How many sales is your website costing you?

It happens to the best of us.

Your interest in a product or service is piqued by need or promotion and so, cash in hand, you visit a business’ website, only to find a slapdash, ages old, non-responsive (not adaptable to mobiles and devices) mess!

Appalled, you click off to visit a competitor instead where you find exactly what you are after and move to the next stage of doing business with them, or indeed completing the sale altogether.

Sadly this happens all too often.

The second blow

The unfortunate result for the business in question is that not only has it lost a customer to a competitor but it has wasted the return on investment on the promotional avenue that drove you there in the first place.

This is the business equivalent of a soccer ‘own goal’.

Clearly it makes no sense at all in investing your hard earned cash in a promotional mix that drives traffic to a shoddy, poorly conceived lead-killer.

As this blog continues to highlight, these days your business website needs to be much more than an afterthought.

It needs to be an intrinsic component of your marketing and for many, your fundamental business planning.

Invest as much as you can

That means investing as much as you possibly can on the various components of a great website — design, photography, copy, search engine optimisation and technology platform, in order to convert those visits into leads and ideally sales.

The equation is: the better the website, the better the conversion to a sale.

The point that many miss is that a website is the online representation of your business. Visitors use it to not just to find out more about your business but to evaluate whether or not they should do business with you.

And that means ensuring that your website is as professional as other aspects of your business, such as your staff, advertising and vehicles; all the visual indicators of how much you care about your business and your customer.

The great news is that it’s now more affordable than ever to create a professional website.

More bang for your buck

Competition and technology development now mean that you can get a very impressive and effective website for much less than you once could.

Nowadays it really is possible to create a world class website for just a few thousand dollars. Even the entry level DIY sites are much more professional looking than they once were.

Not only will this place your best foot forward to the public, it will include brilliant tools to be able to maintain the website as best you can without bothering (and paying for) your web development professional’s intervention.

This means that your ongoing maintenance costs are also more affordable than ever.

So there really is no excuse for a shoddy website these days.