3 Ways to Make Your Pet Care Website Stand out from the Rest
By Alain Parcan
When it comes to getting your business in front of potential customers in your service area, a Website is an essential piece of the puzzle.
With more and more customers researching companies online before hiring them, any company that’s missing a Website lacks the necessary credibility to add new customers—and ends up missing out on new business. In one noteworthy report1, researchers found 63% of consumers primarily use a business’s Website to find and engage with a local service.
So if your company has a Website —great, you’ve passed step one! But if you’re going to stand out among the pack, it’s going to take some added effort.
Here are three ways to make your pet care Website stand out from the rest:
1 Provide Educational Content.
There’s a lot on a customer’s mind when they search for a local pet care company. They want to know if they can trust you, if you know what you’re doing and if your business can properly care for pets. This is where it helps to host educational content about your industry.
Your content can take the form of blog posts, FAQs or pages with detailed information about your services. This helps win over smart shoppers who like to know as much as they can about a topic before they close on a deal. Not everyone is familiar with why leaving your pets at home all day is a bad idea, but you can break the mold and list some information on your Website that explains why pets tend to thrive in more active and social environments.
Even if the consumer doesn’t end up making a deal with you, featuring this educational material on your Website will do the following:
- Establish your company as an industry expert
- Create a relationship between the customer and your business where they know they can trust you without any sales pitches
- Help customers make an empowered decision they can feel good about, rather than a skeptical choice stemming from sales tactics
- Increase the chance your website is shown for relevant searches on Google.
2 Use Personalized Visual Media. Another way to get in front of your competitors is by posting visual content that is unique, personalized and high quality. When perusing a series of pet care sites, there are two ends of the spectrum Websites tend to fall in. On one end, there are the sites with low–quality images taken from a cell phone. On the other end, you’ll find sites that showcase the same stock images as dozens of other companies. The key is to find a spot in the middle ground that combines quality with personalization.
Enlisting the help of a professional photographer (or even someone with a great camera) to take some photos of your team and facility is a great way to let your customers know they’re dealing with real people. Customers will have an easier time trusting a company with personalized media than they will with a cookie–cutter template site.
Push it a step further and have a professional put together a company video for your Website. According to Google2, about half of Internet users look for videos related to a service before contacting the company. Video content is an awesome way to explain to your audience who you are and what you do. Sure, your Website is able to do that as well, but a personalized video will be able to do so in a way that is quick, fun and convenient for your Website visitors.
3 Give Calls–To–Action. If you’ve followed the first two steps, you’re on your way to a great site that is sure to stand out! There’s more to a quality Website than great content, however. User experience should always be the first thing on your mind when designing a site, which is why it’s key to include a Call–To–Action (CTA). Typically in the form of a button, CTAs guide your Website’s visitors through your site.
Maybe you want your visitors to see the different boarding packages you offer. If so, you should feature a noticeable button that says “View Our Boarding Services!” that is easy to find on the Home page. Once you link this button to your Boarding page, you’ve effectively made the user experience friendlier for the potential customer. To seal the deal, place another CTA on the Portfolio page saying “Schedule Reservation,” which links out to your Contact page. From a marketing standpoint, you’ve strategically laid out a path that converts curious shoppers to interested leads.
When it comes to your Website, quality design and content will yield noticeable results in the long run. It’s not enough to simply exist online anymore; you also have to be able to stand out. And there’s no better way to stand out than by building a Website that is well designed and full of smart, personal content. Online searchers don’t settle for less, so neither should you!
References:
2 https://think.storage.googleapis.com/docs/shopping-micro-moments-mobile-trends.pdf
Alain Parcan, Director of Marketing for Market Hardware, Inc., brings nearly 10 years of experience in educating businesses so they can market themselves more effectively. Market Hardware helps small businesses compete on the Web and offers special discounts for pet care businesses. You can Reach Alain’s team at 888-381-6925.