I’m going to share a little secret with you about designing your website.
Those expensive, flashy, eye catching websites really don’t help you when it comes to your ROI.
As a matter of fact, there are tons of examples of companies that have poured many thousands of dollars into beautifully designed websites that have generated them no leads, no conversions, and therefore, no dollars!
When creating your website, start by determining it’s purpose.
Is your purpose to create or increase revenue or produce any sort of client or customer activity? If so, you want a marketing expert to work with you to develop your site, or to correct the issues on your current website that you bought from a webmaster or graphic arts company. Or, an even worse option that some companies have opted for are those online phone directory companies who purport to be able to build you a great website. A quick view of some of these sites will show you that they are ineffective, unattractive, and unlikely to bolster your business online.
So let’s discuss why flashy sites won’t pay off. First of all, Google doesn’t like flash based sites, so that won’t help your rankings. And without rankings, you’ll end up with less traffic to your site, which translates to fewer conversions and less potential revenue. Not a great outcome after you have poured thousands of dollars out to the designer of your site, I’m sure you will agree.
Secondly, those designers are designers, not marketers. Most likely, they know little, if anything, about sales, marketing, and conversions. Therefore, even if they aren’t designing you a flash based site, it is still unlikely to do you any favours. It is highly doubtful that they understand the elements that will keep a prospect engaged and reading your site, know about the value of content on your site, and are probably not interested in the goals of your business.
So that brings us to who you should engage to build your website. Simply put, you should look to engage a marketing company. Look for a company that has experience building (or fixing) websites that can engage and convert; one that can be tailored to be an extension of your brick and mortar business. A marketing company understands marketing, branding, and the significance of giving your prospects value in exchange for their time. They also understand things like SEO, rankings, and what can be done to help improve the rankings of your website on search engines.
A marketing company understand the importance of creating a sales funnel on your website to capture leads, and can help you recognize the best way to continue to market to those leads, keeping them happy and converting them to paying clients. A good marketing company can review your elaborate website cost you thousands of dollars and tell you why it isn’t getting the results you expected.
Let me leave you with this; your website is an investment. But like any investment, be sure to do your research to avoid throwing your money away. Make sure that you are hiring someone who understands how to market your business, not just dress it up with lots of lipstick.
If you are currently looking to build a site, or would like an assessment of your current site, contact me. If you’re happy with what we can do for you, we’ll give you an honest assessment of your site and what it needs.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you are ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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