WWWWW: Why Won’t Wonderful Websites Work?

March 15, 2012 by
Filed under: Business Growth, Pittsburgh, Profitable Growth, Uncategorized 

For the fourth time in 15 years I’m revamping my website.  My technology wingman groans, rolling his eyes and thinks, “Here he goes again.”

Why does the website that made me so proud a few years ago make me cringe? The reasons jump out at me:

It’s too complicated. The messaging isn’t clear, the back end doesn’t work, it’s not SEO-friendly, visitors are down and it’s not written in the right language. Length of stays is down, it’s not customizable, and, thanks to statistics on Google Analytics,  the website just isn’t doing the job.

I ask experts and gurus, “What’s your latest thinking on effective websites? What’s working?”  The avalanche of ideas and advice I hear only makes things worse.

“Get your reader engaged”…”Crowdsource”…”Give away your value.”…”Tweet, tweet tweet!…”Improve your Klout score!”…Like everything you can on Facebook and you will be liked back”…Your Face book must talk to your blog which talks to your LinkedIn”… “Put ads on your site”… ”Reciprocally link”…”Update your meta tags”…. “Fool Google…”First page or fail!”…“Get people to talk about you!”

With a sense of déjà vu, I freeze up. I can’t move ahead or accept my website for what it is and isn’t. If I upgrade my website, I know I face thousands of dollars and worse yet, a hundred hours invested only to be no further ahead than where I am today.

I ask clients, referral sources, friends and family, “What do you think of my site?” I hear platitudes like: “It’s so informative.” “There’s so much great content.” You’ve   done so much.” The worst is, “I was going to hire you anyway.”

I know I have to change my site or accept that websites are nothing more than billboards and content giveaways for a professional-services firm.

Then it hits me. All I ever wanted from my site was to provoke and qualify prospects into having a live conversation with me.

My business, like most conceptual services, only works when I have a conversation with a prospect who shares his or her goals and challenges with me. Website hits, visits, click-throughs, registrations, follows, likes or joins don’t really matter unless they create that conversation.

I went back to the roots about how my prospects hire me, how they build trust with me and their typical buying behavior in hiring me. For every 10 conversations, I can generate five meetings, three proposals and close one sale.  And I have decided to build my new website simply to do this.

I can already hear experts scoffing, designers and social media mavens who preach the building of customer engagements, social friendliness and website stickiness. Frankly, I just don’t care. If my strategy generates 10 conversations a month but everyone else thinks it’s a bust, I’ll be pleased.

My business goal is to keep failing in new and different ways, and frankly I haven’t tried this before. And how much worse could it do?  But maybe this time, I’ll be saying, “WWWW: Why Website’s Work Wonderfully!”

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13 Comments on WWWWW: Why Won’t Wonderful Websites Work?

  1. Curtis Greve on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 9:09 am

    2. BINGO! You are right on when it comes to web sites. “Experts” get so caught up in rankings and media and the bells and whistles they forget what it is all about. If a web site isn’t going your business, it’s like a sales person who can’t close a deal, they are worthless.

    Well Said!
    Curtis

  2. Andy Birol on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 10:20 am

    3. Thanks, Curtis. And I have already gotten calls from designers telling me how happy I will be if I hire them! I wonder if I can pay by the number of requests for a meeting my redesigned site will get?

  3. Kate Rein on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 12:01 pm

    4. Right there with you, Andy!

    I keep telling my website provider that I’m not TRYING to get Web traffic. My website is purely an online portfolio (i.e., a “credibility builder”) where I can send potential clients I’ve already met.

    Last week, my provider told me how, if she were a potential customer, she’d never hire me because my site was so outdated. It implied that my services were outdated, too. For a day or two, I was convinced she was right.

    That’s when I checked out her web company’s site…and determined that I need to take her advice with a grain of salt. Talk about outdated! I bet referrals and networking are doing more to drive their website business than they’d like to admit.

  4. Andy Birol on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 12:18 pm

    5. Kate,

    Amen!! Why can’t shoemakers’ children wear home made shoes! It never ends, does it?

  5. Pamela Lewis on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 12:53 pm

    6. Andy, your site needs to work for you and your business. If you are attracting business, the rest is extra.

  6. Bonnie Fraser on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 10:27 am

    7. Andy, you are so right. I’ve got the only Ohio blog in my industry, which I use to educate prospects that I am an easy & knowledgeable person to work with. The techie who set it up tells me I should ask questions to engage the readers, but why would I want to spend time “chatting” instead of helping my clients or getting new ones?

  7. Andy Birol on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 10:38 am

    8. Thanks, Pamela. There is nothing else I expect besides conversations!

  8. Andy Birol on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 10:40 am

    9. Thanks, Bonnie. If only a techie would be willing to be paid on provoking so many qualified conversations!

  9. Lauren Smith on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 9:23 pm

    10. Hi Andy.

    I tend to agree with you. Everything is getting just too complicated. I prefer to keep it simple. I’m less concerned with the number of hits to my website than I am with the number of inquiries, whether they are e-mails, responses to my blog, or phone calls. That has more to do with quality of hits than quantity.

    It’s ok to be on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, but let’s be honest….just how much closed business does someone get to offset the time spent on these sites? For example, if I want to earn $100/hour, how many hours will it take to get a client that will hire me at that rate?

    Have a nice looking website. Design it for the intended purpose. If you use it to show current clients or people you network with only, than SEO is not important. If you use it to generate business, than SEO may be important, but if you don’t start a conversation that leads to business and closing the sale, it does not matter how many hits you get. You always need to look at the time you spend on the computer as a potential “revenue producing activity”. If the activity does not produce much revenue, don’t spend extra money or time.

    Lauren Smith
    Interior Designer
    Your Space Refined
    Member Interior Redecorators Network and Alliend ASID

  10. Andy Birol on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 9:37 pm

    11. Beautifully stated, Lauren. Thanks!

  11. Lauren Smith on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 10:21 pm

    12. You’re very welcome, Andy.

  12. Fred Dugach on Wed, 21st Mar 2012 3:06 pm

    13. Ah yes! I had to bite my tongue so as not to taint the audience. However I am extremely glad to see the comments that seem to agree with my professional opinion on websites and that dreaded term, SEO!
    (Search Engine Optimization and Organic SEO).

    Websites are in many cases a necessary evil. In the best case they actually have a high return on the investment! But the biggest question is, how much should a company invest!

    SEO on the other hand is also very important, (and very expensive), and has a similar rate of return. But one simple question; why can’t you get an ROI guarantee from any company selling SEO?

    I truly believe in both of these critical investments but just note that both investments have an exponential return on each dollar spent for your Internet statement.

    The bottom line, as Andy might say, is Profitable Growth!
    And I totally agree!

  13. WWWW: Why Worthy Websites Work : Profitable Growth on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 8:56 pm

    14. [...] recent article for TEQ WWWWW: Why Don’t Wonderful Websites Work?, spelled out why my new website, would ignore the best advice of website gurus and would focus [...]

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