Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

This article was first published July 17, 2007 on the Tatum Marketing blog

If there is a universal marketing tool beyond business cards – the one thing that every business needs — it’s a website. I don’t know of a single company, especially a business-to-business company, that doesn’t need a very good website.

Go ahead. Send me all your examples of companies that don’t need sites. I don’t care. I’m biased. I think websites are the center of the marketing universe – – the hub of all communications efforts. If you have a bad website, nothing else matters. If you don’t even have a website, stop right now and get one.

There are at least two very good reasons for this.

1. Your prospects – or at minimum the “experts” who influence your prospects’ purchase decisions — are online. They’ll be looking for you there and they’ll be gathering information about you – usually before they’ll talk to your sales people.
2. Dollar for dollar, your marketing goes a lot farther online. Your website is a cost-effective repository for all kinds of information your prospects will need while deciding to buy. And, it’s open 24/7.

So, how good is your site? Here are 4 common website mistakes. Take a look and see if you’re guilty of any.

Mistake #1: More “we” than “you”

Most websites are very company or product focused – obsessed with things like product features, process descriptions, and company history. But here’s the thing – prospects don’t really care about your company or your product. They want to know what’s in it for them. They are inherently suspicious, too busy to deal with irrelevance, and easily turned off by self-serving sites.

This doesn’t mean you don’t need product, process and company information on your website – it means that you need more than that. You need speak to the prospect’s own interest.

Count the number of times the words “you” and “your” appear on a page and compare it to the number of times “we” or “our” appears. Which number is bigger? If the “we’s” win, you could use a rewrite.

Mistake #2: Unnecessary barriers between your prospects and the information they’re trying to find.

There are two kinds of unnecessary barriers that commonly appear on websites: flash and overly complex forms.

Let’s start with flash. Your prospects hate it. Study after study has shown that flash is annoying and causes people to abandon websites. In fact, a usability study conducted in late 2003 put this number as high as 80% (and these were people with high-speed connections). To lift a quote that I read somewhere “If you must offer a ‘skip intro’ option, shouldn’t your better judgment kick in?”

And then there are forms. You know – the ones your visitors must complete in order to download reports, access case studies, or view demos. Keep this in mind: with every bit of data you require from your prospects, you decrease the number of folks who will bother. This is particularly true early in the buying process when the buyer still isn’t too sure about you. You may be weeding out tomorrow’s buyers.

Here’s good rule of thumb: Don’t ask for more information than you really need. Just because it’s a field in your sales and marketing database, doesn’t mean you have to ask for it on your website.

Mistake #3: Poorly designed page layout and navigation.

We’re an impatient society. And, we’re busy. When prospects hit your website, they want to be able to find what they’re looking for right away – without having to think about it. Your pages must be designed for scanning.

Want to tell if your site is easy to navigate? Watch while your spouse, friend or neighbor gives it a try. Ideally, this is someone who is not associated with your business. You’ll quickly see whether your site is intuitive or cloaked in mystery.

Mistake #4: Not enough content.

While a picture may be worth 1000 words, unless yours is exclusively an entertainment website, people do visit your site in search of information. They want to know more about solutions to their problems and how you can help them. They won’t be scared away by a lot of text (as long as the design is good). On the other hand, if your site fails to give them adequate information, they’re not likely to track you down to find it. They’ll go on to buy from someone else.

What types of tools do your prospects need when they’re trying to decide if your product or service is the right one? What questions do they have? How can you make their decisions easier? Your website is the perfect place to dispense this information.

Guilty? If you found your website “guilty” of one or more of these mistakes, don’t attack your webmaster. You’re not alone. But now that you’ve found some weaknesses, get them fixed. Your website is the heart of your marketing. Make sure it’s strong.