Debt Collection Website Design Analysis — Waterbury, CT

Happy Friday!

It’s time for some small business website design tips. You know the drill: there are 5 essentials of business website design that you have to know if you want to turn online prospects into customers. To make them easier to learn, we analyze a real customer’s site, paying specific attention to the 5 essentials.

This week’s small business is American Adjustment Bureau in Waterbury, Connecticut. They provide debt collection services. Now, make the jump with me and we’ll dig into their website!

See the site in action: https://americanadjustmentbureau.com

Design:

First impression: there is a lot to like about this homepage design. From the blatant (and necessarily so) use of cold hard cash as an image, to the more subtle allusion to a higher power (the American government) with the site’s color palette, the whole design works together to drive home two key points:

• We’ll get your money back
• You can trust us

The marriage of design and copywriting is really on display in this site.

Marketing:

Here are a couple great marketing essentials on this page…

1) The Headline – The headline on the site gets right to the heart of the service they provide – clearly and quickly. “Our service doesn’t cost… it pays!” Boom. If I’m a prospect looking for debt collection services, I immediately know that I have found the kind of business I’m looking for.

2) Trust logos – To back up their claim to be a trustworthy business (an extremely important distinction in their line of work), American Adjustment Bureau includes a logo on the site that says “BBB Accredited Business.” Of course, the BBB has mad cred with pretty much everybody, so that means a lot to unsure visitors.

Now, I do have a couple of bones to pick with this design from a marketing standpoint – and they are pretty simple things that can be changed easily. First, I want a contact form on that homepage. That is THE most effective way to turn visitors into leads. Just offer them something right there in exchange for an email address. Then you follow up with them affordably with email and stay front-of-mind.

The good news is that they have a contact us button right on the homepage and pops up with ALL of their relevant information. It doesn’t even navigate you to a different page, so that’s good. Another plus point: all of their web pages end with a call to action to email or call them.

I would love if there was a big phone number in the top right hand corner that was consistent from page to page as well!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization):

SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so that search engines can understand what your website is about and rank it for relevant keywords people might be using to search for sites like yours. The better your SEO, the higher your website ranks for certain keywords. American Adjustment’s site focuses on variations of the keyword “collections,” including terms like “debt collection” and “collections industry.”

Copywriting:

If you were to hire someone to get your money back for you, what would you want them to sound like? I’ll bet “direct and professional” would be preferable to “clever and quirky.” And that’s exactly the tone adopted on this site.

For every page you write, you want to think about it form the customer’s perspective. What are they looking for? Then you can find a voice and tone that matches that.

Programming:

Programming is what makes your site run. And (unless you’re a programmer) you never think about it. But you should! Bad programming makes your site look like amateur hour – and that’s very, very bad for you. I didn’t have any programming issues with this site, and that only serves to reinforce the “professional” feel.

Does your site have all 5 of the small business web design essentials? Find out by downloading our Ultimate Small Business Web Design Checklist.

Best,
Joy