Is your website working?
I don’t mean that literally ‘working’, meaning that you can see your pages online, but rather is it making your phone ring or filling your inbox with enquiries? If not, then it’s broken as it’s probably not doing what it’s supposed to.
The issue is why isn’t it working, and before you stop reading thinking this is another article offering a ‘magic formula’, I’m not, I’m going to be completely blunt, and get straight to the point.
A web agency will often tell you that the website needs improving, and an SEO company will tell you that you need to rank higher in Google. In most cases however, it’s not that simple, and in all honesty do you care? Probably not, you just want enquiries and don’t want to worry about the technicalities.
Even if you had the worst looking website in the world, would it matter if it generated you work? Probably not.
We had someone approach us this week wanting to get more enquiries, whether that was by improving his website or Google ranking. The truth was hard to tell him, but the simple matter is that, according to Google’s software, there are less than ten people search for what he does each month (it could be as low as none). So even if we got him to number one in Google, and gave him the best looking website, it’s very unlikely he’d see a return.
Similarly we had a solicitor telling us that they didn’t have many enquiries and asking us why. After some digging we found that they were doing great in search engines, had lots of website visitors, and their website wasn’t too bad. They were getting lots of people contacting them but, unknown to the partners; their staff weren’t replying to emails or answering the phone!
In both cases our recommendations were not to spend money with us, but to focus their time and attention elsewhere.
This is the main point of this article, and I hate to use cliché terms, but you can’t look at one aspect of the sales funnel and determine what’s wrong. You need to investigate everything from an idea in a customer’s head, all the way to a final agreement for work. Of course these days a lot of this is done online, which is obviously where digital agencies like us come in.
Should you spend money on search engines? Do you need a website redesign? Is Facebook good for you? Twitter? Instagram? Should you be paying Google or Facebook for PPC adverts? Should you be blogging or sending out newsletters? How much money should you be spending? The answer to all of these questions is that there is no easy answer; it depends on your business, sector, competition and clients.
So what should you do?
Quite simply trust your gut instinct, if you don’t think you’re getting enquiries, or perhaps are spending too much money, then it’s likely that you’re correct.
It doesn’t matter if you spend £50, £500 or £5,000 on marketing, it should be giving you a return. If it’s not, it’s broken.
So play devil’s advocate here, look at your spend and your return, and ask questions. If you’re not happy with the answer, or don’t understand it, then ask again or look at changing things.
Of course, if you need any help, get in touch with the team at Webbed Feet UK.
We are Webbed Feet UK, we look at all marketing avenues to determine which will work the best.