Writing for the Customer's Second Visit

Nobody decides the first time

Someone finds your site, reads a page or two, and leaves. That is not a lost customer. It is usually the first of several visits.

In between, they look at two or three competitors, talk it over at home, and check their budget or their calendar.

When they come back, they are not browsing. They have a specific question: what it costs, how it works, what happens if it goes wrong, or simply the phone number.

Most sites are written for the first visit and make the second one surprisingly hard.

What people come back for

• The price, or at least a range to compare against others.
• The process: what happens first, what happens next, and how long it takes.
• The guarantee, or what happens if something goes wrong.
• Who does the work and what qualifies them.
• The phone number and hours, to act on the decision.
• The detail they half remember from the first visit.

The last is the hardest to serve. Someone remembers reading that the first consultation is free, or that you work Saturdays, and now has to find that one sentence again on a site they barely know.

How the second visit starts

The first visit often came from a search for a problem or a service. The second usually comes from a search for your business name, a half-typed address, or the browser's history.

That means it often lands on the home page, not on the article that brought them the first time. The home page has to lead to the details quickly.

Browser history and open tabs show page titles. A title such as "Services" or "Page 2" helps nobody find the page about fees again; a title such as "Bathroom renovation prices" does.

The second visit is also often on a different device: research on a phone at lunch, the decision at home on a laptop, or the other way around.

Give each detail a permanent home

Prices, the process and the guarantee each deserve one page, named plainly in the main menu, at an address that does not change.

Details scattered through blog posts, hidden in a PDF or shown only in a slider are hard to find even once. Finding them a second time, from memory, is harder still.

Short labels work best because they match what people are looking for: Prices, How it works, Guarantee, Contact. Clever names make the visitor guess.

Contact details on every page

Every page should carry the phone number in its header, in text a thumb can tap rather than inside a picture.

The address and hours belong in the footer, also on every page, because the second visit often ends with someone scrolling to the bottom looking for exactly those.

The contact page itself should say what happens after someone gets in touch: who answers, how quickly, and what the first conversation covers.

A worked example

A patent agent working with one assistant gets most new inquiries from inventors and small manufacturers. Many first arrive through an article on the site about whether an idea can be patented.

Readers liked the article and left. When they came back, usually by searching the firm's name, they landed on a home page about the firm's history.

The fees were in a PDF linked from one paragraph of one article. The steps from search to filing were spread across four blog posts. The phone number appeared only on the contact page.

So returning visitors either phoned with questions the site had already answered, or gave up looking.

The fix was three plain pages: fees, with typical ranges for a search and for an application; the process, step by step with rough timings; and what a first consultation covers.

Each went into the main menu, and the phone number went into the header. The articles stayed as they were, with a closing line pointing to the fees and the process.

Write detail pages to be scanned

A returning visitor wants one fact and wants it fast.

Put the answer first: the price range in the opening lines, then what changes it. Use headings that match the questions people ask, and keep each section short.

Dates help on pages that change. "Prices as of spring 2017" tells a returning visitor the figure is current, and tells you when it needs checking.

Use the same words everywhere

If the menu says Fees, the home page says Pricing and an article says Costs, a returning visitor may wonder whether these are three different things.

Pick one name for each detail and use it in the menu, the page title, the headings and the emails you send. The same goes for package names and service names.

And make sure the figures agree. A price on one page that differs from the same price on another undoes the trust both were meant to build.

Make the comparison easy

The returning visitor is often holding your site up against two others, sometimes in tabs side by side.

A plain list of what your price includes, such as permits, cleanup, materials or a warranty, lets them compare like with like. Without it, the lowest number on any of the three sites tends to look like the best deal.

You do not need to name competitors. You only need to make your own offer easy to read in full.

The counter-case

Some businesses rarely get a second visit.

A locksmith, an emergency plumber or a towing company is chosen in minutes, often on the first visit and often on a phone. For them, the first page has to carry everything.

A business that sells mostly to repeat customers by phone may also have less to gain. Even so, the phone number and hours on every page help every kind of visitor.

For any purchase people think about, write the detail pages for the returning visitor, because that visit is where the decision gets made.

The check

1. Search your business name and follow the result.
2. Find the price from the home page.
3. Find the process in two clicks or fewer.
4. Find the guarantee without searching.
5. Check page titles in the browser history.
6. Confirm the phone number is in every header.
7. Repeat it all on a phone.

Step one is how most second visits begin, so it is the honest test. If the page that appears does not lead to prices and process within a click or two, returning visitors are working harder than they should.

Bringing in that first visit is the subject of how-to articles that win the job anyway.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.