follow it. For years, I've thought, yes, I really should put together a good speaker page. I've been doing this for 24 years. Just give me another 24 years. I'll get it figured out.
David: Plenty of time.
Blair: Yes, plenty of time. Fifth, city, state, country. You're adamant. You need to anchor your firm somewhere in a geographic location. Why is this important?
David: This is the only one that I did some research on, but I had a very strong opinion completely devoid of actual research. I just thought this is important. Then I checked myself like, well, is this just my preference, or is there any research around this? It turns out there's a lot of research that a prospect wants to picture you somewhere on the map, a pin. Even in the days where most of your staff, all your staff are remote, they still want to think of you as a place somewhere. I've seen that disappear from more and more firms, and it puts you at a very slight subconscious disadvantage. People need to think of you as tied to a pin on the map, so go ahead and do it.
Blair: I think back in the day there was maybe some novelty in subtly communicating that we're everywhere, we're on the interwebs, we're not bound by geography. I think those days are long over, and it's refreshing to see somebody stake a claim to a specific geography.
David: Yes, I think this is important.
Blair: Staff photos, you say humans only.
David: We're real humans. Yes, we could combine 2 of these 13-point staff photos, but no pet photos. Really? Come on, people. I love dogs, and I'm sharing pictures of my dogs all the time, but--
Blair: I know.
David: Yes, you're bored with my dogs.
Blair: [laughs]
David: I'm just struck there's not a single other segment of the professional services field that has pictures of dogs on the website. What are we doing here? I don't get it.
Blair: I agree with you, but I'm going to argue the other side-
David: [laughs]
Blair: -because I wrote a post this morning about a cougar killed a skunk in my carport the other day, and the skunk sprayed my car. I can't get the skunk smell off. I live where I live, so that's one of the interesting things that happened. This morning I had to write a post in the Win Without Pitching Academy, as I write every day, and I thought I'm just going to start by telling the story because it's a little bit of personality about the location where I live. I thought I'll find a way to bend it into something relative to selling, and I did. It was very thin veneer. It was just a little slice of life stuff. My argument is surely sharing pictures of dogs or other interesting things about the place and the habitants of the office, surely that says something about the character of the firm. Does it not?
David: Yes. Is that something you want to share? I don't know. [laughs] It does. I have a hard time arguing against it, honestly, because I'm such a dog lover, but where does this come from? I don't get it.
Blair: I have the same eye roll, too, when I see somebody's got a dog on there.
David: Especially with the stupid name like-- This is the-- [chuckles] Yes, say more.
Blair: Okay, staff photos, people-only staff photos, tight focus. This is positioning. We know who we are and what we do well, duh.
David: Yes, duh, we know.
Blair: Description of your ICP. This is surprisingly lacking in a lot of websites, isn't it, your ideal client profile? Who are you? We come up with solutions and results for our clients or for you. We can help you benefit and benefit. I wrote a post years ago called Seven Words You Can't Say in New Business Development. One of them was you, and I meant in this specific context. The idea is that everybody who reads this, the claim is valid to whoever shows up. That is proof positive that you are not well positioned. That's the idea here, right, is if you're talking broadly to your audience and you're not explaining who this is for?
David: Yes, and I've shared this example before, but I'm going to read just briefly from a website called interruptdelivers.com. If you go to the website and choose the work with us section, the middle of that says, "We engage with a limited number of clients due to the depth," yada, yada. That one's not good. Second one. "Our minimum annual level of client engagement is 400,000 in agency fees, with most clients generally spending between 500,000 and 2 million. Our minimum initial engagement is 100,000. We do not charge by the hour. We charge a fee for our services that is aligned with the value of our thinking and is agreed upon in advance."
Now that's the kind of thing I want to see. I want to see that kind of confidence in there. The people who are afraid of putting something like this up here are afraid of losing opportunity. These people are not afraid of losing opportunity. They know exactly who they are.
Blair: All right. 11, I don't understand. I'm playing a little bit dumb here. Award not winning.
David: Oh, I guess I reverted to my negative thing. Almost every firm says we're an award-winning something or other. It's like on a dating app saying I shower before every date. You don't need to say that. Everybody is award-winning. That doesn't say anything for you. It says more about you if you don't feel the need to say award-winning.
Blair: Should you pursue awards and put the awards that you've won on your website? Is that what you're saying, or you're saying don't bother, it's a cost of entry, everybody assumes you've won some sort of creative award?
David: Well, if it's a real award.
Blair: What's a real award in your mind?
David: A Clio, something like that.
Blair: That's still a thing?
David: Yes. That'll get to Canada eventually [laughs] along with the websites.
Blair: Okay. If you've won a big award, put it on the website.
David: Yes. Otherwise, just don't.
Blair: Okay. Real testimonials. A quote from Tim Cook at Apple is worth including, but a quote from Tim C. at a notable tech firm doesn't mean squat. Unless it's got the name of the person and the name of the business, don't bother.
David: Yes, don't do it because we all know that they just made that shit up. It's not a real quote. It's not a real person, or it was, but that person has gotten fired since then because their work was so bad. Make it a real testimonial or don't. I think real testimonials are really effective. I would work to include those, but they need to be real.
Blair: Sometimes it's hard to get real testimonial. I got a note from somebody that you know, sold his business recently, and he sent me this very nice thank you note. He said he got a way higher multiple than he ever thought possible. Thanks in part to the work that we did. I said, "This is great. Can I use this as a testimonial?" He said, "Yes, let me just check with my new boss."
David: Oh, yes. [chuckles]
Blair: Then he came back, and he said, "They don't like that." [chuckles]
David: Yes, because it sounds like they got snookered.
Blair: Basically, I said they've overpaid. Yes.
David: Yes.
[laughter]
Blair: Okay, so that's 12, real testimonials. The last one on your list of 13 signals that your website might be sending.
David: You're not going to like this one either.
Blair: Well, no, I'm really intrigued by it because as you've probably seen me publicly go back and forth on this a little bit lately, productization. I'm always changing my mind on productization, and I've done so again recently, so explain.
David: Well, I think you can't have good productization for a generalist firm because there's just so little similarity between the clients that you're working for, but assuming, and we're assuming here that you're a tightly focused firm, you could be productized, and it could just be one. It could just be the way you start an engagement. The reason this should be on the website is I picture it happening like this.
You're in first class, you're flying somewhere, you start to chat with the person next to you. It turns out that their CMO at some kind of a firm that's a perfect fit for what you do, and they say, "Oh, wow, that's interesting. We're working with," and they name some agency. "Have you heard of them?" "No, we haven't." He said, "But we're not totally happy with them. We're actually thinking, if we worked with you, what would that look like?" Wi-Fi is still working. You flip open your laptop, and you go right to this page and say, "Well, this is how we start."
That's what I mean. It's productization, but particularly around how you start an engagement. I just think it's so powerful because that's a big question that a potential new client has when they work with you, because the best clients are the ones that have used an agency before. You're not the first one. They're working with somebody right now, and there's a fear of leaving them. The other side of that fear is how easy it will be to transition to a new agency. That's where productization could really fill a need.
Blair: That is really smart.
David: All of these are smart.
Blair: [laughs] Some smarter than others. What you're saying is package up your diagnostic and put it on the website. Basically, "If you're unsure about X, about changing firms or whatever problem you have or the nature or the cost of your problem, hire us to do this thing. It takes this long." I wouldn't put the price on the website because I think you want to reserve the right to price the client. The idea that where you start with your firm is productized in what I would call a diagnostic. I think that's really smart. I haven't thought of that use of it before. I don't think I've ever advised anybody to put their diagnostic on their website, but I think you're right. It is smart. It is a wise thing to do. Look, I learned something.
David: Yes, good, 13. There's probably more, but I just ran out of steam.
Blair: [laughs] 1 out of 13. Just kidding. There's lots in here. Any parting advice for people on how to implement any of the changes that they feel like they might want to make after listening to this?
David: Don't overthink it. If you assign this to a department, then you're 19 months away from getting it done. Don't do that. Just two or three people put a little kind of skunkworks thing together where two or three people do it. There's not a lot of getting approval. Then you can massage it later, but just make the changes and don't overthink it. Don't involve too many people and just get it done.
Blair: I think that's great advice. I was listening to Jonathan Stark's podcast while I was mowing the lawn this weekend. I was getting caught up on some episodes. I haven't listened in a while. He was interviewing somebody who had launched a podcast 100 episodes ago, and she had done a 5-day podcast challenge with him. He spent most of his guidance about starting a podcast is, "You don't need to do that. You don't need to do that. You don't need-- All these things that everybody tells you need to do, you don't need to do that. Just start recording. Get a decent mic. Just start recording. Okay, just publish. Okay, there. Now you have a podcast. Keep going."
David: Yes.
Blair: I thought it was great advice just to cut it out, simplify. Don't overthink it. Don't have a big, long meeting about it. Just start working on the changes.
David: Yes.
Blair: All right. I actually learned something. I made a couple notes here going back to the website.
David: We're changing the world with this podcast. My God.
Blair: [laughs]
David: People are rushing to take their dog pictures down right now.
Blair: Thanks, David.
David: Thanks, Blair.
