Having a website does not necessarily mean you have a strong web presence.


64% of small business owners now have a website. However, only a fraction of these sites are effective in generating conversions. Many business owners make the mistake of taking shortcuts to grow an effective online presence. The most common, and most costly mistake typically being, “Throw some money at it”. In reality, the amount of money you spend on your website has no correlation to the sales you win from it. Thankfully, we’ve boiled down the keys to a successful web presence to the following concepts:

1. Differentiate Your Website


What’s the difference between these three websites?

 

 

 


Above are three different homepages for competing businesses. Let’s imagine that you are looking for this services (Chiropractic care). If you’re like the majority of people online, your next step will be to research business who offer the services you need. Let’s say you run into the businesses above. Which one would you pick, and why?


You may find it’s a difficult question to answer, as our minds first look to visual information, before reading content. Since the visual information is the same, there is nothing driving you to do business with the site, which means the site is not doing it’s job.


This is a trap many small business owners fall into when they genuinely don’t have time to spend on their website. The shortcut of getting a “template” website, can be detrimental to the effectiveness of the site. For instance, let’s only change the visuals of the first website. Which one would you pick now?

 

 

 


Your choice becomes much easier, right? As you see, the more we differentiate from others in the space, the more traffic will be drawn to our business.


2. Keep It Simple


Thanks to digital lifestyle of having just about every piece of information imaginable at our fingertips, humans now carry the attention span similar to that of a goldfish. With this being said, it’s important that we use this (embarrassing) knowledge to our advantage.

 

We’ve all been to the website that has big sliders, spinning services, fade in content, pop-up newsletters, and online chat support all hitting you in the face at the same time. These are known in “the biz” as bells & whistles. Sure they make your website seem really expensive, but they generally don’t add much to the overall effectiveness of the site. In fact, doing too much of this has proven to overwhelm and distract users, increase your load time, and in-turn, increase your bounce rate.

 

Remember, people did not visit your website to see words fly across the screen. They came to find the information necessary in order for them to make a purchase decision. Therefore, focus on information grouping, organization, and clear Call To Action buttons which guide the user through their desired experience. The more we distract users from the necessary information, the less likely they’ll be to convert.

 

3. Use Your Analytics

 

Most business owners are not trained professionals in sales & marketing, so take this from someone who is: Tracking data is the most overlooked, and (ironically) most essential part of growing an effective web presence. Trying to grow a web presence without understanding your current analytics data is like asking Google Maps for directions to a destination without having a starting location.

 

Websites do not simply perform, or not perform. You need to ask yourself the following questions:

 

  • How many people are seeing my website?
  • How long are people on my website?
  • How often are people on my website?
  • What pages are they typically visiting?
  • What is considered a “conversion” on my website?
  • What is my customer’s typical journey to converting?
  • Where are people exiting this journey?
  • How many people finish the journey?
  • What is a conversion typically worth to me?

 

These may seem like complicated questions, but proper analytics tracking with allow you to answer these questions with ease. Again, don’t make the mistake of thinking that this data is going to cost you a ton of money to attain… There are a ton of different analytic companies out there, which charge an arm and a leg. However, if you’re the average small business owner, just use Google Analytics. It’s free! Once you’ve attached analytics to your website, you can use the data to conduct a simple S.W.O.T. (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) analysis of your website.

 

Now, what are your weak points and opportunities? What are some inhibiting challenges your website has been facing? 

 

  • Exposure? - Invest in SEO
  • Initial Bounce Rate? - Reorganize a refresh your web design
  • Irrelevant Content? - Generate new content, or hire a copywriter

 

However, it’s not until after we identify the challenges that we develop a plan to overcome them.