4. You’re selling an experience, a dream, not a commodity. Order your sales information accordingly.
On my first pass through this site, I noted that there were lots of different things missing. On my second pass I found much of that missing information. But I’ve spent HOURS looking over your site to try and help you improve it. Your customers spend just SECONDS and will abandon it at the drop of a hat.
Once you’ve narrowed this website down to just one location and apartment, you then need to narrow all your main sales ideas to a single page as well. It’s OK if you go into more detail on a sub page, but anything that anyone might be looking for has to be easy to find on that main page. 3 Lines of sales copy on your main sales page isn’t going to cut it.
Don’t hide links under drop down menus. Don’t hide links at the bottom of the page. People are searching quickly, they need the least resistance. Lay everything out for them to find in a single scroll.
Action: Sell the dream, upfront, not the commodity. Until you’ve sold them your version of the Paris dream, they won’t care about whether there’s a DVD, Microwave oven and Printer included. We are sold by emotional stories first, only then do we use logic to justify our decisions.
5. Once the decision to buy has been made, checkout should be a smooth ride to the finish. Don’t blow it now.
Your big “Availability And Booking” button tries to launch an external application on my computer. In most browsers that triggers a security warning which will scare the life out of people (and rightly so). Why do you need to access and use my calendar app to show me when you are available? That’s a basic tool for any rental site and should be IN the browser.
After I allow the app to take over my private calendar, I still can’t work out how to actually book. At this point, I’m more worried about how to remove all your data from my calendar. Imagine if you’re the 3rd or 4th website that I’ve browsed and my calendar is now full of other people’s data?
I’m guessing the only thing left to do is use the contact form? There’s nothing more cold and informal than asking people to just fill in a contact form. The form doesn’t even make people specify their preferred dates.
Understand, that most people don’t actually want to communicate with you, unless there’s a problem. They want to be sold a romantic story, they want to see as much as possible where they are going, big and bright. And then once they are sold, they want to book it, there and then, to secure their spot. If they want to talk to you, it’s usually because you haven’t given them the information they need or the trust signals to make them feel secure.
Action: You need to take people by the hand and make the final step of setting the dates and actually paying you EASY. This is a technology issue and you need to invest in a checkout system designed specifically for this type of thing. If you make the actual purchase procedure a chore, or an unknown quantity, people will leave in droves.
6. You are not your khaki’s, you are not your Philippe Starck table.
Your About page starts – “Hello! We’re your hosts, Ralph and Karen”. But where are you? I see a bookcase and a table. If you want us to trust you, we have to see you.
Sharing aspects of your origin story is fine. But people really don’t care about you. They only care about how your story affects them. So don’t talk about challenges related to the property…
“After a massive, year-long renovation project and its many challenges…” or “At some stage, we’ll probably write a book about the “joys” of buying a property in France [easy, once you know the ropes] and renovation do’s and don’ts [interesting when you live 5000 miles away and speak limited French!].”
You’re simply planting the idea that there may still be challenges with the property. Maybe the roof is going to fall on my head when I’m lying in bed? Those European contractors do spend all afternoon drinking wine, don’t they?
You link to your About us page from the home page, with the title “Why Choose Us” and that’s actually a good question to ask, but you don’t answer that on your About page. How you happened to end up with 2 apartments in France isn’t the reason why your customers should choose you.
Action: If you want people to trust you and communicate with you, this is where you must be visible, open and approachable. Images, video, positivity. Remove the building-related challenges from your story. Your whole site and every element of it should be answering the question – why choose us.
Some quick and dirty additions…
- There appear to be 3 different email addresses on the site, in addition to the contact form, which unnerves me a little. Get everything working on one email address, no losses, no delays.
- Apart from the 3 brief testimonials on the home page (which don’t have high trust signals, no pics, not from credible people or organisations I know), I don’t see any other testimonials on the site. What other people say about you is more important than what you say about you.
- Remove the weather plugin, it’s an unnecessary distraction. More often than not you’re advertising the fact that it’s cloudy or raining in Paris.
- The DEALS page is empty. Which makes people feel like they are missing out on something. People clicking on that page are likely looking for a reason to book now and they’re left with a blank page and an empty feeling. Maybe they should wait, maybe they will get a better deal somewhere else? Use it or remove it.
Summary
There’s a lot of good content hidden away where no one will ever see it. Split this site into two. One apartment, one site. Take us by the hand on an emotional journey. Show us BIG and bright images of your amazing apartments. Make us feel in control, but give us all the sales information we need without having to dig. Emotion first, logic second. Show us who YOU are and invest in the tech to manage your bookings quickly and seamlessly. Stay the course, see it through, make your mark!