Is Your Website Doing Its Job?

Recently, I had a conversation with a business owner in which we were discussing some things he could be doing on the web to market his business better, the pros and cons of this platform or that platform, etc. I asked him how many leads he was getting from his website, and his answer surprised me. He said, “I’ll be honest, I don’t really get any leads from my website. Do you think I should be getting more interest from it?”

My answer was a resounding “YES!” If you are not getting leads from your website, then what on earth do you even have a website for???

Every Website Has A Job. What’s Yours?

Have you really thought about why you have a website in the first place? Maybe you just put up a site because, well, hey, it’s 2016 and every business has a site, right? Or maybe you got some really good advice about doing some marketing online, and for that, you know you need a website… but you’ve never been super clear on how the site fits into any sort of overall plan.

To start at the beginning, you need to know that every website has a job, and no website’s job should ever be just to exist. Your website is a sales tool—a powerful one.

For some companies, the most they need from their website is a show of credibility. They have a sales team that sells their services, and their website is designed to work in tandem with that team… which is fine, but around here, we believe that they have the process a little backward.

Personally, we believe that the website should be the one generating leads, and your sales team, if you need one, simply closes the deals. Cold-selling sucks, and doesn’t work anyway. Cold-selling can refer to cold-calling, list purchasing, or any other sort of interruptive sales tactics where you don’t know whether the target needs your service, is looking for your service, or even has a pain that you can solve. If you are still cold-selling, check out our article, “The Zero Moment of Truth: Selling To The New Buyer Mentality.” Incidentally, this is why we moved to Inbound Marketing… 

What is Inbound Marketing, Again?

Just in case you’re new here, let’s catch you up: Inbound Marketing is a set of tactics designed to draw people who are looking for your product or service to your site. We do this by providing information about the problems that your product or service solves, so that when users are researching these problems and their potential solutions, they find you. We talk about this a lot throughout our blog, so feel free to browse around for more information.

Let’s shift the focus then, to why we funnel internet searchers back to your site. Why don’t we drive them to your Facebook page? Why drive them anywhere at all? 

Your Website Is Your Number One Salesperson

Let’s think about this: Your website never takes a day off. It never has an ‘off’ day when it just isn’t ‘feeling it’. Your website works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Your website, if organized correctly, can provide exactly the information that each individual customer is looking for… and can service ALL of your potential customers simultaneously. Your website can have all the answers to all the questions. Your website can funnel people along through your buying process and can potentially even close the deal FOR you. AND, your website can do all of these things while building credibility, brand awareness, customer engagement, and customer delight.

Why are you not taking advantage of this amazing resource?!

Starting With The End In Mind

The next question, then, is what do you want your website to do?

When a potential customer visits your site, what do you want them to do before they leave? Make a purchase? Schedule service? Fill out a contact form so a member of your sales team can call them and qualify them? 

Whatever the answer to this question is, that is your website’s job. Everything else on the site—the information you choose to include, the organization of that information, even the content that you include on the home page—these are all supporting elements that gives your site its best chance to do its job. 

Now that you have discerned what your website’s job is, you can start to work backward. You can start to develop your sales funnels. What questions are you going to answer? What do people need to know in order to decide to buy from you? 

Next, you can determine how you will draw traffic to your site. What tactics will work best for boosting your search engine rankings? How are you going to engage with potential customers? How about your current clientele—does it make sense to stay top-of-mind with the customers in your industry? How should you go about doing that?

Your website is the hub of all of these activities. These tactics enable your site to do its job.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to really put your website to work for you, help yourself to our FREE e-book, “25 Website Must-Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads, and Sales.” Want to talk to a live human about what’s going on with your online marketing? Get in touch with us by filling out our contact form and we’ll get back with you shortly!