What does an “effective website” or “results” mean to you?
- Would you like more visitors to your site? That’s nice, but are they buying or converting — doing what you want them to do?
- Increased conversions? That’s when a visitor to your site buys something, book an appointment, or downloads a freebie to be added to your email list.
- More sales?
That’s it! The bottom line – more sales!
Unfortunately, many small business owners only have a really nice online brochure that doesn’t come anywhere near being an effective website.
And, guess what? It’s not your fault. It’s another case of not knowing what you don’t know.
Usually, when a small business owner hires someone to build a website for them, they want the best price for what they think they need. You hired someone who told you that sure, they can build a WordPress website for you. Well, anyone can. That’s the beauty of WordPress. It’s fairly easy to construct a site, however, like when constructing a house, you need 3 critical things:
- The foundation and walls – bricks, wood, paint, etc., aka the DESIGN.
- Functioning parts — plumbing, electrical, etc., aka the DEVELOPMENT.
- All the insides — furniture, appliances, decorations, etc., aka the COPY or CONTENT.
Each of these components, like in building a house, requires specific talents and skills to build a livable house — and an effective website. Sometimes you find the perfect contractor or company who has all of the talents and skills needed. But, that’s rare and it may be expensive. Let’s break each one down…
A Web Designer
A designer is a very creative person who can take your logo and color scheme and create a beautiful online brochure. Moreover, the designer might be a very talented graphic artist and make your site “easy on the eyes”, but can they write? Do they know the mechanics of creating effective calls-to-actions, backing it up, creating a shopping cart, and securing it from hackers? Sure, you want to help out your relative who just graduated from design school, but in the end, you’re not going to have a site that works for you.
For instance, a realtor contacted me and asked me if I could determine why their website wasn’t coming up on the top of Google search results. (Isn’t that everyone’s wish?) Well, the site was gorgeous. It was promoting a new condo in downtown Phoenix. There was no blog with fresh content touting the benefits and fun of living downtown. There was no way to capture leads. Yes, they had a contact form to set up a tour, but it wasn’t compelling enough. It lacked good copy and content.
A Web Developer
This is the real techie person. They can figure out all the mechanical parts of the website. The developer will…
- Build a secure shopping cart
- Install all the proper plugins to make it secure
- Back it up
- Make it search engine optimized (SEO)
- Make it easy to navigate — that’s part of the User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI)
- Be sure that it passes the Google Core Web Vitals test — especially if you have a lot of mobile users
- Install all the widgets and plugins needed to engage the visitor (what makes a site function)
- A developer may not have an eye for design and they probably aren’t creative writers. They usually put up the information that you give them – but is the text copy effective?
I was asked to review a website and in reading their “about us” section, I ran into the phrase “grown slowly”. It stopped me cold. Slowly? That’s a negative connotation. That word doesn’t need to be there. Just having “grown” is sufficient. It implies logical growth — from a mom-and-pop outfit to a company with over 50 employees.
Another site listed on their “about us” page the reasons why they chose the products they sell. All text, no pictures. A good designer would have added graphics or videos to make it more attractive.
The Copywriter
Good marketing copy walks the visitor through a logical progression to exactly where you want them to go. It’s compelling, enthralling, enchanting. (Don’t laugh, it’s what you need!) As a result, it captures the visitor’s attention with eye-catching, curiosity-piquing headlines and subheadings. Therefore, it keeps the reader going with bullet points (people don’t like reading long sentences or paragraphs) and bold and italics for emphasis.
So where does this leave you?
In conclusion, if you’re website is not effectively drawing potential customers in, and then converting them, it’s nothing more than a really pretty online brochure. Don’t you think you should do something about it?
You need to educate yourself on how it all works so that when you do hire someone to do it for you, you don’t get “taken”. Recently, I worked with a client who thought the company she hired to redesign her website was honest and above board. Little did she know after she described her vision for HER website, the company went to several of her competitors and used the same, exact design! It was so obvious! That broke business ethics all the way around!
What about doing it all yourself?
Obviously, if your budget is tight and you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you, you can always attempt to build it yourself. However, there are a few things to consider…
- Your time — You need time to build it and if you’re not that familiar with the platform you’re using, it will take you longer. Also, you need time to learn HOW to build it in your chosen platform. How much is your time worth?
- How “free” is a free website?
- Which platform? Sure you can relatively easily create a website using a website building or even the free websites that are out there, but is it going to do what you need it to do? Furthermore, you will probably outgrow it as your business grows and you require it to do more. Read: Why I prefer WordPress.
- Troubleshooting — Just like any technology, stuff breaks. Who’s going to determine where the problem is? Moreover, who’s going to fix it?
