Your website is one of the most important marketing and business development tools you have. A majority of prospective clients will begin their hunt for IT services with a search engine, with these searches often being local in nature.
The primary purpose of your website is two fold: 1) to help prospects find you; and 2) once they find you, to tell them about what your business does (services).
Whether a small or large IT services provider, there are 6 essential website features that are crucial to generating more leads:
- Mobile-Friendly
- Easy to Contact
- Services
- Case Studies/Testimonials/Reviews
- Blog
- Local SEO
Mobile-Friendly
Potential clients are almost certainly searching for your services on a phone. More often than not, searches with local intent (e.g. local IT support) are performed on a mobile device. This shift in mobile preference makes it even more important to ensure your website is mobile-friendly. If a user visits your website and it isn’t optimized for mobile, it can make it more difficult for them to see and process the information on the site—but more importantly, you immediately come across as unsophisticated.
In early 2015, Google announced that they would be using “mobile-friendliness” as a ranking signal for mobile searches. What does this mean for your IT services company? Beyond the importance of a mobile website for user experience, if you don’t have a mobile or responsive website yet, you may find your rankings dropping in mobile search results. Try out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure your website is optimized.
Easy to Contact
This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many websites don’t have contact information easily accessible. Here are some tips to consider:
- Add a phone number in the header of your website so it appears on every page;
- Make phone numbers on your website click-to-call links to streamline the process for mobile users;
- Include a link to a contact page in your primary navigation. Your contact page should include a general inquiry form
If you have the internal resources and the time to manage, consider using a third-party ‘live chat’ platform to connect with website visitors in real-time. In addition to being a great sales tool for prospective clients, it can be a helpful resource for support of current customers.
Service Pages
It is important that prospective clients know what you can do for them. Have a page on your website that lists your top IT services, which can link to individual pages for sub-practice areas or further information. Consider linking to additional resources like specific case studies for that service, or testimonials to aid in the hiring process.
In addition to helping visitors find the information they need; service pages can provide an SEO benefit for your website.
Many visitors who find your website through a search engine will be searching for service + location (ex: desktop support in Chicago, disaster recovery services Chicago). Having individual service pages can help you get found in search engines for some of those long-tail queries. For example:
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/services/desktop-support/
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/services/disaster-recovery/
Case Studies/Testimonials/Reviews
Recommendations from third parties are often more trusted than from the source itself. Build trust and credibility by adding client testimonials, awards, and recognitions to your website. You can even embed or link to reviews on third party sites (e.g. Yelp or Google) as an additional source.
Especially in a professional services company like IT services, prospective clients will want to know how you solved a similar problem for another company. Even better, would be to show them how you solved a similar problem for a similar company, meaning in the same industry.
Develop as many case studies as possible that are easy-to-read, detailed with specific project actions, and provide real results or metrics. Consider an outline of 1) problem, 2) solution, and 3) results.
Blog
Having a blog on your website is a great way to position your IT firm as a subject matter expert on IT topics. Beyond credibility, blogging has SEO benefits and helps prospective clients find your website on search engines.
Do you have services pages on your website like we mentioned earlier? Consider adding a feed of blogs relevant to that service on each of those pages to further demonstrate expertise or aid visitors on their quest for information.
Local SEO
As mentioned, many visitors who find your website through a search engine will be searching for service + location (ex: desktop support in Chicago, disaster recovery services Chicago). With Google increasingly favoring local businesses in its search engine results, local SEO is more important than ever.
According to the 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors report from Moz, the #1 ranking factor for local searches is: proximity of address to the point of search.
Here are the top 3 strategies to implement to boost your local search authority:
- Google My Business – click here for more information
- Online directories and citations – click here for more information
- Local Schema Markup – click here for more information
Grow Your IT Company
Having a website is a must, but merely throwing up something will get you nowhere—it needs to be a great website. Ensure that you incorporate the 6 features that every IT services company should have: mobile-friendly, easy to contact, services, case studies/testimonials/reviews, blog, and local SEO.
For more information on growing your IT services company, download our in-depth guide: IT Marketing Best Practices Guide. Also, Modern Marketing Partners has broad experience managing marketing for regional, national and global Information Technology consulting and IT services brands with digital marketing excellence, thought leadership content, lead generation tactics, and more. Contact us today to learn how we can help!
By: Lindsay Brown
