What sort of a first impression do you want to make?

First impressions last, and a poor first impression takes a long time to live down.

These days we tend to encounter new organisations by looking at their website, so our first impressions are shaped by what we see such a website.

So, a major challenge in the world of client attraction is all to do with your website.

What sort of first impression will your website make?

Is your website written with employers in mind?

Our mystery shoppers, business people who look at FE from a business perspective, regularly say that if they were not being paid to look at a learning provider’s website, they would click away very quickly.

Their main complaints are about the target audience.

“It’s written for youngsters."
“It’s not written for employers.”
“You can only make sense of it if you’re seventeen.”

Look at your home page.

• Does your home page speak directly to employers?
• Do you have some guidance for employers on that page?
• Do you take employers away from the pages dealing with your mainstream provision quickly?
• Do you have dedicated pages for employers?Do you have a micro-site for employers?

If you do, so far, so good.

What do you fill your web pages with?

If your web pages for employers are lists of courses and qualifications, how long do you think employers stay on your site? How likely do you think they are to come back to your site?

Put yourself into the employer’s shoes.

If an employer has already decided to do business with you and knows which programmes are right for his or her organisation, then lists of programmes are fine. However, the majority of employers will not know which programmes they want when they first visit your site. They may also need to be convinced that training is right for them.

Look at your site. Ignore anything that is written about courses and qualifications, and review what’s left.

• Do you have interesting copy on your site? – That is, would an employer find it interesting?
• Do you have valuable information? – That is, would an employer think the information was of value?
• Do you entice employers to want to work with you?
• Do you speak directly to employers about why they should work with you?
• Do you talk about the benefits employers will gain if they enter into partnership with you?

In the majority of cases, there is very little to encourage employers to start to build a relationship with a provider on the website.

This should lead you to a very important question.

Why do you have a website?

• Do you know why you have a website?
• Do you know where your website fits into your approach to communicating with employers?
• Do you know what purpose your website serves?
• Do you know if anyone visits it?
• Do you know how people use it?

Most importantly have you worked out what you want people to do as a result of visiting your website?

• If they are first time visitors, do you want them to come back again? If you do, how will you entice them to return?

• If they are returning visitors, what do you want to do to reward them for visiting again? How are you going to encourage them to come back to your site again and again?

If you haven’t thought about these things and taken action on them then you’re not making your website work hard enough for you.

It’s time to ask the question: What sort of a first impression does your website make?

It’s also time to make sure it’s a positive impression.

This is the fourth post is a series of ten about client attraction basics.

See also:

Will they remember you?