Your Bad Website is Costing You Money & Clients
Are you seeing lots of page visits in your analytics but no one is calling? Maybe you have a recurring event, but no one is attending.
Perhaps someone referred a friend to your business, and they never followed through with a purchase.
In the world of business, you have seven seconds to make a first impression. With your website, you have even less time than that.
When someone hears about your business, this person does the same thing everyone in the world doesโthey look at your website to decide whether or not they want to do business with you.
Do they know what they're doing? Is this person a professional? Am I going to get what I pay for? These are the questions your client has. Think about what you would be asking.
There's money on the line, and in this gig economy you better be the best or at least look like the best, or clients are moving on in a hurry.
Whenever I talk about my web design business with friends and acquaintances they say something like "oh, I've been meaning to get a new website for ages," but I don't think they really realize how strategically important it really is to have a great website (in fact, I know they don't).
If you're not using Google analytics or some type of analytics to keep tabs on how many people are visiting your website, you really need to be doing that right now. This is how you're going to find out how your website is converting.
Converting?
What is that? Converting is turning those looky-loos into potential clients taking action on your website. How many people are interacting with your call-to-action? Squarespace gives you all sorts of website analytics data but you can figure out what's going on with any of your websites via Google Analytics, including conversion rates on buttons and forms, but you can figure this out on your own by looking at your unique visitors and dividing by the number of interactions you get each month.
Who Would You Want to do Business With?
Chances are that the person you would most want to do business with is the same type of person who would want to do business with you. Is that person in a 3-piece suit or sweatpants? Do they drink Budweiser or Vin rouge chรขteauneuf-du-pape? Both are fine, but what does your website say to the world about who you are, and what type of client you're looking for?
Long story short; crappy website = crappy clients.
How Much Money Are You Losing?
It's hard to know for sure, but how confident are you that you're doing everything you can to bring in new clients? If you either don't have a website or your website is driving people away, and you made a small investment in either time or money to improve what your site is saying to the worldโestimate how many extra clients you could get per month.
Take that number and multiply it by the average number of dollars each client brings in.
Take that number and multiply by 12 to estimate potential dollars per year. Is it a huge number?
Even if its 1,000 extra dollars, would you turn down 1,000 extra dollars?
If the number you come up with is more than a single dollar, that's a single dollar too much more than what your website should be costing you.
What's the next step?
The answer to this question depends on how much are you willing to invest in recovering those dollars?
If you said $0, that says a lot about how serious you are about the success of your business. If you're super serious about recovering those dollars then you have a decision to make.
There are a ton of options for DIYers who want to make their own websites. I wrote an article about the pros and cons of building your own website, it's a good option for the entrepreneur on a budget, but there are some downsides too.
Alternatively, there is a great deal of value in hiring a professional to build you website if you'd rather focus on building your business, rather than building your website.
In 2018, your website is an extension of your physical storefront and the first impression you make to the world. The type of well-executed website a professional will help you create will provide a value that is far greater than the upfront and one-time payment you'll have to make.
However you decide to do it, fix your lousy website now!
