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| Offering Free Website Health Checks to Attract New Clients | |
By Mitchell Harper |
Published
03/26/2007
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Web Design
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Rating:
 
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The ArticleIntroduction Here in Australia it's common for mortgage brokers (that is, companies that match you up with a home loan that meets your needs) to offer free mortgage health checks to attract new customers. With a little creative planning and ingenuity you can adapt this simple strategy to attract a constant stream of new clients to your web design services. In this article I'll explain how to do it. How Does a Website Health Check Work? It's very simple. You promote the fact that you're offering free website health checks. Someone who owns a website gives you a call asking about giving their website a health check. They give you the link to their website and you spend 10 minutes looking over their website, filling out a checklist (which I'll give you shortly) as you go. You then give them a call back and fax/email them a copy of your website health checklist, offering tips on how you can improve their website for them. Creating Your Own Website Checklist To get started you need a checklist which you can use when looking at the websites of people/companies who respond to your free website health check offer. Here's a checklist you can use to get started. Of course you can customize it to suit your needs: 1. Does the website clearly and quickly tell the visitor what the business does? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Is this website designed for easy accessibility and navigation? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Does the website focus on the business or the visitors needs? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Does the website engage the potential customer and persuade he or she to take action? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Are there convincing contact points to get potential customers talking to the business? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. Does the site show credibility? Can the visitor trust the website? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. Does the website work in the most popular website browsers? Yes / No If not, leave suggestions below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Etc … You can add any questions you like in here that will help you when assessing the websites you'll look at. The key idea with this website health check is to show how you can add value to their website using the skills and services you already have. By offering a free website health check service you can easily attract new clients that are happy to pay you to improve their website and then become regular clients by showcasing your skills and expertise before they've actually spent money with you. Getting the Word Out You can include details of your free website health check in any and all marketing material that you send out to prospects and potential clients. You can also add the website health check to your website, where you can include a form for people to fill out where they can include their contact details, a link to their website and the goals of their website. If you wanted to take this to the extreme you could contact businesses in your local area and setup an appointment to provide them with a no-obligation, 100% free website health check (make sure you tell them it's no-obligation. You should offer this as a free service with no strings attached). You could even complete the website health check for them *before* contacting them and give them a call letting them know you're a web designer and you've completed a free website health check for their existing site and would like to setup a time to come in and discuss it with them. Conclusion If you're straightforward and honest about how you can improve your potential customers websites and you present them with your free website health check you'll be amazed at the overwhelmingly positive response you receive, as well as the number of companies that will be happy to become your clients. In business it pays (literally) to give as much as you can away for free. The more you give, the more you get as the old saying goes and it's no different with web design. |
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10 Responses to "Offering Free Website Health Checks to Attract New Clients" 
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said this on 26 Mar 2007 12:57:52 PM CDT
Thanks for the tip Mitch, that's good advice. It can, however, still be bloody hard to convince a business that your intentions honorable. People are so damn skeptical these days since the DOT.COM bust.
You say "give as much as you can away for free"...does that mean you're going to make "FastFind" available for free again?! |
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 3:34:00 AM CDT
Hi Mitch, thanks for your advice. Keep it coming please - we all need a bit of a jolt from time to time to make sure we keep implementing ways of getting new business.
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 7:30:47 AM CDT
Good tip, I think that I will use this to attract more customers, although people don't believe nothing in life is free
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 8:35:32 AM CDT
A Health Check for a website is a really good tip. It's similar to a free marketing evaluation that marketing companies were offering a couple of years ago. And it probably has a similar outcome. People think you are trying to 'sell them.' Or you get a lot of lookie loos who just want something for nothing with no real intention of asking for help to improve the site (after you've put in the time). We'll test it out and report our results. Maybe something surprising will come from offering a Health Check. Maybe not. We'll let you know. Thanks.
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 10:51:46 AM CDT
Great idea!
People are skeptical, but this is a great tool to break through perhaps. |
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 1:47:53 PM CDT
Great idea! Thanks for sharing with us.
I think potential customers are more likely to respond when you focus on the immediate benefits to them. I like this list because it quickly demonstrates many (7) ways that your web services can benefit them. Most potential customers would not listen to a sales pitch with that many points! Much more likely to respond to this approach. |
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said this on 30 Mar 2007 5:12:51 PM CDT
You have some good ideas here. I am finding that my prospects are people that would dismiss this based on it being free. Moreover, my clients are also people that once they own a web site (even from 5 years ago), think just that... they already have a web site and it hasn't done them any good, and are tired of people trying to sell them more technical stuff they never have understood in the first place.
You have a good idea about a local meeting. Yes, once I get someone across my desk, I can convince 95% of them of what I'm selling. But the Internet world is all about expanding beyond our local area. The thing about mortgage companies, is that the free offers attract new first time buyers who know they need to go down that road to get to their new house. If something is free along the way, that's good too. Sorry, not real positive here, more just thinking out-loud. |
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said this on 28 Jun 2007 12:59:33 AM CDT
This is a great idea. I am gonna work on it to try and promote my web design business.
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said this on 09 Aug 2007 11:19:45 AM CDT
Well written Mich.
In my country, insurance agents implement a FREE health check for people and ask them to sign up for thier insurance package later on. I will defiently include this in my marketing plan. Well done!! Thanks once again. |
