Four Ways You’ve Failed Your Website

You’ve spent hundreds on having a designer create an eye-catching site that sticks in the memory. An expert copywriter has crafted copy that has your visitors drooling over the prospect of owning your products. A team of SEOs have done their job, and you’re top of the search engines for keywords that you know your target audience use.

And you haven’t had a single, solitary enquiry.

Why?

What’s gone wrong? Has your designer sold you a lame duck? Is your copywriter’s clever prose just all smoke and mirrors? Have your SEO team dropped the ball?

Or has something else not happened?

Have you made a mistake that’s rendered all their hard work and your investment almost useless?

Four Common Mistakes that Stop Your Website Generating Enquiries

In the excitement of making your online presence felt, it’s all too easy to miss something that on the face of it seems glaringly obvious. But don’t worry. You’re in good company. Hundreds of people have made the mistakes on this list, and there’s no shame in it. So long as you fix it!

Who’s Answering Your Phone?

This might seem obvious, and anyone with a full time call centre at their beckon call can skip this one, but who’s answering your phone?

If you’ve plastered your office number all over your website, people are going to call it. And when you spend all day out on site with your mobile for company, they’re going to get your answer phone.

And people hate answer phone messages. You might not think you want your mobile number on the Internet, but it could be just what you need to turn a click into a client.

Of course if you desperately need to have an answer phone, make sure it’s personalised, and make sure it picks up quickly. Nobody’s leaving a message for “Orange. Answer. Service. 0 – 7 – 7…” and nobody’s hanging round for six rings to give you money.

You Need to Know What?

When you asked for a contact form, your web developer wasn’t trying to make his life easier by suggesting you didn’t need nine separate fields. He was just pointing out that visitors to your website won’t submit an essay when they want to buy a product.

If you’re asking for more than a name, contact details and general enquiry, you’re asking for trouble. And it’ll still be a rare click that will stick around to give you any.

Zealotry Isn’t an Attractive Feature

Especially in a spam filter. Chances are that a large proportion of your online enquiries are going to come from the Internet. And the main way people communicate over the Internet is email. So far, so obvious. The issue comes when you think about who’s going to email you. People you don’t know. People with webmail addresses. People that your over-zealous Spam Filter might incorrectly label as Nigerian Royalty with amazing investment opportunities.

Do yourself a favour. Check your spam filter once in a while. You never know what could be lurking in there.

Search Quantity isn’t Everything

Yes, wedding bands gets more searches than wedding musicians. You know this because you’ve argued the point back and forth with your SEO until you thought you might have to introduce their skull to a snare drum. But you stood firm, got what you asked for, and you’re on page one for wedding bands in your town.

So why is your bounce rate so high? A quick image search will show you a few 24 carat, diamond encrusted reasons why. Sometimes a phrase gets more searches because it’s a synonym. And no matter how good your site, you’ll find it hard to sell three hours of guitar pop to someone who’s looking for a ring.

Of course, there are dozens of other reasons that your site might not be living up to its potential, so it won’t hurt to get a second opinion. For expert advice on SEO and online marketing, call FirstFound now on 0161 909 3411.