Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Your Brand’s Value?

Most customers meet your brand on your website before they ever talk to you. A friend might recommend you, or they might see your truck in a neighbor’s driveway, but before they call, they look you up online. What they find in those first few seconds either confirms their good impression or kills it.

That makes your website one of the most important places your brand shows up. Here’s how to tell whether yours is adding to your brand’s value or taking away from it, and what to do about it.

Why your website carries so much weight

Your signage, vehicles, and print materials get seen. Your website gets studied. It’s where people compare you to the other two or three businesses that they’re considering, and where they decide whether you look like the kind of company they’d trust in their home, their car, or with their money.

A strong website doesn’t need to be flashy. It needs to look and sound like the same business your customers already know from everywhere else. When it doesn’t, people notice, even if they can’t put their finger on why.

Where websites lose brand value

These are the problems we see most often with local and growing businesses:

• It doesn’t match the rest of your brand. Your trucks have one logo and color scheme, but your website has an older version. To a customer, that reads as two different companies, or one that isn’t paying attention.
• It relies on generic stock photos. Smiling models in hard hats don’t build trust. Photos of your actual team, your actual work, and your actual location do.
• The headline could belong to anyone. “Quality service you can trust” says nothing a competitor couldn’t say. If a visitor can’t tell what makes you different then they move on.
• The voice changes from page to page. One page is casual, another reads like a legal document, a third was clearly written in a hurry. Inconsistent writing makes a business feel less established than it is.
• It’s slow or hard to use on a phone. A lot of people will look you up on their phone first. If pages are too slow, buttons are hard to tap, or the menu is difficult to use, they assume the rest of the experience will feel the same.

How to increase the brand value of your website

You don’t always need to start over. Most of the value comes from making the website a faithful, current reflection of your brand.

• Lead with what makes you different. The top of your homepage should answer who you serve, what you do, and why someone should choose you. If you can’t write that in one sentence, that’s a sign the brand strategy needs work before the website does.
• Apply your brand guidelines everywhere. Use the same logo files, colors, fonts, and tone that appear on your vehicles, signage, and social media. If you don’t have written guidelines, that’s the first thing to fix.
• Replace stock imagery with your own. Even well-lit phone photos of real projects usually do more for you than polished stock images, because they’re proof, not decoration.
• Show your proof. Reviews, project galleries, certifications, and years in business belong where visitors can see them without hunting.
• Make the next step obvious. A visitor who’s convinced shouldn’t have to search for your phone number or contact form.

What this looks like by industry

What your website needs to get right depends on the kind of business you run:

Home services businesses have a lot riding on a consistent website, because customers are vetting you before you ever show up at their door. Real photos of your crew and vehicles do a lot of the trust building before the customer calls.

Automotive related businesses get compared side by side, usually on a phone and usually in a hurry. Clear messaging about what sets you apart, whether that’s a specialty, a warranty, or turnaround time, gives someone a reason to call you instead of the next shop on the list.

E-commerce and growing retail brands don’t get a second touchpoint. The website is the store. Consistent product photography, a recognizable voice in product descriptions, and a checkout that looks like the rest of the site all make it easier for a first time visitor to buy.

5 questions to test your site

Answer these the way a first time visitor would see your site:

1. Does your site load fast when clicking between pages, including on a phone?

2. Do you have real photos of your business and services?

3. Does your website visually stand out from your competitors?

4. Does it match your logo, colors, and messaging everywhere else, from your vehicles and signage to your social media?

5. Is everything on it current, including your services, service area, team, and contact info?

If you answered no to two or more, your website is probably costing you business. The next question is why.

Is it a website problem or a brand problem?

This is the question worth answering before you spend money on either.

If you have a clear, consistent brand that shows up well everywhere except your website, the fix is the website itself. That might be a content refresh or a full website redesign, depending on how far it’s drifted.

If your website feels off but you’d struggle to describe what your brand should look and sound like instead, then the website isn’t really the problem. It’s your brand. In that case, brand development comes first, and the website gets built on top of it.

If you can’t tell which one you’re dealing with, or need help deciding where to start, TOTAL Advertising is here to help. We look at both before recommending a scope, so you’re only paying for the fix you actually need.

Book a free consultation with TOTAL Advertising here.

Written by

Amari Williams, Senior Search Marketing Specialist