Why your Website Might Fail

I’ve been speaking to so many clients lately about how effective, or not, their websites are in generating business that it got me thinking about why some businesses are able to use the web effectively to generate leads and why others go no further than just having a web presence.

I think on-line marketing is a much misunderstood discipline – and as yet I don’t claim to be anything of an expert in the ‘on-line’ bit. But all too often when a business decides it wants a website some of the basic principles of marketing are forgotten and before you know it the web developers (the techies - men in white coats!) have got hold of it and whilst they are bound to design something technically flawless, it may even be well designed graphically. The question still remains - will it get results?

And there’s the first stumbling block - objectives.

Knowing what you want from your website

How many of you set clear, measurable objectives for your website before you approached a web developer? I emphasise the word before because I know any web developer worth their salt would ask you this question as part of their initial discussion with you about your site.

The danger of doing your thinking with the web developer is that before you know it you are looking at the solutions they could deliver before really thinking about the real objectives of the website for your business.

Now - I do understand that not everyone will expect to make sales or generate sales leads from their website (I’d question why not however) – but at the very least you should be aiming to move people along the buying process so that prospects are a step nearer to doing business with you.

Once you’ve set some objectives then you can start thinking about how your website needs to be put together, what information it should contain and then the web developer can start to introduce you to the tools available

Thinking about your web visitors

In any marketing exercise you should think in a great deal of detail about your target market - in this case your desired web visitor. Think about the type of person they are, their interests, their likely age, occupation, religion, colour, sex – anything that might influence the way they will view your product or is an influencing factor on their opinions.

In business to business (B2B) contexts you need to think about what their business priorities are, who the decision makers are in their organisation and how they might use your website to inform their business decisions. It is always better to be as targeted as you possibly can – so if you have a product that sells into 3 different sectors – say a piece of IT software that sells to colleges, hospitals and engineering companies – you may need three different approaches within your website for these different audiences – there’s even an argument to say that you might need three websites – just as you would have three very different brochures or pieces of direct mail.

If you are selling to larger companies with a traditional management structure within B2B markets you need also to think carefully about the priorities of the different decision makers:

the finance director will be looking at the facts and figures and probably won’t be influences by flowery descriptions
the HR director or training manager may be concerned about the implications on the staff – will they need training to use whatever you are selling?
the MD will more than likely be looking for answers to some business problem – and therefore will want to understand the benefits that you can offer – that’s BENEFITS, not FEATURES.

If you can crack this you should have a good understanding of what content your website needs to contain. But don’t underestimate how involved a process this is – and don’t make the mistake that I’ve made in the past of thinking that writing for the web is the same as writing a brochure.

How You’re Going to Use It…

...your website that is.

For me – this is a little like when clients say to me – we think we need a brochure. And my first question is – well how will you use it – what’s it for? If they are selling a tangible product garden furniture or designer rugs there may be very good reasons to have a brochure which illustrates the products and provides details on size, materials etc.

But if you are selling a service 9 times out of 10 a corporate brochure won’t be much use to you – unless you particularly want to fill up the office store cupboard with boxes!

Before embarking on a website you need to think carefully about what role the site will play in your business. Is it just to be the equivalent of an on-line brochure – and if so, given the interactive nature of the web, couldn’t you do more with it?

Will your website be a lead generating tool – to set the phone ringing or email server buzzing with enquiries? Or alternatively are you using your site to answer initial product or service queries, to reduce the number of non-sales calls you have to deal with?

Do you want to make sales on-line or receive orders which can then be fulfilled through your traditional channels?

Do you want to use your website as a communications tool, to keep prospects and customers abreast of changes in your business or product range. Do you want to allow customers to interact with you or each other using the internet?

Answering these questions will clearly dictate the technical design of the site – but should also determine the content, structure and functionality of your site.

The Words You Use

Just a brief note about the importance of the words on your website. Of course the traditional marketing rules apply - to use an appropriate tone and style for your audience, with persuasive metaphors with lots of benefits. To make sure your copy is written in the customer’s language and to attract their interest, not in company jargon with the focus on things you are proud of but may mean very little to the customer.

I actually mean the importance of words in the form of KEYWORDS which will influence how easily your site is found by those searching the internet. Writing for the web is a bit of an art and it’s certainly not appropriate to just take a brochure and use that copy on-line. Web copy generally needs to be shorter and more to the point – bear in mind it will be read on screen. Your home page is critical – since if people are using your URL (your website address) it’s the first page they will land on.

Make sure your home page satisfies three simple rules:

If confirms to visitors they are in the right place – so a brief explanation of who you are and what you do is necessary.
It communicates simply why they should do business with you rather than someone else
It engages them and draws them deeper into your site – this means you need to use good contextual links to get people moving from your home page through your site to a point of action. (the way the link is written for ‘Are you listening to me?’ below is an example of a contextual link)

For more thoughts on writing so that your prospects will be interested in what you have to say read ‘Are Your Listening To Me?’

Optimising Your Website

You may hear talk of the new ‘black art’ of search engine marketing and search engine optimisation which can help drive traffic to your website. But unless the structure and content of your site has been well thought out and you are clear on what you want from the web you are unlikely to benefit fully.

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