Why do some websites work amazingly well, while others never do anything?
Purpose. The deceptively simple secret to effective websites.
Several years ago now, my brother called me. He started a business and asked if I would make him a website. I said I would.
At the time, I helped people like my brother every day, all day long, for one of the largest software companies in the world. I knew exactly what to do, what to ask. Then he told me he wanted the website to get him customers. As I started to consider how to do this I realized I knew little about how to make a website that gets relevant traffic and brings in customers. This became my first project where the sole purpose of the website was directly related to the goals of the business: getting customers profitably.
I had much to learn and learn I did. From free traffic to paid traffic, blogs to landing pages, social media and link building and more, I dove into the project. I read about how to convert visitors into qualified leads. I learned about optimal usage of words and pictures.
Things started to work. People emailed my brother because they wanted to hire him. “How did you hear about me?” he would ask. “Online,” they would say, “searching on Google.” People started to call. I was doing something right.
Because I had the tracking set up correctly, I could learn what was driving these leads. I focused on those things that were working and stopped the ones that didn’t. My brother was happy. Soon he had a business because of his website rather than having a website because he had a business.
Months later my dad called – he was starting a business too. This was in 2008 and the economy was going down the drain fast. To get off the ground, he also needed a website. He was calling just to talk about his new venture. You see, my dad is a do it yourself kind of guy. He knew I had worked with my brother, but he thought he could build his own website. And he did. He made a website, of sorts. If you were to visit his site you would read about his business, his bio and how to contact him. 7 months went by and not a single call, not a single email. Every customer he received came through his direct sales efforts. He made phone calls and visited people in person. It worked. He had business and he had a website.
I remember going to his website around Christmas 2008. I thought, “Wow, I think we can do better here.” So I called my dad and told him I would make him a website and if he liked it, I would give it to him. Sure enough, he liked it, and I gave it to him — on Christmas Day. I remember being on the phone with customer support getting the domain switched over late on Christmas Day and wondering how long it would take for this website to impact my dad’s business. Well, it took 3 months. The leads trickled in slowly at first, but those leads were worth tens of thousands of dollars. My dad got excited. We starting working together on getting content for the website, growing the site and its traffic. More traffic meant more customers. Now 90 percent of the new leads come from the website I produced and still manage. He has a bigger business because he has a website that works.
What is the purpose of your website? If you own a business, your website should have one goal and one goal only: sell. If you run a non-profit, your website has one goal: sell. Your website is a form of advertising, and advertising does one thing: sell. As a business owner, your job is to make sales happen. You must sell your product or service, or you go bankrupt. So how is it that a website can go for years without producing a penny of profit, and the owner doesn’t change a thing?
Does your website pay for itself?
Imagine you had a salesperson who did not track performance or productivity. Would you keep that salesperson on the payroll? I think not! But this is what most business owners do with their websites. They have no idea how their websites perform and they have no idea how to get them to perform, but they keep paying for those hosting fees and occasional updates.
Do you want your website to justify its own existence?
There are websites that are doing this already, and they are rainmakers. These websites are assets that are highly prized but poorly understood. If you want a website that justifies itself, I want to help.
