5 Tips for a Kick-ass Website
The first interaction many people have with your dog walking business is a visit to your website. Don't let the interaction stop there! An attractive website shows clients you are professional, builds trust, and gives them an easy way to connect with you to find out more. If your website is lackluster you will lose potential clients.
#1 Make it Easy to Navigate
So you’ve probably got your main navigation down—clickable links on every page to the various pages of your site. But, you also want to give visitors a prompt on each page to keep them moving throughout the site. From the homepage you might have a clickable button that says “learn more” that navigates to your services page. And on the services page you might have a “book now” or “get started” button. Make sure you have an eye-catching "contact us" or similar call to action button on every single page.
#2 Don’t Neglect Your About Page
Other than your homepage, the about page is likely the most visited page on your site. People want to know who is coming into their home and taking care of their dog, so they naturally want to check you out.
Make sure you have a photo of yourself, and take special care when writing your copy so it’s interesting and tells the client how you can help them. You want to stand out, so avoid the standard blurb about how you started dog walking because you have a love of animals, every other dog walker's about page will say that. Say it differently, and focus on building their trust.
If you have certifications or have won awards related to pet care, tell them why it matters. For example:
Because I care about keeping your dog safe, I’m certified in pet first aid & CPR.
or:
We’ve been Awarded Portland’s Best Dog Walker Award for 5 years running, so you can trust that your dog is getting star treatment from a company that really cares about their clients.
#3 Include Your Location Prominently on Your Homepage
This oversight is surprisingly common, but if people can’t verify if you’re in their area quickly they’ll bounce on to another site. Plus it will help your site come up in local searches. It’s also smart to include location on every page in case visitors aren’t hitting the homepage.
#4 Keep it Simple
Clean, simple design will keep the focus on what you offer, rather than drawing eyes to distracting backgrounds or worse, annoying people with music. The last thing a potential client wants is for music to come blaring over their speakers while popping into your site at work! Keep in mind the purpose of your website is to get potential clients to contact you and start service. You don’t need to post all your policies & procedures on the site. Most people won’t read them anyway. Of course you do need to go over this, just not on the website. If you want to include a short blurb about dogs needing to be friendly and spayed/neutered, that’s fine— it will weed out dogs that wouldn’t be a good fit. But all your policies and procedures can be saved for after people have inquired about your service.
#5 Include Social Proof
Letting potential clients know their peers are using your service and are loving it goes a long way in convincing them it will be a good fit for them too. But don’t gather up all your testimonials and stick them on a testimonials page—instead feature them on pages where site visitors are making a decision on whether they want to book with you. Include one or two on your homepage, on your services page, and on your about page. Heck, include one on your contact page too! Testimonials pages aren’t clicked on as often as the other pages of your site, yet social proof can be very influential in your potential client’s decision making process. Make sure they see them!
