We hear this question a lot.
As a Print Company “What should I have on my website?”.
And while the question itself is a little vague the answer is actually pretty specific.
First thing is let’s define what your print website is meant to do.
- Get You Found
- Educate
- Convert
Those 3 things are the primary purpose of you site.
You can get found by optimizing your site for search so when customers look for the services & products you offer they will find you.
You obviously can educate in a number of ways such as letting the customer know who you are, what you do, how you do it differently, what you sell, new products, etc.
And most importantly converting the customer can be they submit a form on your site, placing a quote /order, call you while / after viewing the site and turning them into a new customer or additional sale.
So What Should Print Website Have On It?
To make this really simple, there are only a handful of things you actually need.
- Homepage that tells who you are, what you do, how you do it and what they should do to take the next steps overall
- Product / Service Pages
- Quote / Order Form
- Contact Form
- Conversion Points (forms & click to call links)
Obviously the site can be packed with images, video, other pages, etc. but if all you have are the 5 listed items then you’ll be good to go.
Unfortunately many print companies don’t have those 5 things.
The Homepage
It needs to list information about who you are as a company, an overview of what you do with clickable sections on the specific products / services and a quote & contact form / CTA (call to action). This allows the visitor to self segment on the homepage where most traffic originates or orients from.
Product / Service Pages
It sounds obvious but this is where many print companies fail. They in many cases have a single page that lists out all of the products and services, but this won’t cut it. Have individual pages for what you sell allows you to better explain how you do it best, create a more compelling call to action for higher conversions and it can be used for posting to social media most effectively (a wide format post is linked to the wide format page, get it).
This will also get you ranked better in search.
Quote / Order Form
Most companies have a contact form, but fewer have a legitimate independent quote / order form (which you need).
Most understand the order form should live on it’s own when in many cases there is a transaction and payment tied to it, but the order form details are typically more robust than what you would find on a basic contact form which is why it needs to be separate.
This form can live on it’s own page or on every product / service page (we recommend every page!)
Contact Form
Almost everyone has one of these, but we come across a good number of print websites that DO NOT. Those sites in many cases will have a mailto link with a general email address. This is NOT Good!
The second thing we find that many don’t do is capture those form submissions or in some cases not send them to the right place.
There are a number of reasons why the submissions wouldn’t get to where they should, but just know that there’s a good chance your contact form is messed up. And you’re likely not capturing the submissions in a way that would allow you to follow up with them easily in the future.
Conversion Points
The website needs ways for customers to connect with you, duh right.
But this is one of the most common things we find wrong with websites for printers. They don’t have even basic calls to action asking visitors of the site to do something.
- Get a Quote
- Contact Us With Your Question
- Download This Case Study / Price Sheet / etc.
- Click to Call
Bonus: Use Google Analytics and you can track all of this to see website performance!
Take a second to audit your own website and see if you are or are not doing the things we have listed above!
If you have Questions Call Us at 314-736-4434
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