Telling your story on your website

Having a website is pretty much a ‘given’ for most businesses these days. When someone visits it, you want them to fall in love with what they see and experience a warm and fuzzy resonance with the content.

What a lot of people don’t realise, is that their website needs to tell two clear stories.

Your customer story

The first and most important is your customer story. This story is woven through the fabric of your site and services. It shows your customers that you understand their pain points and challenges and that your business is in the best position to help them.

Knowing your audience is crucial when it comes to creating a compelling customer story. Take some time first to create your customer avatar, so you’re clear on exactly who you’re speaking too in your story. Your customers need to feel like you’re speaking their language and have metaphorically walked a mile in their shoes, so you are viewing the world and its challenges from their perspective.

Your customer story is mainly expressed on your home page since it’s the first point of engagement for people. Right out of the gate you need to show you understand their problems and demonstrate the benefits and solutions you offer. Your customer story needs to be positioned as “how we can help” rather than “here’s what we do”.

Your business story

Believe it or not, the second most visited page on your website is your About page. This is where you tell your own story.

As customers consider working with you, they’ll want to find out more about:

• The values that are important to you (showing your character)
• How you work with clients (the setting)
• The history of your company (your plot)

Notice how the character and setting come before the plot? Who you are and what you can do for customers is more important than how you got there.

About pages are generally content and information heavy. New and existing customers come here to learn more, so give them detail. Just keep in mind that the more detail there is, the more out of date your About page can become. So, use your judgement on what will be easy to maintain and manage story-wise as your business gets busier.

Whatever you do, don’t forget to add in ways for someone on your ‘About’ page to take the next step. After all, if they’ve come to this page that means they want to know more because the story you’ve shared resonates. This desire for more means they’re well on their way to becoming a customer.

If you want help creating these two compelling stories for your website, the best place to start is to book in for a free content review. Together we can ensure your storytelling is being shared in the most impactful way possible.