5 pts. Plymouth Website Design | What Owners Don't look At
Get found, Convert, Analyze - Increase sales, Targeted results.
Everything that Google is and does for search and analytics every day is about making 
connections and a profit.
Website designers are still in the dark about how to incorporate search and analytics, why?
The reasons are pretty simple, to make a connection with their intended audience (customer) and to make a profit. This is not a bad thing, however it does make it tough for website owners to reach their own target market and make their own connections. While this approach may build a good website, the main appeal is to please the website owner, not please the business objectives of the business owner first, visual appeal second.
While website designers are great at building sites, I know I have worked with them over the past few years building up search and adding value to help them connect with their intended audience. Online performance turns into revenue 'if' you build it correctly with that as one of the objectives.
The disconnect is never realized until a website owner looks deeper at their own website and asks 'why am I not getting more from my website'. Most owners will be too busy to ask this question because they feel the website is a place to showcase products and services.
This reads as an online brochure, no more, no less. This is not the right thinking for the year 2012.
Fact: Your website is the most powerful tool that a company has to create demand, convert visitors to leads and turn them into loyal customers.
5 reasons website owners neglect this fact:
- The website is redesigned once a year to highlight what is internal about the company. Same process, same results - we like the look and this is how we have always done it.
- They are being serviced by their website designer with stats relating to traffic and keywords.
- Internal marketing personnel are responsible for reporting all activities relating to marketing and sales, it's always been done that way. We know our industry.
- Website redesign is expensive and takes us away from our everyday activities, our sales people handle the clients.
- Our sales tactics are the best in the industry, we are different. Since this response is really telling the truth...'we don't care about your different approach, we are going to keep doing the same thing because change is too difficult, besides I am not going to risk my position'.
Where in this website design discussion does the idea that the online visitor is looking for information relating to their issue or resolve? The real goal should be to make it easy and 'pull' in the right visitor that is looking for value. Website design is not the same as value, only the real persona / visitor knows how to determine this value. (this is why testing is so important).
Where in this is the real stuff that 'I' the search visitor am looking for?
Companies that continue to focus on internal activities are really telling online search engines and visitors that they are in control, if you want information you can contact us and one of our sales people will gladly help you.
That approach is from 1995, it is company centric, play by our rules and we will deliver you great service, etc….
What I am amazed at really is that this goes on a lot in the b2b world, yet when these owners themselves ( or decision makers), they search for solutions by educating themselves with websites that actually give them reason to connect.
Contradiction? Absolutely. What is good personally is not easily translated professionally.
5 reasons to take another look at what your companies traffic is really telling you:
- Existing business relationships are still there, yet the only reinforcement of staying with you comes from personal contact, not the website, email, social media. Can you afford this?
- If I am to stay a customer, I am only concerned about price as I don't see updated value being delivered. E-books, videos, case studies, etc.
- New monthly visitors don't stay on pages very long as there is little value to be easily seen (we call this stickiness, staying on page because there is value being realized).
- Web pages are designed towards shiny objects (pictures, graphics, animations), not serious calls to action, forms for receiving educational material for my e-mail address, etc.
- Lastly, to know if your web pages are giving you return on investment (ROI) and to what department?
75% of visitors or those searching are looking for information to improve their situation (solve their problem). When you are only giving them shiny objects and talking about your internal operations (awards, new offerings, etc.) you are really telling them that you are so good that they should believe you. I say, prove it!
Today's online marketing is much more than expensive graphics and shiny objects to capture ones attention, it is honing in on what matters to the real 'paying' customer that wants to be educated, nurtured, and led down the path that will embrace their expectations of a great product / service, no more, no less.
If your not grabbing that audience, then who are you pandering after?
Tru-Market is all about giving your online visitors the information to be educated, nurtured, and motivated to become customers, it's GPS For Business