Month: March 2021

Benefits of adding a FAQ page to your website

FAQ is also known as Frequently Asked Questions, and they are starting to become the norm with most Aussie websites.

Websites FAQ is not just for aesthetics, but they play a vital marketing role for your business. They help answer customers questions very quickly, they are great for customer conversions, and they also instil trust and confidence in your company. All websites nowadays must have a FAQ section on most pages of their site.

Your FAQ can be a single section at the bottom of a particular page, or it can be a whole page with a detailed list of commonly asked questions relating to your business.

The Benefits of a Website FAQ’s page

1) Answer questions quickly

There are so many benefits to having an FAQ section on your website. They are a fantastic, self-serving tool to help with customer information. Many customers will go looking for an FAQ section to address any questions or concerns they have. You can quickly address questions like refund policies, delivery details, product returns, product instructions and how to reset my password in the FAQ section.

Once they read these FAQ’s, there is no need to call you and send an email inquiry. Just think of all those waste of time calls you used to get answering the same questions all the time. An FAQ section will free up your time so you can work on other things.

2) Increase in Lead Conversion

If the FAQ answers a particular question, the potential customer will be more inclined to buy from the site if they have answers at their fingertips. It’s not surprising that customers leave the site if they can’t find solutions to their questions. If you can provide this with certainty and authority – you’ll clinch the deal, sale or inquiry.

Lets’ say they had a query about the delivery times of a product; if the FAQ’s gave them the answer they wanted, this is a huge conversion factor.

3) Ease the Customer Experience

Most new visitors or customers to your website will go to the FAQ section if they don’t know your policies, procedures or business processes. An FAQ section guides them through all these questions and quickly enhances the whole experience. A happy new customer who trusts your site will be more inclined to make that purchase!

Hopping Mad Designs Tip: make sure they can easily find your FAQ section, and it’s not hidden somewhere down the bottom of the page.

4) FAQ’s help with your SEO and Google rankings.

Adding FAQ’s to each main page of your site will help with your online rankings. Adding FAQ’s may result in rich snippet displays on Google, which means your website will have more real estate on Google. As of March 21, Google likes well written FAQ’s and will display these under your website.

Also, detailed answers can address long-tail keyword rankings, which can help to rank more keywords. It’s a win-win!

Hopping Mad Designs Tip: Try and be as detailed as possible in your answers. The more information you give the customer, the more likely they’ll buy from you.

5) Helps improve site structure and navigation

Add an FAQ into the main navigation at the top of the website will increase customers’ chances of clicking on them. A detailed FAQ page ( like our Hopping Mad Designs FAQ ) can also direct users to other pages throughout the site via internal linking. It’s a nifty way to drive traffic to specific high-value pages on the site. Internal linking is great for SEO, as it allows Google to crawl your site easily.

Check out the FAQ page on our Hopping Mad Designs website. Simple, clean with lots of information.

6) You become the authority

If you want to become an authority in your industry niche, a detailed FAQ section sets you up for that. You can cover as many topics as you like with clear answers. Customers will appreciate the effort you have put into this.Check out The Smith Family’s FAQ page as well as a good example.

Hopping Mad Designs Tip: you can have as little or as much information as you like. Remember, the more effort you put into the FAQ section, the more information you give customers. Make sure you also update outdated information such as prices, shipping details, returns policy, guarantees, warranties etc.

7) Less Customer Service Calls

Think about all those pesky inquiries and questions that led to nothing. FAQ’s eliminates time wasters, tyre kickers, and headaches of repeating the same answers day after day.

Letting your customers work the answers out for themselves with a detailed FAQ section frees your time up. You may not even need that customer service call centre or someone monitoring the Live Chat that’s costing you a fortune. Think about all those dollars save!!

All this allows your customer service dept to focus on urgent and more pressing issues.

8) Be better than the competition

Want to know what makes you look more professional? It’s more informative and well-written content on your website. With an FAQ section, you can enhance and show off your authority and more profound knowledge in your field by writing the best FAQ set. It’s a great way to outdo the competitors who may have a poor FAQ section.

9) Helps reduce bounce rates

That’s right. Most people will quickly glance at the FAQ section for extra information. If they find something interesting, they’ll spend more time on your site reading. Google will notice the extra time and reduced bounce rates and start ranking this page higher – especially if you encourage users to click through to other pages within your site.

How to Create a User-Friendly FAQ Page

Creating a helpful FAQ page is relatively simple. You can have it accordion style where they click on the read more for the complete answer or display the entire FAQ’s.

There are two essential steps to FAQ creation. The first is to put all your questions down and answers down and get a web developer to add this to your site. Put some creative effort into this to encourage people to read them.

 

How to make an FAQ’s page

1) Determine a set of questions

You have to start by thinking about questions your customers would be asking. These are called lead generation questions.

Let’s take a closer look at this.

Say, for example, you are selling children’s clothing. An excellent example of a lead-generating question is: do you ship free of charge Sydney or Australia wide? The reason being, they would be more likely to buy from you if the answer is yes – you do provide free shipping. Another top question is: are you open 7 days? If you have bricks and mortar shop, customers will want to know if they can shop there on the weekend. Take it one step further and address questions about Christmas and public holiday opening hours.

Other vital areas in the FAQ’s that are great for customer conversion include:

i) details about your shipping policy

ii) policy during COVID-19

iii) faulty product returns policy

iv) parking availability outside your shop

v) security of product delivery

Hopping Mad Designs tip: make sure the FAQ’s are relevant to the specific page. Address all questions and answers related to the page topic and never deviate from this.

You may even like to keep these questions uniform through all FAQ sections with unique answers for each page.

Common categories include: 

  • Shipping and returns
  • Sizing
  • Products
  • Payments
  • Security
  • Your account
  • Promotions and discounts
  • Delivery Details
  • COVID

2) Prioritise the most popular questions

Frequently asked questions are named that for a reason. Keep the most popular questions at the top of the FAQ page—Google analytics will tell you your most popular questions.

Hopping Mad Designs Tip: keep updating these questions with relevant information as they will become outdated over time.

3) Include a search bar

Although we do not have it on our site, it’s not a bad idea to have a search bar to help customers find an answer quickly. Rather than scrolling through pages of information, a search bar quickly points users in the right direction and may help with Bounce Rates.

The last thing we want is for users to find the FAQ’s too cumbersome and lengthy that they leave the site altogether in frustration.

4) Keep it branded

Get your web designers to keep the FAQ consistent with your branding’s look and feel—no point in getting a great looking website only to spoil it with a poor customer experience.

5) Update regularly

Your business is evolving, so update your policies and procedures in the faqs. If a client goes there and reads something false, you lose so much credibility – especially shoppers who hate outdated returns and refunds policies!

Update your FAQ’s with separate COVID sections as you might have changed delivery and handling procedures.

6) Monitor and improve

We talked about how vital FAQ’s are in the whole customer experience. But, you have to be monitoring these and improving on them the entire time. They are not a set and forget. Look at revising them a couple of times a year as your business changes. Most websites we build at Hopping Mad Designs are on a WordPress platform, so updates to the FAQ section are relatively simple.

The takeout

Frequently Asked Question pages are a brilliant way to help customers and your business at the same time. Use them to your advantage as they are a valuable sales and marketing tool.

For more information on how to start your FAQ page, contact us anytime.

6 Conversion-Boosting Benefits of Online Videos

If you’re not using videos on your website, you’re missing out on some golden opportunities for your business.

Why?

Because people love watching videos, and it has a super high conversion rate. According to Forbes: By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. What a huge number! If your business relies on getting qualified customers from the web, then video is a potent and powerful marketing tool.

Statistics like these are great reasons why you need to start incorporating video on your website. 

Following are 7 ways that using video boosts conversions, with the stats to back them up.

 1. More attention from your customers.

If I see a video on a web page, then the first thing I’m going to do is watch the video. I might scan the content very quickly, but I will definitely watch the video. If I like what, I will watch the whole thing and even email it to a friend. Think about it for a moment. If you connect with the person on the video or like the product, you will buy it or use their service. And Animoto says that in 2021, we’ll see a surge in live video coupled with real-time shopping on both Facebook and Instagram.The take out here is that video is a huge attention grabber and can enhance the buying experience.

2. Surviving the first ten seconds.

Yep, that’s what you have—about ten seconds for the customer to form their opinion of your website. If they like what they see, they may hang around a bit, but if it looks too dull and wordy, they’ll leave. Now, what happens if you throw a great looking video in the mix? What’s going to happen? Their eyes will go straight to the video, and they will more than likely click the play button. And according to WordStream, video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.Based on these stats, you have a higher chance of keeping people on your website if they can watch something about your businesses. Whether it’s entertaining, informative, educational or instructional – they will be on your site longer if they have something that engages them more than words.According to Crazy Egg, a word of warning here: just because landing page videos have been seen to increase conversions doesn’t mean you can throw up any shoddy video and expect results. Don’t shoot any old video, and expect it to work because it won’t and may have the opposite effect.

3. Helping answer question

Video has a massive cut through rate and answer a customers question very quickly. Most shoppers have the same questions when they are about to buy something online like; how does the product work, what are it’s main features and can I see it in use? Using a video to explain all this in less than a minute is a great way to improve conversion rates.The marketing guru in the USA, Neil Patel, reckons that viewers are anywhere from 64-85% more likely to buy after watching a product video.If I were going to launch a product, I’d have an explainer video for sure, based on these compelling statistics.

4. People love sharing videos

If you like a product or service video, you are going to share it with someone. Think about a new bike your thinking about buying. If you Google’ buy bikes in Sydney’ and you find a website with an excellent video telling you about a particular bike you’re interested in – you are going to share it with a riding buddy or partner. I love surfing, and I’m always looking at the latest surfboards from my favourite brand. Check out how these guys use video to explain the board and push their brand – it’s so powerful.

If they like it as well, you’ll probably buy from the site. It just goes to show you the power of video and what an effective sales tool it is. Forbes back this up by saying that 90% of users say that product videos are helpful in the decision process.

5. Tell your story in under 60 seconds

Videos make your business sales pitch super-easy. You can quickly explain to users your unique selling point or tell them about a new service product. According to wyzowl, 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. Explainer videos are not that difficult to create. We know this because we do it all the time at Hopping Mad Designs.

6.Videos build lots of trust

People will respect and trust you much more if you put yourself out there and make a video. It can be challenging for many business owners to get in front of a camera and talk. But, there are huge dividends as customers will meet you online before meeting you in person – this builds a level of trust and a connection. If there is a connection between you and the online customer and you seem genuine, then the trust factor goes way up.Making that connection with people looking for your particular product or service will help improve conversion rates, according to WooCommerce in their blog article ‘the psychology of an online shopper’: Videos is also a great way to connect with your customers. They’re both visual and auditory, so they’re more memorable than other forms of media — viewers remember 95% of a message when watching it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it. 

Action Steps

If you are wondering how to incorporate video into your marketing mix, here are a few essential steps to keep in mind:

  • Hire a professional, local explainer video company to shoot your product or service videos. Your iPhone won’t be good enough for this – you have to call in the experts.
  • Show the product from different angles and zoom in where necessary.
  • It’s always good to get a video testimonial from a customer – these have exceptional value if they seem genuine and not fake.
  • Do this regularly, and don’t treat it as a once-off. 

About the author

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Steven Waldberg helps Sydney business owners improve website conversion rates through content marketing, clever web design and SEO copywriting.

If you want to smash your compettion online give me a call on 02 9360 8514.

7 Tips for Choosing the Best Domain Name

Most websites we design are with clients that already have a domain name.

They have an existing business, so their domain name has been going strong for many years.

But, there are occasions where we have new business startups that require us to help them choose a domain name.

So I’ve listed 7 tips that I use to help businesses choose a fab new domain name.

1. Keep the domain name concise

Short domain names are easier to remember, and they are also easier to type into the search box on Google. They also allow you to have longer sub-domain pages that will fit neatly onto the search. Long lengthy domain names look like you are creating that name specifically for Google and can look odd. You see then all the time, and they look ridiculous.

2. Make the domain name easy to type

Complicated domain names with hard to spell words can put users off. You might end up losing a few customers if they can’t spell your name. Sure, Google has an auto spell, but hard to remember and hard to spell and your off to a bad start. Plus, Aussies like Anglo Saxon sounding pronunciations. Anything foreign-sounding is a huge turn-off.

3. Using keywords is a good idea

Most businesses want to rank on Google. That’s the plain truth, and in the competitive landscape of Google, anything that can help is a huge bonus. Think about having your core keywords in the title as we have done for one of our other businesses, SEO Sydney Experts, where the domain name is www.seosydneyexperts.com.au. Known as exact match domains, keywords in the URL give you a leg up because most people will type the keywords SEO Sydney when searching for this service.

4. Set domain expectations

Make the domain about your business. If you have XYZ in the name, then the company should be about XYZ. Users who have never been to your site before should know what it’s about by the domain name.

5. Add some humour

I can’t tell you the number of times people have commented on our business name, Hopping Mad Designs. Its memorable, funny and just a bit quirky. A lot of thought went into choosing this name, and it has worked well for us. Spend the time thinking of a name that will set your business apart. It can be challenging, especially if you have to put some keywords in there.

6. Consider your market

We are in Australia so buy a .com.au and not a .com domain name unless you want to target other countries – if you get the .com, your likely to be targeting the US market. Many people don’t realise this and go for the .com, which they regret later. Having the Australian domain name is much better for Google rankings.

7. Own the intellectual property

Make sure you register the domain name and don’t leave it to your web agency. This way, you own the rights and intellectual property. If they buy it on your behalf & things don’t work out, they’ll end up owning your domain name, which can get tricky. It’s so easy to register your domain name with companies like:

Go Daddy or Crazy Domains

and it cost about $20 per domain name.

Conclusion

Getting the right domain name is not so easy. Most of them are already gone, and you have to be super-creative to develop something new and catchy. Think of using these great domain names and adding a hyphen or number. If you get stuck or need some creative help, why not call us here at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514. I’ve been helping businesses throughout Sydney buy cool domain names that work well on Google. Don’t stuff this part of the business process up. Do it right from the beginning.

inlineMy name is Steve and I’m one of the marketing team at Hopping Mad Designs. Let me help you get more business and sales through SEO and conversion-focused web design.