What is wrong with your website and why am I saying this? How do I know there is something wrong with it?
The reason I know is because people send me e-mails all the time about their business and about their website.
I actually like to ask the question and I ask how is your website performing, how many lead generation tools do you and are they getting leads?
The vast majority say yes I have a website, no it is not performing, and it doesn’t get any leads or it doesn’t get enough.
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When I look at them, quite often I cringe. So, let me give you some pointers.
If you wondering who am I to be talking about here, it is not a website programmer or a website designer.
Your Website is a Tool
This is something very important to understand in that you need to know how to make your website work like it should.
In the same way I don’t know how to put together a TV, how to build one, how to fix one or anything, but I can certainly get one out of the box, pick the right type, get it out of the box and watch it and use it efficiently.
Richard Branson does not fly airplanes, but he knows how to buy one and he knows how to build the business around it, but he doesn’t need to fly the plane or even maintain his airline, anything like that.
So, understand your website is a tool, but too many people don’t regard it as important enough and it is the hub of all your marketing, so there are things that are wrong.
First of all, anybody who has a free website, soon other words they use a tool or an online service that is either free or incredibly cheap; and by that, I mean Wix or Weebly or Go Daddy or 101 My Website Builder, or something like that, even sites like blogger.com from Google, or wordpress.com.
Now listen very carefully by the way, this does not include a wordpress.org website. WordPress.com is the one that’s hosted for free by WordPress themselves.
When you download the software by wordpress.org and you host it at the hosting place of your choice, that is the perfect scenario and it is free but it is different.
All those others are designed for someone to make a simple website online, which is in fact a brochure online, and it does not work.
You’ve got brochures, that’s not what people want. What do you think they’re going to do when they arrive on your website?
They’re going to look around and then decide to phone you up, or they’re just going to look around, read the information and then go off and make a decision.
You need to get into your mind, the reason they are online and they are searching online is because they wanted to do the entire transaction online.
They were looking for things and then they want to get in the right direction and look into more and more and more and find the prices; and you probably don’t publish prices on your website, unless it’s an e-commerce one, which is different.
You probably don’t because the vast majority do not because they don’t want to let their competitors see their prices.
By the way, your competitors know your prices the same way you know your competitors prices, they’re no secret, so what’s it matter?
So they look at your site, they find enough information. Do you think they’re going to then enter details in a contact form, e-mail you and wait a day or two days or three days for a reply?
Do you think when it’s 10 o’clock at night they’re going to phone that phone number, leave a message on an answer phone and wait a day or two days for you to reply?
Or do you think that they’re going to look for another website where they can find more information, armed with what you have told them? Yes, they are.
This is how it works. I make my entire living through online websites, and I know how they work. I sell a few million dollars a year on them and I can tell you what doesn’t work.
Also, I am mentored and in mastermind groups with others who have multimillion dollar ones. And there’s a simpler theory, a website needs to perform its first job.
If it’s not an e-commerce website selling goods, its first job is to capture the details and information of people who are looking at your website, so you can contact them. Now how do we do that?
You Need a Lead Capture
It needs a lead capture, a form where they would enter an e-mail address and possibly a name, nothing else, please; don’t ask for telephone numbers and things because people won’t give them, more often than not. So, that’s all you need.
Now you’re thinking to yourself, down in the bottom of your site, you’ve got “Sign up for my newsletter” or “Join our mailing list.” And…no! Who would do that? Why?
For example on my fire safety website, we sell things like fire extinguishers; if we say sign up for our newsletter, who would want that?
But we have 33,000 on our mailing list because if you look, it says something along the lines of “Join over 32,000 business owners who find their fire safety information from our and keep up-to-date on fire extinguishers.”
And that’s it. It doesn’t say anything about us going to spam you with offers or anything like that, and we don’t, by the way. But that is one way of doing it.
We also have landing pages where we offer lead magnets of reports and things of value to people for free. That is what’s wrong with your website, it is not capturing the leads, you’re not building a list.
You’re going to think, “Where would I put that?” It has to be the first thing they see at the top of the page. You can get what’s called a “Hello bar”, it’s free. You can add it to any website that you are in control of.
Oh, are you not in control? Did you pay a web company, a web designer to do it? Why? What do they know about selling online?
They know how to design websites, but not to make sales. Where does theirs rank? What do they rank for? Ask them and that will show you their expertise of how much they know on making a website, go performing Google.
So, you know that big pretty picture at the top, that whirls around and has a big banner? No, they don’t work, successful websites don’t use those.
Instead, they’ll put a video and a lead capture form, or they’ll put a report or a free course or as a free e-book and a lead capture form. Honestly, if the people come up against that and you think, “Whoa, what if they don’t want that?”
There are simple ways to do it,. You can put a little link underneath that says “No thanks, take me to the information” or they just scroll down the page.
But just understand this, if they don’t like it, if they go off your site to another, they weren’t your target customer, they’re not that interested, they’re just looking for free information from whoever it may be. Okay? They are not important to you, don’t worry.
When you have a shop, do 100% of people come in your shop and buy stuff? No, some of them leave, you don’t know who they are, you can’t contact them again; it’s the same on a website, okay?
My Favorite Email Capture Sites
E-commerce websites, there’s shopping cart abandonment, things like 70% percent of people who add stuff to their cart don’t complete, don’t worry about it, get those leads, add them to a tool such as Mail Chimp or AWeber.
For this information, go to marketingforowners.com/tools , and there you see the kind of tools that we use.
Mail Chimp is free, AWeber has a free trial, I think, for month you can see how these things work. And that will add them to a safe database and then you can e-mail them information and you can nurture these leads and they will gradually get to know, like and trust you.
You can actually send them the same information that is on your website; if they’ve read it already on your website, they’ll just ignore the e-mail.
If they haven’t, which is likely, or have forgotten, they will read it, so you don’t even have to be adventurous in what you send them if your website information is good.
But why not once a week come up with some new information about industry news and send it to them. Simple as that.
That’s what’s wrong with your website, no lead capture, no effective lead capture. That’s the secret to marketing online, in a nutshell, done, end of.
If you want to know more, by the way, or want me to look at your website and tell you what’s wrong, trust me, I’ll be blunt, I am not one who does things softly. Just e-mail, jon@marketingforowners.com.
For more website building tips like this, be sure to visit our tips and tricks page which is FULL of all kinds of great resources to help you get going on your website.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Finally, it’s Tuesday, which means it is time for a toolbox tip. Today, this is an obvious one, but so many websites don’t have it — Google Analytics.
It’s free and you should be using it. You have a bit of code to add to your website, and it tells everything about what people like on your website, where they come in, what they look at, what they don’t look at, where they leave your website, how fast to your website is, everything.
Please, get Google analytics on your website. If you don’t know how, go to fiverr.com and look for Google analytics, or just search in Google, “How to add Google analytics.” It is free, my friend, no excuses.
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Tomorrow, I have a fantastic interview with Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion who has one of the most popular podcasts on the planet. Be here. See you then.
