How To Make Your Website Stand Out | Proven Tips

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm answering a question from one of our newsletter readers, Garrick, who is launching a website and wanted my advice on what to do. So he wrote in saying, Evan, how you doing? I'm getting ready to launch my website. It's a lot— it has a lot of different products on the site. I would like to stand out and get my website to stand out and invite people to keep coming back. I'd also like to write a bio. Anything else you think I should do? Thank you in advance, Garrick. So thanks for the question, Garrick. Great question, one a lot of entrepreneurs are thinking about as they create their websites or try to revamp their websites. I'm gonna give you a little bit of advice. So the first thing I would do is try to make sure that people can quickly understand what you do and the value in it for them. So if you look at people who visit a website most of them will bounce, and very quickly. So a lot of people will land on the website, and within 10 seconds they're gone. And so you want to quickly convey value to the reader. So they land on your homepage, do they understand what you do and how you can help them? So whatever the strongest value proposition you can put out there is, that's what you want to have right on your homepage, so people quickly get a sense of what is it you do, if it's for them, and if it's intriguing enough to make them want to keep reading. So if you look at your stats, you probably find a lot of people do bounce very quickly early on, and a lot of times it's because people don't see value in it. So you gotta, you gotta hook people with immediate value when they quickly land on your website. For us, what we do, if you look at our homepage, we have the famous entrepreneur quotes. So we try to inspire entrepreneurs, motivate them to keep going and to run their business and be successful. And on our homepage, The first thing that you'll see is a big quote from a famous entrepreneur with an inspirational message, and that usually hooks people to want to read more, scroll, explore the site, learn about us. So whatever it is for your business, you wanna have that quick hook where people can quickly understand your website, and, you know, hopefully it's for them. The next thing I would do is try to tell your story. And a lot of times entrepreneurs hide behind their products or services, and it's boring. And the way you're gonna stand out from your competition is to quickly have a story that people can relate to, right? People would rather buy from people than buy from a company, and the more passionate and emotional you are about what you do, and the more you show that you care, the more other people are gonna care. And if you're really deeply passionate about what you're doing, people will pick up on it like a fever, and they'll wanna get involved in it as well. So, I don't know what your business is, but, you know, why did you start it? What really excites you about it? What motivates you to keep going every day? And whatever product or service you created, Why is that so deeply ingrained into you, right? So you want to tell your story. So have a picture of yourself, hopefully on the homepage, that people can click on, and from there, there's your story, there's maybe a video introduction. The more personal you can make it, the greater chances people will stick around on your website longer and trust your message, right? If you have a, hopefully, a nice smile, you look like an honest person, and they deeply believe in your story. It's easy to tell when somebody's BSing, right? When you read a corporate bio or you see some videos that are obviously scripted, you can tell that it's BS, it's not authentic, and people tune out. But if you're passionate about what you're doing and there's a message that you have there and you're telling a story in a way that you deeply believe in it, people will watch and they'll tie into it and they'll want to be part of your company. And given the option between buying from you and buying from somebody else, they're gonna wanna buy from you because they feel like they like you and they know you and they trust you and they wanna do business with you. So tell your story, right? Don't hide behind whatever corporate brand you have. You wanna be able to tell your story. That was a big lesson learned for me actually, was when I started my website, was I hid behind the famous entrepreneur information on our website. And you know, we have a lot of famous entrepreneur stories, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, how they got started, lessons you can learn from them. And I started getting people to write in to say, we want to learn your story, like, how did you get started and what are you doing now? And we're interested in learning more about what you're up to. And so I took that to heart and started posting some information, and people scooped it up. They just wanted to learn more. And for me, it's being authentic. It's what I love doing, helping entrepreneurs. I created this business to try to help entrepreneurs grow their companies and be successful. And so it's just living the brand a little bit, and people tie into that story. So for yourself, whatever made you want to start this business and the people that you're helping, create some content around telling that story so you can hook people in. So the first one is, you know, create a really strong value proposition that people can quickly understand and tie into. The second part is tell your story in an authentic way that quickly stands out and really resonates with people. And the third thing I would say is if you want people to keep coming back to your site, have some kind of way to tie them into a newsletter. So somebody may visit your website, they think it's great, they look at your story, great, they look at your products and services and say, "Great, this is something I could use," but maybe they're not ready to buy now, or maybe they're gonna go search online for something else. And they may have loved what you do, but people are busy, right? We all have day-to-day lives that are very busy, keep us tied up, and they may forget to come back to you, or they may say, "Ah, what was that website? I really liked it, but I can't remember it." So you're gonna lose a lot of those people. So what I would recommend doing is try to hook them onto your website by having a newsletter, and you can have some kind of bonus offer, a free download, white paper, something to entice people to want to sign up with you. And you start creating a relationship with people. And that way, when they are ready to buy, they already know you, like you, trust you, want to buy from you and there's an easy way for them to remember how to get in touch with you. So what I try to think about it is, is as dating before you get married, right? You're not going to go up to some random girl on the street and say, "Will you marry me?" You know, you have to start dating, you have to get to know them, you have to see if it's a fit or not, you have to see if you really like them and love them or not. And so the same thing when people are buying from your business. Again, depends how much, you know, your products and services cost, but The more expensive it is, the more they wanna know you and do their research before they make a decision. So if you can get them signed up to your newsletter and then send them valuable information on an ongoing basis and be kind of the trusted expert, reliable source that people go to for, you know, whatever your product or service is, then when they're ready to make a decision or when their friends are ready to make a decision, you're gonna be the person that they turn to because you're seen as that expert that they feel like they know. And again, the more personal you can make it, the better. So an example on my newsletter, if you sign up for it, I have an introduction video. So I'd say, "I want to introduce myself to you," and I made a quick video talking about how I got started in business and lessons that I've learned, just for people to quickly get a sense of, you know, what I do and why I do it. And then I'll share information about entrepreneurs, obviously, because that's what I do, but I'll share my top 10 favorite books for entrepreneurs, my top 10 favorite quotes that inspire and motivate me, my top 10 favorite videos that I've watched that I love watching. To again give me some motivation. And so I'll share this information, it's personal, it ties into my story, but it's a lot of value-add. And then people look forward to getting the newsletter, and there's obviously a lot of great information in the newsletter as well. But you put those into an autoresponder sequence so that every week they get something really helpful to, you know, in my case, grow their business, but in your case, whatever their product or service is that you're trying to sell, whatever problem you're trying to solve for them, you're giving them helpful ongoing information and you're building a relationship by email that otherwise wouldn't have been built. So there's a lot of people who watch these videos of me and read my newsletter and they feel like they know me and I'm answering some personal questions on here and I may not know you guys but a lot of, a lot of you feel like you know me, which is great. So being able to build a relationship with a lot of people and that helps my business, it helps my website, it helps me feel good because I feel like I'm helping more people as well, which is the kind of the core purpose of what I do. So if you can tie people onto that newsletter and give them a reason to sign up and create that relationship where you're, you know, giving them valuable information on a regular basis, not spamming them, but valuable information on an ongoing basis, then again, when they're ready to buy, when their friends are ready to buy, you're gonna be the go-to trusted expert that they're gonna wanna buy from. So hopefully that helps. Good luck with the website. Keep us posted with how you're doing, and if you have other questions, please let us know. For those of you watching, if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. I love seeing them come in. It makes my day always when I see thumbs up happening on the videos. And I'd also love to hear what you have to think. If you have a comment about this video, if you liked it, you didn't like it, or you have a suggestion as well, feel free to leave it below. And if you have a question for your own business that I can answer for you, I'd love to be able to try to do it. I always read those comments. So feel free to leave it in the section below. Thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.