Part 4 of 5

Make It Convert

Turning a site that exists into a site that produces enquiries — messaging, trust signals, mobile and speed.

30 min

Your site now exists and is structurally sound. This module is about the difference between a site people visit and a site people act on. Most of it comes down to clarity, and clarity is mostly a writing problem rather than a design one.

Benefits and features

A feature is what something is. A benefit is what changes for the person because of it. Both belong on the page — the benefit sells, the feature makes the benefit believable. Most beginner sites list only features and wonder why nothing lands.

The same thing, three ways

Feature only: "Weekly reporting dashboard." Benefit only: "Always know where you stand." Both, which is what works: "Always know where you stand — a weekly dashboard showing what came in, what converted, and what it cost." The benefit gives them a reason to care; the feature makes it credible.

Writing that converts

Write to one person. "You", not "our clients" or "businesses".
Lead with the outcome, support with the mechanism, prove with evidence.
Cut adjectives that cannot be checked — innovative, passionate, cutting-edge, world-class. They are noise and every competitor uses them.
Use numbers where they are real and verifiable. Never invent them.
Short sentences for important points. Long ones are fine for explanation, but not for the line you most need read.

The stranger test

Send your homepage link to three people who do not know your business. Ask two questions: what does this do, and who is it for? If two of three answer correctly without follow-up, the messaging works. If they hedge, the page is asking the reader to do work you should have done.

Calls to action that get clicked

Four rules

01
Name the action and the format
"Book a 20-minute call" beats "Get in touch" because the reader knows exactly what they are agreeing to.
02
Match commitment to trust
Asking a first-time visitor for a sales call is a large ask. A lower-commitment step — a guide, a short audit — converts more people and warms them up.
03
Repeat, do not vary
The same CTA at the top, middle and bottom. Different CTAs on one page split your traffic between them.
04
Remove competition around it
No secondary links beside the primary button. Give the action clear space.

Trust signals

You can add most of these on day one, before you have any clients. They work because they are checkable facts rather than claims.

A real photo of you, not an illustration or a stock image of a stranger.
Your actual location, even if you work remotely.
A working email address and, if you are comfortable, a phone number.
Clear pricing or at least a price range. Hidden pricing reads as expensive and evasive.
Honest scope — what you do not do, and who you are not right for.
A page that loads fast and works on a phone. Both are read as competence.

Mobile and speed

More than half of your visitors will be on a phone, and for social traffic it is far higher. A site that is awkward on mobile is not a minor flaw — it is most of your audience having a bad experience.

01Test on a real phone, not a resized browser window. They behave differently.
02Tap targets need to be comfortably thumb-sized — roughly 44 pixels minimum.
03Body text at 16 pixels or larger. Anything smaller forces pinch-zooming.
04Compress every image before uploading. Unoptimised images are the single most common cause of slow sites.
05Check your load time on a mobile connection, not your office wifi.

Forms fail silently

The most common serious bug on a small business website is a contact form that submits successfully and delivers nothing. It looks fine to every visitor and to you. Test it, check the inbox, and check the spam folder — then test it again after any change to the site.

Exercise

Run the stranger test

This is the fastest diagnostic available to you, and almost nobody does it.

01Send your homepage to three people outside your industry.
02Ask exactly two questions: what does this business do, and who is it for?
03Write their answers down word for word, including the wrong ones.
04Rewrite your hero section based on what they got wrong, then retest with one new person.

Do this now

Fill in your own contact form right now, from your phone, and confirm the email arrives. If it does not, fix that before anything else on this list.

Recap

Benefits sell, features make the benefit believable — use both.
Cut every adjective a competitor could also claim.
One CTA, named specifically, repeated unchanged.
Test on a real phone, and test your form end to end.