Perfect Website Guide

tell meaningful
STORIES
Perfect Website Guide

The Problem
The graphic artists and designers we’re hiring to build our
websites and brochures have degrees in design and know
everything about Photoshop, but how many of them have read a
single book about writing good sales copy?
How many of them have studied how to structure a website in a

way that converts browsers into buyers?
How many of them know how to clarify your message so

customers listen?
And worse, these companies are glad to take your money,

regardless of whether you see results or not.
The fact is, while a professional looking website is important,

pretty websites by themselves don’t sell things. Words sell
things.
And if we haven’t clarified our message, our customers won’t

listen.
Our "Perfect Website Template" in the following pages lays out

the exact sections, elements and words you need to use to
capture the attention of website visitors, explain to them exactly
what you do and why they need you, and how they can buy it.
If your website is lacking these elements, in the right order, you

are guaranteed to be missing out on sales.
The Brain's 2
Primary Functions
The brain is designed to do 2 primary things:
1. Keep you alive.
This includes things like guiding you to food and water, urging you
to reproduce, finding safety and shelter, and bonding with your
"Tribe".
2. Conserve calories.
Wasting calories isn't good for survival. For this reason, the brain is
designed to run very efficiently.
The problem is, processing information is very inefficient and

burns a lot of calories.
In order to run as efficiently as possible, the brain discards any and

all information that doesn't help us survive and thrive.
Most company's website are messy, hard to read, or filled

with bragging about how awesome they are.
If your website is messy, irrelevant and confusing to visitors, and

doesn't immediately and clearly explain to them how you help
them survive and thrive better, their brain will shut down
and they will click away and find a competitor's website
that they can understand quickly and easily.
The Grunt Test
If you sat a caveman down with a

laptop, and showed him your website
for 5 seconds, then shut the screen, he
should be able to tell:
1. What do you offer?
2. How will it solve my painful problem and

make my life better?
3. What do I need to do to buy it?
If a caveman can't tell those 3 things within

5 seconds, neither will your website visitors,
and they will move on to a competitor's
website that they can understand quickly
and easily.
7 Reasons Your Website

Isn’t Working
There's a big difference between a website that makes
people "wow", and a website that makes people "buy".
These are the 7 main reasons that cause websites to

fail:
1. You Don’t Clearly State What You Do
2. You Haven’t Connected With Your Customers’

Problems
3. You’re Talking About Your Company’s History, Story,

or Awards (yawn)
4. You Haven’t Proven that Your Solution Works
5. You’re Using the Wrong Images
6. You’ve Got Massive Blocks of Text
7. You’re Not Asking People to Take Action

The Cost of an
Ineffective Website
Customer Lifetime Value is the single most important metric for
understanding your customers.
CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) is a prediction of all the value a

business will derive from their entire relationship with a customer.
What is the average CLV of a customer to you?
Let’s say it’s $1,000.
If just 1 customer per month with a CLV of $1,000 visits your

website and can’t tell exactly what you do and how it’s relevant to
them within 5 seconds, over 4 years, your business will lose
$48,000.
If you lose just 2 customers per month because your website

confuses potential customers, that doubles to $96,000 in 4 years.
Most companies confuse nearly everyone who visits their website,

and they miss out on multiple customers per day with a CLV of
$1,000.
The losses for most companies are in the hundreds of thousands or

even millions over a few, short years.
The 10 Elements Every

Website Should Have
1. Welcome Bar and Menu
2. Header
3. Social Proof
4. "The Plan"
5. Welcome Video
6. "The Explanation"
7. Testimonials
8. "The Cost"
9. The Price
10. The "Junk Drawer"

1. Welcome Bar and Menu
Welcome Bar: An attention-grabbing bar located at

the top bottom of your site that lets you welcome
visitors, make announcements, collect email sign-
ups, and promote products to visitors.
The most effective use of a "Welcome Bar" is a

"Time-Sensitive Call to Action".
Example: Click here to get 20% off your order for

the next 48 hours.
Menu: Your menu should have your logo on the left,

your Navigation Links and a big, contrasting "Call to
Action" button on the right.
Ideally, you want to keep your navigation links to 4

or less.
2. Header
Your Header should contain 4 elements:
1. A background picture or video that depicts your

customer's success.
2. A big, bold "Benefit-Driven Headline". What do you do,

and how does it better your customer's life?
3. A Subheadline that states exactly what your product or

service is, and 3 additional benefits or points of difference,
stated in 1 short sentence.
4. A "Direct" Call to Action button (Buy Now) and a

"Transitional" Call to Action button (Download Our Free
Resource).
3. Social Proof
What is social proof? Put simply, it’s the positive influence

created when someone finds out that others are doing
something.
How do you apply the concept of social proof to make your

website more effective?
You will need to put one or more of these kinds of social

proof in this section:
1. Logos of clients you've served (if you're in B2B).
2. Logos of publications, blogs, magazines, websites, radio

and/or TV shows your company has been featured in.
3. Industry-specific awards or certifications.
Having an SSL certificate (Safesite Secure Checkout,

Verisign, SSL Security, whatever applies that won't break
the bank) is also important. It could just be the Paypal logo
with the security associated with Paypal checkout.
4. "The Plan"
This section starts with a quick snippet

of a customer testimonial (more social
proof).
Then, ideally, you should distill the

entire process you take your customer
through down to a 3-4 step plan.
End with another Call to Action button.

Example of "The Plan"

from ADT Security
5. Welcome Video
This section should include a "Welcome Video"

where you:
- Introduce your company

- Talk about the problems your customers have
- What your "Plan" is for solving their problem
- Your commitments/promises/guarantees
- The "Cost" of not buying your product/service
- A strong Call to Action.
You should also mix in multiple customer

testimonials into your Welcome Video for even more
social proof.
6. The Explanation
This section is where you can give interested

prospective customers the ability to learn more about what
makes your company so awesome and different.
Here, you can explain your "Value Proposition" more in-

depth.
3-4 paragraphs is ideal for this section.
Either allow people to click to "expand" the text in this

section, or have a button that directs them to another page
where they can read more.
Most companies love to put a huge block of text bragging

about how awesome they are right at the top of their
website.
Don't do that.
7. Testimonials
This section is pretty self-explanatory. Authentic

customer testimonials are the most powerful form of
social proof.
A few things to make customer testimonials on your

website more effective:
1. Include a picture of your actual customer (with their

permission), not stock footage.
2. Get their permission to shorten their testimonial, if

necessary. You want to keep it short and to the point.
3. With their permission, use at least their first name

and last initial, and their profession, if possible.
8. "The Cost"
In this section, you need to highlight the

"Cost" of not buying your product/service.
This section isn't about the prices you

charge, it's about the customer's painful
problem, and how they will continue to have
this problem if they don't take action, and
buy your product/service.
If your product/service saves your customers

time or money, highlight "the cost" of time
or money they will waste if they don't buy
from you.
9. The Price
In this section, it is ideal to be upfront about your

pricing.
If you sell a service, you need to simplify and

"productize" your services into packages with
specific prices.
There are 2 big benefits of being upfront with your

pricing:
1. It eliminates "price shoppers" immediately. You

don't have to waste time going back and forth by
phone or email with a customer just shopping
around for the cheapest price.
2. It shows you have nothing to hide and

automatically builds trust with your customer.
10. The "Junk Drawer"
This is the Footer of your website

where "everything else" goes.
On the left, make sure your footer has

your branding.
Things like your copyright, Privacy

Policy, Terms and Conditions, address,
contact information, social icons, latest
articles, FAQ, SSL certificate, industry
certificates, employment applications,
and other links can go in this section.
About Page
The second most important page on your website is
the “About” page. In order to be effective, keep in
mind that this page is still all about the customer,
not you. It needs to be relevant to them and their
needs, not be a page for you to brag on and on about
yourself.
Your "About" page should have:
1. A video (99.9 % of people don't have one)
3. Some interesting tidbit about the people at the

company
4. Something unique about the business
5. Reasons they would like to do business with us

(guarantees, testimonials, etc.).
It should be less "about us", and more about "why

us"! At the end of the day, the customer is less
interested in you and more interested in how you
make their life better.
Checkout Page
The third most important page on your website is the
checkout page. If you have a checkout page on your
website, it should be as simple and easy to navigate as
possible.
Remove all barriers so customers will feel

comfortable booking and paying online.
No Captchas (yes, we've seen captchas on checkout

pages before), no fancy things to divert their
attention, nothing that will get in the way of the sale.
Here are a few elements that will help close the sale:
1. Some symbol that shows checkout will be safe

(shield, lock or SSL certificate icon)
2. A mention of your "Guarantee" Policy
3. A short testimonial
4. Your Google, Yelp, and/or Facebook Rating or some

other way to overcome objections
Charity
Your business must be a cause to be supported and a
movement to be joined, not just a product to be sold.
Research from Harvard Business Review shows 64% of

consumers that want a relationship with a brand do so
based on a brand’s higher purpose, philosophy or overall
mission.
Having a higher purpose for your business, beyond just

profit, will yield the following benefits:
1. You’ll further differentiate your business from the

competition
2. It makes clients feel good about doing business with you
3. It is a great way to build general goodwill
4. You will be helping real people get back on their feet,

helping with poverty alleviation, helping protect against
child abuse, and a gazillion other societal ills
5. And dammit, it just feels good to do your part.
If your company has a higher purpose and supports any

causes, add some information about this to your Homepage
and "About" page.
What Now?
Here are the 7 crucial marketing pieces every company
should have:
1. A clear message that captivates
2. A website that works
3. Content that builds an engaged audience
4. A free resource that generates leads
5. An automated email campaign that nurtures leads
6. A sales letter that converts leads to customers
7. Perfect testimonials that sell
If you need help implementing an effective

marketing strategy, contact us at
Hello@TellMeaningfulStories.com

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tell meaningful

How many of them have studied how to structure a website in a

How many of them know how to clarify your message so

And worse, these companies are glad to take your money,

The fact is, while a professional looking website is important,

And if we haven’t clarified our message, our customers won’t

Our "Perfect Website Template" in the following pages lays out

If your website is lacking these elements, in the right order, you

1. Keep you alive.

The problem is, processing information is very inefficient and

In order to run as efficiently as possible, the brain discards any and

Most company's website are messy, hard to read, or filled

If your website is messy, irrelevant and confusing to visitors, and

The Grunt Test

If you sat a caveman down with a

1. What do you offer?

2. How will it solve my painful problem and

3. What do I need to do to buy it?

If a caveman can't tell those 3 things within

7 Reasons Your Website

These are the 7 main reasons that cause websites to

1. You Don’t Clearly State What You Do

2. You Haven’t Connected With Your Customers’

3. You’re Talking About Your Company’s History, Story,

4. You Haven’t Proven that Your Solution Works

5. You’re Using the Wrong Images

6. You’ve Got Massive Blocks of Text

7. You’re Not Asking People to Take Action

CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) is a prediction of all the value a

What is the average CLV of a customer to you?

Let’s say it’s $1,000.

If just 1 customer per month with a CLV of $1,000 visits your

If you lose just 2 customers per month because your website

Most companies confuse nearly everyone who visits their website,

The losses for most companies are in the hundreds of thousands or

The 10 Elements Every

1. Welcome Bar and Menu

10. The "Junk Drawer"

1. Welcome Bar and Menu

Welcome Bar: An attention-grabbing bar located at

The most effective use of a "Welcome Bar" is a

Example: Click here to get 20% off your order for

Menu: Your menu should have your logo on the left,

Ideally, you want to keep your navigation links to 4

Your Header should contain 4 elements:

1. A background picture or video that depicts your

2. A big, bold "Benefit-Driven Headline". What do you do,

3. A Subheadline that states exactly what your product or

4. A "Direct" Call to Action button (Buy Now) and a

What is social proof? Put simply, it’s the positive influence

How do you apply the concept of social proof to make your

You will need to put one or more of these kinds of social

1. Logos of clients you've served (if you're in B2B).

2. Logos of publications, blogs, magazines, websites, radio

3. Industry-specific awards or certifications.

Having an SSL certificate (Safesite Secure Checkout,

This section starts with a quick snippet

Then, ideally, you should distill the

End with another Call to Action button.

Example of "The Plan"

This section should include a "Welcome Video"

- Introduce your company