Do you like chili? Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Devens Chili Cook-off for Autism and found that many other people like chili too. At least 600 other people also liked chili. As I wandered throughout all the tents at the event, I noticed that each and every pot of chili was different in a number of ways. There were thick, meaty, heavy ones, and there were loose, saucey, spicy ones. Some had cheese to add, some didn’t. Interestingly enough, I found myself relating back to how your website is like chili. Here are a few of my observations:
- Is your website chunky and heavy like some chili? Does it load slowly?
- Is your site clean, like a smooth no meat chili?
- Is your site optimized so that your chili taste testers can find it?
- Is anyone serving your chili to your taste testers? (We refer to this as Website Maintenance)
- Are you talking to your customers, like the chili folks did today?
At the chili fest there were many other things to do, like a moon bounce, a raffle, a band, and you could buy hot dogs, water, soda or beer. All of these things were placed around the focus area, so as not to distract the person and their focus of tasting the chili and voting for the best chili.
Quick Fact: The winner received just over 100 votes and second place received 94.
What I like about the chili fest was that the focus was on the chili and the competition! That is how your website should be. Many times I get asked, by clients and new website prospects, about adding just about everything to their website. I always recommend keeping the focus as tight as possible. If you can keep the focus, then you have a greater likelihood that your website will rank higher on Google.
Are people waiting in line for your services?
One final note: The beer tent. This photo should represent the line that is forming at your contact form on your website. Hopefully you have an offer that is appealing enough for people to get in line and give you money for your services. If you are not getting enough requests from your website, then you should begin to ask yourself if you are doing a good enough job telling visitors what you do and what you want them to do on your site. As I relate this right back to the chili cook-off; it’s all about the votes. If you want to the be the winner, and win the business, by getting the votes, just like they do at these chili cook-offs, then you need to get the votes via your contact form or conversion form on your website.
Kudo’s to the Devens Grill for being out in front on this event, and to the Nashoba Valley Chamber of Commerce which is how I found out about it!