The One Thing Every Professional Services Website Must Do—An Interview with Ben Hunt

RainToday.com's Podcast: Marketing & Selling Professional Services

Want to get buyers to notice your website over your competitors'? Then stop making it look like theirs and stop trying to make it all things for everyone. Follow basic marketing advice and uncover the one thing you do differently than everyone else, and use your website to clearly explain that one thing, says Ben Hunt, website consultant and designer at Scratchmedia and author of Save the Pixel: The Art of Simple Web Design.

"I think the biggest mistake that service providers make online today is all standing toe to toe—all standing together in a flock like sheep," Hunt says. "The question is what is your thing? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to mean to people? And you need to get that message to come across straight away as soon as people arrive at your website."

Do that by having a website design that is simple, clean, and enables you to communicate—not one that makes use of every bell and whistle yet still has visitors wondering what it is you do or, more important, how you can help them, Hunt advises.

"If you think it through, nobody's interested in your company. Nobody is interested in your products or your services. Nobody is interested in what you do or how you do it. The only thing that any of them are interested in is what's in it for them. Your home page needs to make a proposition. It needs to call out to the visitor and say this is what's on offer here. Give a reason to notice you; give a reason to read more," Hunt says.

Listen as Hunt explains:

• Essential components of websites
• How to keep a visitor interested after you capture their attention
• How to improve SEO for your site
• What successful websites do