Is your website derailing your business?

Most people I know have either seen or at least heard of the movie Field of Dreams. In this movie where some random farmer was coaxed into building a baseball field by some ghostly voice saying “If you build it, they will come”. And he does build it and unfathomably, the White Sox or Red Sox or whatever colored Sox come and play on his field and save his farm from bankruptcy and save his marriage and yadda-yadda-yadda.  So in other words, as a virtual unknown, you can build something from your dreams and lo and behold, those who you want the most attention from will come and play in your field and bring you success…Right?

Movie Plots don’t equal Real life 

Whether or not my clients have seen Field of Dreams or not, it seems as though a lot of them have adopted the premise of the movie and believe by simply having a website, they will get sales. Don’t get me wrong, NOT having a website has severe consequences for a business’ credibility, earning potential, etc. I’m all for having a website (as evidenced by my choice of profession). The thing is, just having one alone isn’t enough! It has to have several qualities for “them” (meaning your ideal clients) to come. In this case “it” refers to the website and “them” refers to your ideal clients. Yet the ideal clients can’t come unless your website has several qualities:

• It has to speak to “them”
• It has to be a good website
• It has to get “them” to know, like, and trust your business
• It has to show that your business can solve “their” problems
• It has to provide a way for “them” to do more business with you

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are additional features a website will need to do to not only attract the right clients, but also grow your business.

If it’s ugly…they won’t come

You can’t attract clients if it’s not attractive attractiveness…I mean it’s right there in the word! Growth and credibility come from more than a website thrown together with business hours, location and contact information. If you thought otherwise you’ve become another character dazed by the cornfield in the movie. The potential growth and decline of your business is not predicated on whether your website exists or not but rather how it’s presented overall. In some cases, a website can hurt your credibility if it’s not professional or even worse, it can’t be found.

It seems as though some businesses think people wake up thinking about their business, although they’ve never heard of them. In a perfect world, yes but that’s not going to happen. What people actually do is wake up with problems and issues on their minds, then jump on the computer and Google to search how to solve it.  And what you want is for your business’ website to show up on that list. But the journey’s not over yet. Assuming your website does show up on that list AND they actually click on YOUR site…if what they see is unappetizing or they can’t figure out whether you even address their problem in the first 5-10 seconds (yes I said SECONDS), then their off to the next one. If you want any chance of revenue lining your pockets, you must gain your ideal client’s attention for longer than 10 seconds.

Personality Goes a Long Way

Being ugly is just the first thing that may turn your clients away. Now, I’m not trying to ugly-shame here but certainly a good personality goes a long way too. What makes a good personality online? Your site has to talk more about your client than it does about you (at least initially ). Let’s use dating as an example. Maybe the other person isn’t your cup of tea physically speaking, but if they’re a good listener, attentive to your needs, and can hold an interesting conversation, that goes a long way. In fact, if another person rates a 10 physically, but all they do is go on and on and on about themselves, how great they are, and why you should be so lucky to be on this date with them you won’t be pleased with that dating experience. Don’t let your website be that obnoxious first date because it’s much easier for your clients to escape your site, than it is for you to get out of that date.

Even if you are getting some traffic with a relatively unattractive site and mediocre content, then that means the quality of your product/service is garnering some attention in spite of itself…just imagine how much more views you can get if you increase the attractiveness and credibility quotient! If you want to grow, there’s some things you need to do online that will get you there.

3 take-aways

You want to grow your business, right? You want to attract the clients that you enjoy working with, right? You’d prefer more money versus less money, right? Then these are the 3 things that I want you take away from this article:

1. There’s more to a website than just having one.
2. A website must be attractive.
3. A website must speak to your ideal client and their issues.

There’s a lot that goes into a strong online marketing strategy: SEO, analytics, ads, email, marketing, automation, and more, that I didn’t even go into here (but rest assured I’ve got some info up my sleeves that I’ll be sharing with you). But the majority of those components have a common foundation and that’s a good website. Make sure your website isn’t dropping the ball for your business success! (yes…baseball pun intended…see what I did there?)