In a choice between you or your competitors, your USPs highly visible within your website can give you that edge
Your potential customers have a choice to buy from you – or others.
There are probably common benefits/features that both you and your competitors have, but what else makes you stand out from them?
Those USPs (Unique Selling Points) – the differences between you and your competitors – can be the deciding factor between a website visitor contacting you or your competitors.
Most businesses already have an internal ‘feeling’ of why people should buy from them, but that feeling needs to be translated into a strong message that can be used in your marketing, which includes your website.
Here’s an exercise for you to consider trying …
You’re looking for areas where you stand out from competitors.
For example, if you all offer a guarantee period, is yours stronger than theirs?
Another example: you have a proven 98% client retention rate due to your excellent customer service.
These are what become your USPs.
On that point 2, you can easily prove this is the case:
Go to your analytics software and look up how many people get to the part of your website where you have referenced some of your USPs. Not your case studies or testimonials pages – a specific area that really focuses on your overall USPs that make you stand out from competitors.
You’ll likely find that relatively few people get to that part of your website
Look at https://www.isova.co.uk/why-choose-isova
It goes into detail about how their ISO software makes accreditation and compliance easy.
It uses benefit-led statements that draw the attention of people thinking about or managing ISO in their business. For example:
and …
The purpose of that page is to give people multiple compelling reasons to get in touch and get help with the challenges of gaining and maintaining ISO accreditation.
Not every point made will be unique when compared to competitors – and that’s OK. Some of the benefits may be shared across others in the industry. But crucially, there are unique strengths highlighted too – the ones that are truly unique.
The key point from that example is this: the page doesn’t rely on a single USP. Instead, it builds a strong overall case for why someone should choose that provider.
In your own business, you might find that true stand-out USPs are hard to come by. If that’s the case, this approach shows how you can still create a persuasive ‘why choose us’ message by combining a range of benefits – even if some are shared with others.
Creating such a website page is one thing, but making the page highly visible is particularly important …
Notice how the ‘Why choose ISOVA?’ is in the top navigation bar of that website:
Whatever page people land on or go to, that constant message is visible.
Even more so when your website has been configured so that the main navigation bar stays sticky as people scroll down and up the pages.
Many web designers will hate the idea of taking up navigation bar space with a ‘why choose?’ type link to a page.
I understand those reasons (things start to get more cluttered) but I also have first-hand experience of seeing the levels of people who click on such navigation bar options from a different range of pages (and how that itself leads to people making contact).
Some will say: put that page within another section of the website, but not in the main navigation bar, but in response to that I say:
Put it in the main navigation bar for a month and see how many people click on it, and how many of those become enquiries.
Optionally, then move it to a more buried part of the website – not in the main navigation bar – and assess levels of clicks and enquiries.
Data should be what drives decisions – not views on what looks nice or not.
Such a ‘why choose us?’ type page that includes your USPs will benefit you if it’s in your main navigation bar, but you can do more than that …
Other parts of your website, particularly pages that get good levels of people landing on them, or navigating to them, can incorporate clear call to action buttons that encourage people to click on them to open up that page in a new tab.
For example, a page section that contains just a graphic call to action containing:
See 12 reasons why people do business with [Company Name] and not our competitors >>
By triggering a separate tab in their browser, people can look at that page and if they close it then they will still be in the original page on your website.
You could optionally use a pop-up window but that’s not so easy to track the levels of people who click through to it (except at a basic level withing Google Analytics).
When people have been on your website for a period of time, or looked at a number of pages, or even when they are about to exit your website, you could have a pop-up or slide-in appear that encourages them to find out more about why you’re a good choice for them.
You can modify staff email signatures so that they include a clear call to action button or link such as: ‘See why 100+ companies chose [company name]’, which would take them to your page.
The ultimate measure of any website-related changes is how many enquiries you get after the changes.
You will certainly be able to track how many of your website visitors get to your page (that includes your USPs) and that itself can lead to further activity such as: