There are key components of a website that are essential if you want to grow your leads and sales using your website. Your website is one of the best ways to reach and influence your ideal customers, so, if it isn’t consistently driving a growing number of leads and sales, then it’s failing in its’ job.
Stay tuned so I can unravel the essential elements of a good website and help you identify what could be going wrong so you can fix it and take the next steps towards growing your business.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Why your website is failing to grow leads and sales
- The elements of a good website
- The quick test to show if your website is performing at its best
- The key components of a website that are affecting its performance
Resources
Websites That Convert – Learn the exact steps to transform your website into a leads and sales generating machine.
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Podcast Transcript: Key Components of a Website
Your website is one of the best ways to reach and influence your ideal customers, no matter whether you’re selling products or services to consumers or businesses. But if your website isn’t consistently driving a growing number of leads and sales, then it’s failing in its job. In today’s episode I want to help you identify what could be going wrong with your website so you can fix it and drive more income to your business. Stay tuned.
If you’ve got a broken computer, cash register, or piece of manufacturing equipment, you’re going to fix it straight away right, because it’ll affect the functioning and profitability of your business.
Well your website is no different. If it’s not doing its job which is to convert lookers into leads and depending on the business, leads into sales, then it’s broken too. Your website shouldn’t be there just to look good and give people your address. It needs to perform as a sales and marketing tool especially considering the amount of time and money you’ve invested in it.
Have a think about where things start going wrong for most businesses and whether this is true for you too. It usually starts when you first decide you need a new website. You write down your menu and navigation, a list of your products or services and the web pages you’ll need, write your own words about how great your business is or you get someone you know to put together some words and photos, and then send it all to a web designer or developer to weave their magic.
After a little while you realise you need more traffic going to the website. You didn’t know a great deal about search engine optimisation, to get you to the top of search engine pages like Google when your website was written, and you thought that when the web developer said they took care of the SEO, they meant it. Sadly that’s rarely the case, meaning you now have to start paying for Google Adwords and get help to lift your social media game so you can drive more traffic to your website.
What happens next is you realise that the traffic you’re sending to your website isn’t converting into sales, so now you need to redesign your entire website. And this time you call in the professionals but you either stay focussed on the design and end up in the same place again. Or alternatively you get it done properly learning everything you can to improve it yourself, or work with an experienced web copywriter and designer to get the results you needed in the first place.
If you’re serious about growing your sales, you need to get serious about the performance of your website. Your website gives you opportunities and options to grow like nothing else. You can work all you want on your social media and other marketing tactics but if your website isn’t performing as a high converting marketing tool then why do you have one?
Essential elements of a good website
So the main reason most websites fail in growing leads and sales is because their development is driven by design and not by words and strategy. Yes you absolutely need good design because it instantly attracts or repels, but your words are what gets people to stay and take action. And as for your strategy, it is the driving force behind it all ensuring that you’re giving your audience the information they need to make a decision about whether or not to buy from your business.
Having developed so many websites over the years for clients and myself, I’ve found that when it’s your business, you know too much and it’s really hard to see your website from a prospective customers point of view which is why you need to take a giant step back. When someone lands on your website they’re looking for a solution and want to know if you’re the right one to provide that solution. They’ve asked around or searched for dance lessons, dentist, business coach, builder, or boutique hotel. They know they have a problem which is why they’re on your website in the first place.
Now it’s up to you to move them from having a problem, to being interested in a solution, to being interested in your solution, to being ready to buy, to buying. Now some people will be ready to move along this path in minutes, whereas others will take days, weeks, even months and years depending on what you’re selling.
We’ve talked about the main reason websites fail to grow your leads and sales, but how do you work out if your website is performing at its best so you can stop wasting all that money and time and start making more?
Looking at your Google Analytics is an easy and essential way to measure your traffic and conversions over time. But it will only tell you part of the picture. It will tell you how many people are viewing your website, how long they’re staying on, what they do while they’re there, and which pages they enter and leave from so you get a better idea where to look for issues and boost opportunities. But the real test that will help you to quickly and significantly improve your website is the 5 second test.
If the majority of people you’re attracting to your website through the likes of social media and advertising are your ideal client, but they can’t work out in the first 5 seconds how you help them, what you offer and how they can buy from you, then your website has a problem. However if you’ve nailed your messaging, offer and calls to action but the traffic you’re sending to the website is wrong, then that won’t work either. Because to achieve success with your website you need to be telling the right story to the right audience.
To test out your website, get someone who doesn’t know your business to look at your website homepage for 5 seconds, close it down then ask…
- Who do we help?
- What’s the problem we help them with?
- What do we offer or what do we sell?
- How do people buy from us?
If they can’t answer any of these questions, then you need to look at fixing your website.
Once you’ve done your 5 second test and worked out what information is missing from your site, it’s time to look at what are the other key elements that affect performance to grow your leads and sales? One key element is clarity which we’ve already spoken about. By clarity I mean having really clear brand messaging throughout your site so people know very quickly who you serve, the problem you solve and the results you provide.
The second key element for conversion is your website needs to be about your customer first and foremost. How many websites have you seen where the first thing you read is “founded in 1991, we are the largest law firm or the leading maker of nuts, or the cheapest pet store”. Basically no one cares unless they came to your website to better understand your history. Doing this wastes a few seconds on making yourself look good, rather than captivating the person reading and getting them interested in buying your solution. Instead you need to concentrate on telling your customer’s story from problem to transformation.
The next thing is simplicity. When your website gets over the 4 or 5 page mark, people often get overwhelmed with which page to choose. So make it simple for them and simplify your menu with having just the most important 4 pages and no drop down boxes. And then provide them with the pathway you want them to go down through excellent linking and calls to action throughout. You can list out every page in the footer so people can see how the whole site is laid out.
The last key element if you want to grow your leads and sales is improving your content for search engines so that more people find you and you can drive more organic traffic to your site. Now this one is more complicated than you probably have been lead to believe and it is a long-term strategy. So for now, get the other key elements fixed and then take a look at other episodes of the podcast for how to improve your SEO.
Websites aren’t cheap to create (even when they don’t work effectively to grow your sales). I own a small business and am all for saving money wherever I possibly can, but what I’ve learned over the years is that very very rarely does a website developed on the cheap with a design focus ever perform successfully in growing leads and sales. So take a look at your website and see if passes the 5 second test, to ensure your prospective customers instantly know Who you help? What problem you help them with? What your irresistible offer is? and the process of how they buy from you or work with you?
Remember the key elements of clarity, simplicity, focus on your customers story, and SEO. It’s time for you to seriously look at the opportunities you can gain from improving your website and get strategic if you want to grow. Just because it hasn’t worked in the past doesn’t mean it won’t work. You just haven’t found the right way.
If you want to learn the exact steps (frame by frame) I use to create highly successful websites that increase leads and sales, that you can implement into your own website, I’ve developed an amazing new online program to help turn your website into a lead creating machine. Head over to simplystandoutmarketing.com/websitesthatconvert for more information and to signup. Websites can be daunting especially when you don’t know why they’re not working, so I hope this podcast episode has helped you take the next step to grow your small business.
My clients pay me anywhere from $5000 to $30,000 to work with me to transform their websites. If you and your customers love the look of your website then there’s probably no need to start from scratch. However if your web design is out-dated, unappealing or off-putting to your audience then you’re more than likely going to need to go for a major transformation if you want better results. Either way, the first step you need to take is to look at your strategy.
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The Simply Standout Marketing Podcast is designed to help small business owners and entrepreneurs stand out and grow their businesses. Because growing their business will change their life.
