Case Study: Giving Boring Personality
Meet the Clients
Let me introduce you to two clients, Lopez Plumbing and Clovis Window Cleaning. Lopez Plumbing impressed me when I recorded a video highlighting this business for another client. Diego Lopez, the owner, demonstrated thoroughness and excellence. He cleaned up after himself. Checked and rechecked his work. And made sure to look for any other problems before leaving so he saved time and his client money. I asked him to let me do his social media when he was ready. He took me up on my offer.
Clovis Window Cleaning
This client is Clovis Window Cleaning, another excellent business. The owner approached me on building a simple website. He already had his Google My Business listing, which was bringing him clients, but his website looked amateur. He knew he needed to up his game. He was right. Today, your website is the first impression and can be a huge factor for whether someone does business with you or not.
I think we can all agree that window cleaning and plumbing is boring. But we sure appreciate these services when we need them! The trick in designing a website for such industries as this (don’t forget insurance companies, dentistry, and other service based business) is to give it personality. There are two ways I did this for both of these clients.
HELLO
Isn’t that word so nice and polite? I had seen a website that introduced their business with, “Hello.” And something happened on the inside. I immediately thought, “How nice and polite.” I was amazed that such a small word impacted me as much as it did. It sparked a desire to stick around and view their entire website.
When I designed Clovis Window Cleaning’s website, I knew I wanted it to be bright and happy because their brand colors were blue and yellow, the color of the sky and sun. A bright sunny day just makes us happy and to me adding a, “hello,” was perfect! What was funny is the owner didn’t like it. He’s a reserved person and felt it wasn’t necessary. I explained to him my reasoning. And he agreed that we needed to keep it. Go check it out to see what I mean when you see that little word with a lot of impact.
PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES
The next trick that is crucial is pictures of real work and real people. The absence of these is the most common mistake I see web designers make in such industries. And the result is boring websites that don’t stand out from any competitors and make the site visitor sigh,“Blah. Blah. Blah.”
When I build the window cleaning site, he had great branded photos, which I HIGHLY recommend. I added interest by creating a gallery that scrolls automatically. When I first built Lopez Plumbing’s website, we didn’t have any photos yet. Once I got them, I added the scrolling gallery immediately.
Here’s the deal—people like you more when they can see your face. I know. I know. Most of us don’t like our picture taken. I hate to be a momma, but here I go. Get over it. Unless you have employees and can put their faces on your site, you need to have yours. I mean, think about the last time you went to a site and clicked About only discover no pictures just words. What did you do? You were disappointed and bored and clicked off.
A COUPLE OF MORE TIPS
The other thing I do on ALL of my service-based websites is put the contact information and hours at the very top. I also add “Get a Free Estimate” or “Get a Quote” or “Call Now” button at least twice on the site at the top and then a bit down the site. Anything you can think of that is helpful to the site visitor, put at the top.
I also add testimonials and if the client has a five-star Google rating, I put that coveted badge with the testimonials. And, finally, splitting up the site with colors creates interest and guides the visitor through the site. Most sites like this only need to be one page so keep it simple. Oh, and one more thing, add the services offered if applicable. It can provoke phone calls but also save time explaining all your client does when they get that call for an estimate.
