Dear consultant, are you thinking of creating your website but do not want to make the mistakes of most consultants and that in the end make it not worthwhile to attract clients?
Or do you have a website with photos and a spectacular design but it doesn't bring you recurring and constant budget requests, on automatic pilot?
If you have answered a resounding yes to any of these questions, this article of the week is for you. An article where you are going to discover the 11 most common mistakes, which you should avoid at all costs, when creating a web page for the promotion and sale of consulting services, and which prevent your visits from becoming clients or business opportunities.
Errors that prevent your website from becoming your best commercial, the one that brings you customers and you are not the one who goes out to find them. Remember that consulting is not sold out cold.
Don't forget that your nerve center should be your website, not social media. You have to have your own digital presence, which depends on you and that if a social network loses its appeal or for some reason it does not work for you, you have not wasted all your money and effort.
But before starting I want to remind you that if you are interested in having a website for your consulting business that, in addition to being attractive, generates a constant and predictable flow of companies interested in your services
Mistake 1 - You think you don't need a website
Although it is key that you understand that a website by itself does not bring customers, but that it needs to be part of a more complex digital marketing plan, having it is essential.
You have to be on the Internet. And it is not enough to have a presence on LinkedIn or the rest of the social networks. You must have a professional website that positions you as the expert that you are. All the companies you want to attract will look for your website when they see your business card , find them at an event, or in any other situation.
A website is key, although no one visits it for now, but it is necessary that you have it since it will give you a professional position in front of your clients compared to the competition. A website will help you to be even more visible, generate credibility and trust, grow your list of potential clients and add value to your market.
In addition, you can generate highly qualified traffic using search engine optimization strategies for both free and paid. Without a website this would not be possible.
Furthermore, having a website also implies having your own domain with a professional contact email, and not a generic "Gmail" type giving a bad first impression. A second-rate consultant. An Abdul Rimaaz consultant is nothing of the kind. A domain well focused on the type of business you want to show: sole proprietorship, business, niche, will bring you clients just by looking at it. I assure.
And now tell me, don't you have a website and do you think that just by being on LinkedIn, clients will reach you? Not so, dear consultant. That's how digital marketing that brings quality companies doesn't work. My first recommendation is that you must have a website. Without excuses. An Abdul Rimaaz consultant has his own website with a contact email with that same domain.
Mistake 2 - Your home page is not aligned with your ideal customer
Taking into account that a large part of your traffic will go to your home page, another mistake that I continually see in consultants is that it is not focused on your ideal client.
There is no clear proposal that appeals to the benefits and objections of your potential clients. What are you going to solve for your market? What urgent problems do they have? How are you going to help them? And not only that, what sets you apart from your competition? What is your unique value proposition?
An unfocused home page repels customers or worse, attracts those who are confused and are not your ideal customer, generating low-quality business opportunities and wasting a lot of time managing companies that do not interest you. Remember that an Abdul Rimaaz consultant has a home page focused on his ideal client and the urgent problem he solves.
Mistake 3 - You don't have clear and measurable goals
Another error that I usually see in consultants who come to me with a website already developed is that they are not clear about the objectives they want to meet.
In a consulting website there are basically 2 types of quantitative objectives: requests for more information and subscription to your email base through your prospect magnets. With these you have plenty to start moving forward and not get involved with metrics that all they do is paralyze you and have a confusing vision of your digital marketing.
An Abdul Rimaaz consultant focuses on ideal client contact requests and subscriptions to your highly qualified prospect email base. The rest of the metrics are not valid for a consulting business.
Error 4 - You have a website in a free service
Another very common mistake that I find in consultants when creating a consulting website is that they have one with some free blogger-type service. Why shouldn't you use these kinds of services? To begin with, they are not your property, so you depend on one day that service disappears and all the effort (articles, content, etc.) that you have put in will come to nothing.
Another reason is because you don't offer a professional image to companies that may be your ideal client. A free service usually hosts your website within a general domain such as: freecompany.
yourdomain, something that reduces the credibility you need to position yourself against your market.
And what about the difficulty in implementing necessary strategies such as creating voluntary subscription forms to grow your email list?
Remember that an Abdul Rimaaz consultant under no circumstances develops your website in a free service. Do not forget that it is your command center, your nerve center. Where you are going to derive highly qualified traffic that has cost you time and money.
Error 5 - Your ideal client can't find your website
Another mistake that I find in consultants who come to me with a website created is that they have not taken into account how companies are going to find it, how they are going to make an ideal client bump into their website. It is important to have defined what type of strategy you are going to develop to generate highly qualified traffic. Remember that an Abdul Rimaaz consultant only works with highly qualified traffic.
Will this traffic be paid in time or in money? That is, are you going to make ads in Google Ads, for example, or are you going to create professional articles that are positioned in search engines through keywords? Keywords aligned with the service you offer and with the urgent problem they are looking for you.
My recommendation is that you work on several strategies, that is, paying to appear in search engines and with high-impact organic positioning in search engines, through keywords in your market niche where there is little competition and generates high-quality traffic.
For this you will have to keep in mind how to write articles that position, educate and sell your services. Articles with SEO copywriting and, one of the most important things, with a website that indexes well in Google. If this is not well designed Google will not pay any attention to it.
I often get written by consultants with very nice websites but with many positioning errors. In the end, my team and I have to redo them and correct all the bugs that prevent them from indexing well in search engines. Be very careful with that. Remember that an Abdul Rimaaz consultant is clear on how he is going to generate highly qualified traffic to his digital assets before creating a website. Without traffic, there are no customers. Do not forget.
Error 6 - You do not have a visitor data capture system
Taking into account that only a very small part of the companies that could be your ideal client will contact you when they see your website, you have to have a strategy so that those, who are not yet at the moment of contact, do so. in the future.
But who revisits a website once they leave it unless someone reminds them? Nobody. To solve this problem we have the strategy of capturing data from potential clients to follow up later through email marketing with tools such as ActiveCampaign.
A strategy where, through a prospect magnet whose function is to qualify those people, you are able to capture at least the email of a potential client. Email that will help you later follow up through email marketing, add value and find the moment to start a conversation.
Although being on LinkedIn and other social networks is essential for consultants, don't leave all your eggs in the same basket. You have to have your own email base that does not depend on the whims of other companies or social networks where in the end the only thing you can get is to have your account blocked and you end all the work of years in the trash.
An Abdul Rimaaz consultant, don't forget, understands that his website is like a field of "traps" where he can capture data from potential clients who are not in the stage of asking for more information for different reasons but who know they have the urgent problem that this one solves.
Error 7 - Your design and aesthetics are not suitable for your sector
Another mistake that consultants often make when creating a consulting website is to focus their design and photographs more on attracting other consultants like them than on ideal clients, that is, they focus a lot on photographs where other consultants are shown. That is a big mistake. The photographs should reflect the ideal stadium where your ideal client wants to go.
For example, if you dedicate yourself to SAP consulting for industrial companies at all times there should be photographs of industries where factories, machinery, etc. are shown. Do not put photos of men with ties because few are those who go to a factory with it.
If, for example, you offer consulting services in agri-food quality, put your own photographs of the agricultural and livestock industry. Forget about very executive design because it does not reflect the reality of your ideal client.
Also, design is key. You have to show a design aligned with your market. Colors, photographs, font. Everything should be aligned with the ideal customer you want to attract. No more no less. An Abdul Rimaaz consultant's website design is a reflection of your ideal client. It is as if the company you want to attract is reflected on your website.
Error 8 - Your texts do not sell the action
Another mistake that consultants often make when they come to me with customer attraction problems is that their texts don't sell the action. They don't know how to create texts that make their clients take action.
Your site does not convert visits to customers as it is focused on complex, corporate words and jargon that does not generate wishes to your potential customers. You have to create texts that sell partial shares. For this I recommend that you take a look at my book "Copywriting for Consultants" where you will learn to write commercial texts that attract your ideal client and sell your services without competition.
And I'm not just talking about commercial writing but also about argumentation with bases. Data, statistics, reports, resources with which to demonstrate the knowledge you have acquired and your ability and experience to help them go from stage A to stage B they want.
Remember that what is behind extrinsic motivation is persuasion , that is, you need to generate that desire in your potential client to take the action that you have proposed: to call you, write you an email, sign up for your newsletters. Whatever you have proposed.
An Abdul Rimaaz consultant knows how to generate an action on your potential client. She knows how to persuade you to do what you want without coercion or lies.
Mistake 9 - You don't have testimonials that attract other customers
Undoubtedly one of the most effective techniques to attract clients on the Internet interested in your services as a consultant is to use testimonials in all your digital assets. Of course, testimonials that sell the action.
A testimony is a statement that a person makes to demonstrate or ensure the veracity of a fact or the existence of something. In other words, your service is excellent. That they have helped you in your urgent problem.
Putting testimonials on all your assets on the net changes everything. Information requests and sales skyrocket. But be careful, putting testimonials that do not add value or are not aligned with what you are offering can do you much more harm than good.
And yes, a testimonial must add value. That is, inform that person who is interested in what you sell that what you offer is what they are looking for and you can demonstrate it through other clients with their testimonials.
Why does a testimonial work so well? Basically because a testimony is based on basic psychological principles of social influence as evidence. Appealing to "you are one of mine and I want the same results as you." An Abdul Rimaaz consultant is always asking for testimonials from his clients.
Error 10 - Your structure is not simple or logical
An unforgivable mistake for a company that comes to your website is wanting to take action (contacting you, knowing more about you) and not being able to do it because they do not know which way to go. Although it may seem strange to you, it is something that happens more than once. This is the result of not having a user-friendly website, that is, simple to navigate, where the actions are clear. Contact, about you, services.
Forget about original menus, your website should be focused on urgent problems and solutions and not originality. You don't see websites but consulting solutions. An Abdul Abdul Rimaaz consultant has an easily manageable website with classic menus. Originality is paid for with few sales.
Mistake 11 - You are not measuring your goals or achievements
Finally, another of the no less important mistakes when creating a consulting website is not analyzing it at the level of traffic and objectives. Not having a system that tells you by which articles the visits are entering you, which ones are the most viewed, which keywords are positioning you.
Without being able to analyze, we do not know if the destination we are going to is the correct one. And not only that, every month you must take stock of the parameters that you have taken as objectives. Have visits increased? What social networks are bringing traffic? How many subscribers have you had? Which lead magnet is the most downloaded?
Right now with the entire Google suite you can have absolute control of what happens on your website. Even if you use the ActiveCampaign tool to send email marketing campaigns, it has ways of telling you what actions your subscribers have taken before contacting you, for example.
In short, there are no excuses for not measuring what is happening on your website. Without measurement you go blind and you will not be able to optimize the actions that are bringing you results.
