Why isn’t this working as expected?
You spent months reading about what to do when designing a website, and you did everything the way it was supposed to be done. You added every service you offer, text explaining what it is your company does, and how you can help those visiting your website. You added pictures. You added links. So why isn’t this website producing leads?
Do you have any traffic?
Your website starts out as a lone island in the great big cyber world. Part of planning a good website is including how you are going to build bridges to your website from other parts of the web. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines have websites they’ve visited, processed and added to their index. You have to get indexed to get included in any search engine results. Getting included (linked) on a site that has already been indexed is a quick way to get the process started.
Unless you plan on using your site as a digital brochure, only for existing customers, you are going to want to get your site indexed, and showing up in search engine results for relevant search terms as fast as possible. In order to do that you need to make sure the search engines know everything you do, or can do, for your customers. Keywords, descriptive text, and other standard SEO practices are needed to make sure the search engines know where to include you in results.
Is your website poorly designed?
OH those Do-it-yourself Website commercials…they are everywhere, aren’t they? Seriously, they make it look like building a website just take a few clicks to upload the perfect pictures and content and you’ll be processing leads faster than the speed of light!
They fail to mention that there’s a science to the web design process. There’s a lot to learn, and without that basic knowledge of design and how users interpret and interact with a site, you are destined to wind up like many of our clients…frustrated, confused about how it went wrong, and ready to give up on the whole idea of having a website.
It’s not your fault, and it’s not time to throw in the towel.
You can spend the next few months learning how to do this, or you can let a professional do it for you. A professional will make sure you have elements that need to be clicked where they are most likely to be clicked. They won’t include things that make people close your website immediately without ever even reading any of it (just say NO! to autoplay music or videos!)
A professional will make sure your website is easy to follow, and doesn’t overload visitors with too much information. They will guide them through the site, so they reach your intended goal: contact with a customer that wants to pay for your service.
Do visitors trust your site when they get there?
Does your website look like it’s a patchwork quilt of services, keywords and ad links to a bunch of other places that haven’t got anything to do with your business? Your website is sometimes the only chance you have to make an impression on a potential client. Your message and purpose need to be clear and uncluttered. You need to write your content for your intended audience, and not for the search engines. Search engines now give you higher rankings for targeting relevant audiences, so give up that old practice of sticking so many keywords in your content that it was hard to follow.
You need to be consistent in your message, whether it’s on the web or printed. If someone sees your ad in the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, your website should be recognizable to them when they get there and not make them wonder if they typed in the wrong URL or your website got hacked. Using good branding practices will accomplish that.
Is your website too slow to load?
Is your bounce rate high? Do people leave before your page has time to load? Chances are your site is too slow. There are many possible reasons for this: too much going on behind the scenes (add-ons and spinny-flashy things are not always a good thing), or your web server isn’t capable of handing your needs.
Need help figuring out why your website isn’t producing leads?
We can review your website and let you know what might need work, and what definitely needs work. You can call us at 833-326-7357 or fill out the following form and we’ll give you a call.
[contact-form-7 id=”649″ title=”Blog post – focus on website design – contact form”]