I have had three conversations in the last month with people who aren’t receiving any leads from their sites. The shocking thing is that two of them were okay with these results. I am in the midst of designing a website for a successful business who never received leads from their current site. Generating leads was not even a requirement of the new site, but I am looking forward to their response when they get their first lead.
It surprises me that people are willing to accept such poor results. Yet we live in an age when there are many inexpensive options to build sites, and people falsely believe all they have to do is get information online and people will start calling. Below are three reasons sites fail to deliver leads. It is not comprehensive, but underperforming sites all have one of them; sadly, many have all.
Is your site all about you?
When a prospect visits your site they want answers to some very specific questions. The first question is “Can you help me?” If your site is just about you, visitors are left guessing if you understand their problems. The second answer visitors are are looking for is “How are you different than your competitors?” It takes work to develop this content, but the reality is that prospects are comparing you to others. If you don’t provide content that sets you apart and just provides a list of everything you can do, prospects are guaranteed to do nothing.
Are you whispering in a crowded room?
Just placing your phone number on the bottom is not a call to action. Believe it or not, people online want to be told exactly what to do. Be bold and direct. Pop up windows when placed well are not the enemy. Embrace them. Ultimately it is good to have a couple of different ways prospects can begin a relationship with you because there are two types of visitors: Those who are ready to take action, and those who are thinking about taking action. One audience is much bigger. I will let you figure out which is bigger, but here’s a hint… there are many more people online researching than are ready to take action.
Build it and they won’t come!
Even if you have passed the first two, this one will kill the most well-thought-out website. Just because you have a great site does not mean that you will suddenly receive prospects. A good site has to have a strategy on how to drive the RIGHT traffic to the site. This is likely a mix of PPC advertising (paid-per-click), content marketing, and social media.
There are a lot of nuances to developing a website that generates leads, but these three reasons are some of the biggest website killers. What would you add to the list?
