Business Growth Blog

Nine times out of ten, the first place your prospects go is your website. If they don’t like what they see or can’t quickly find the information they’re looking for, they’re gone. Lost opportunity. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all experienced a bad website that leaves us groaning in frustration. The truth is that a lousy site makes your company look lousy. It destroys trust and credibility.

Sometimes business leaders have blinders on when it comes to their company’s online user experience. It’s kind of like a parent that thinks their kid can do no wrong. On the following infographic, my team and I outlined some of the most common website problems that might be turning potential customers away. If they look familiar, it’s time to rethink your web strategy.

No matter how good your salespeople are, if your website is bad, it’s going to make it infinitely harder for them to sell. Today's educated buyers don't need to talk to a salesperson to evaluate and compare companies, products, services, and pricing. They turn to the Internet first, gathering as much information as they can. According to Demand Gen Report's 2014 Content Preferences Survey:

A website home page has a lot of work to do. It has to be both smart and good-looking. It has to have a cool vibe about it that speaks to your company’s personality. It has to have interesting offers, different ways to reach you, and lists of things for visitors to do – all without being cluttered, messy, or overstuffed. Forget it, right?

Don’t worry, it’s not as impossible as it sounds. If you take it one step at a time and break it down into what’s important, constructing a website home page can be a manageable project with long-term rewards.

Most websites are set up for prospects near the end of the sales cycle. They're focused on driving prospects to "contact" the company in some way (demo, trial, consultation, etc.). But, not everyone that comes to your site is ready to jump actively into the sales process. They just want more information about their problem and possible solutions. They want to self-educate so that when they do end up talking to a salesperson, they can feel more confident about what is going on.

If you're not providing content that's aligned with all the stages prospects go through to make a purchasing decision, you're limiting your opportunities and opening the door for your competitors to snatch up good potential customers.

Read more to see an example of how to align your website content with each stage of the sales cycle.

There’s a widening gap between the way prospects buy, and companies sell. Prospects are using Internet research to self-educate through the first two-thirds of the sales process, but the majority of corporate websites and marketing strategies are entirely focused on the late stages of the sales cycle. Unfortunately, this approach puts companies at a huge disadvantage.

Read more to find out how to position your website and marketing strategies so you can engage prospects as early as possible in the sales cycle, have more influence over their buying decision, and get on their short list of potential vendors.

Your website will either draw people in or turn them away - and you only have seconds before the user decides to stay or go. So how do you really know if your company site is good or not? Here’s a simple website evaluation checklist business owners can use to help ensure they’re getting the best return on their investment.

This is a true story about how a company’s website design almost cost them a deal with a Fortune 500 company. (Names and company have been changed to protect privacy.)

Sam, a salesperson (whom we’ll call Seller Sam), had a meeting with Bill, a contact from a Fortune 500 company (whom we’ll call Buyer Bill). The meeting was going great - until Buyer Bill went to Seller Sam’s company website.

The main way to generate leads online is to put forms on your website. It goes beyond the "contact" form. Anytime you have a valuable content offer to share with your target audience, you can ask for information in order to download it.

The data you collect on the forms can be used to guide prospects through the buyer journey. You can use it to properly qualify leads to either send them to the appropriate sales rep or put them back in the bucket for more lead nurturing.

If you collect the right information about your prospects in the right way, you can use it to create targeted messaging that will keep the sales momentum going. However, I frequently see mistakes on website forms that make the data collected very difficult or impossible to use.

Web conversion rate refers to the rate at which website visitors convert into leads.

This metric is determined by how many people download special content offers from your website. The website visitor has to fill out a form on a special page called a landing page in order to get access to your ebook, guide, kit, webinar, etc.

This report shows that we create landing pages that have high web conversion rates.