When you visit someone’s home the dynamic changes when you show up at the front door versus the back door. The front door is often formal, much like the scenery when you first arrive in Vancouver where I live. The back door tends to be a little messy, more like how we really live, and is often reserved for family members and perhaps a few really close friends.
Long before a customer reaches out to you, he or she will probably have visited your front or back door. Most will have visited both. The front door of companies today is usually the corporate web site. Like inviting someone into your home, how does your corporate home page welcome visitors? Do you make it easy for them to come inside and have a look around? Do you show them the way?
All too often we make it really difficult for both prospects and customers to be welcomed to our home page. Rather than inviting them in, we often make it hard for people to find their way around our web site. The key is thinking like a prospect. Why are they coming for a visit? What are some of their common issues? Do you make it easy to answer common questions?
What about the back door? Many people will find your company, services, and products via Google searches. How easy is for prospects to find you in Google? If they find you in Google, can they easily navigate your web site from wherever they land? Have you considered doing paid Google advertising to target those prospects at a later stage in the sales cycle looking for specific information?
Simple questions. Tough to get right. If you don’t, you will probably never know about it. What can you do today to make the front and back doors of your company more welcoming?
