Ring, Ring, Why Don’t You Give Me a Call… My number is on the website…. Somewhere!

Do you find it annoying when you visit a website and can’t figure what the company does, or, even worse, how to contact them?

I do.  It makes me want to leave.

But it still happens far too often.

You go to a website, become interested in making an enquiry or finding out where they are located, and you have to dig around in the footer to find the “Contact Us” link.

If you’re a professional service provider, one of the main objectives of your website should be to generate enquiries for new business.  And if you’re selling products, adding prominent contact details shows that you are real business, which builds confidence in doing business with you.

But if you don’t make it easy for people to find out how to contact you, your web visitors can get frustrated and leave, which means that you’ll miss out on business opportunities.

Make it easy to find your contact details by:

• Including your phone number in the header or at the top of a side column – include the area code so it’s totally obvious which state you’re in
• Link your phone number to your Contact Us page
• Your Contact Us page should contain all your contacts details, including your phone number and address, plus a way to contact you via email, in case it’s outside business hours
• Include the Contact Us page on your main navigation
• Link to the Contact Us page at the end of your copy (were appropriate), for example, “Contact Us to discuss your how our services will improve your business”.

And if you have a business or office that you would like clients to visit, include a map of your location. Link to the map from the header or side column.

It can be hard to evaluate your own website when you look at it all the time, so if you’re not sure how easy it is to find the contact details, ask for feedback from some members of your target audience.