3 Reasons Why Your Website Isn't Generating Leads & Sales

I talk with a lot of business owners and managers who are frustrated with their websites.  The biggest cause of frustration is their websites aren't producing new leads and sales.  After all, if you are a business owner or manager with a website, one of your biggest goals is to have your website contribute to your bottom line.  And knowing that majority (if not all) of your customers are online, then your website should be the biggest source of new leads and sales for your business.

So here's 3 reasons, based on my own experience here at Bipper Media, why your website isn't generating leads and sales for your business.  

1)  No one can find it

Without question, the greatest source of traffic for nearly all business websites is search engines.  Google drives more referral traffic to websites than any other source on the internet.  That's because people turn to Google, more than any other resource, to search for information on products and services - especially as they enter in to the buying or hiring phase of their customer journey.

As such, getting your website found at the top of the search results is critically important.  Statistics show that over 85% of people using Google click thru the top 3 - 5 search results for any given query.  So if your website isn't easily found at the top of those search results, then someone else (your competitors) are capturing that valuable inbound traffic.

How to fix this problem:  

Without getting too deep, let me give you some quick action steps you can take to help drive your business into the top search results in your market:

1. Use your targeted keyword phrase(s) as the first instance in your <h1> title tag in your key pages and homepage of your website.
2. Reiterate your targeted keyword phrases within the <desc> description tag of those same pages.
3. Emphasize your targeted keyword phrase(s) throughout the content on your targeted landing page or homepage of your website.
4. Strategically link to your key landing pages or homepage from within relevant and authoritative pages within your website.  This strategy is sometimes referred as a "silo architecture" within your website - meaning, you are creating an internal linking silo leveraging targeted keyword phrases in secondary pages that link up to your targeted page.  One way to find relevant pages within your website to place these links is to use a site query in Google which looks like this... "site:www.yourwebsite.com" {keyword phrase}.  By running this search query, Google will show you what pages within your website are seen as the most authoritative for that particular keyword phrase.  And then you can use these pages as opportunities to build an authoritative silo of links pointing up to your targeted page.  Building silo structures of links throughout your website helps tell Google which page within your site is most relevant for your targeted keyword phrases.  And this creates buoyancy for those pages based on those targeted keyword phrases.

2)   There are no action elements above the fold

The next biggest reason websites aren't producing new leads and sales is because websites fail to present action elements to their visitors.  

If you are an air conditioning repair company in Houston, Texas (for example), the biggest goal you have for your website is to get customers to call to make an appointment.  But if your website doesn't quickly present your visitors with an element that allows them to make that appointment, they more than likely will leave your website empty handed.  

On the other hand, if you present prominently displayed action elements such as "get a free quote", "schedule an appointment", or even "call us now", then people will see exactly what they need to do to take the next step with your business.  

How to fix this problem:

Action elements are a fundamental piece of any website that has a goal of producing new leads and sales for their business.  And by placing these action elements above the fold will dramatically increase your conversion rate of visitors to your website. 

Placing an action element above the fold means visitors to your website see your action element before having to scroll down your website - meaning, they see your action elements on their screens as soon as your website loads.

And conversion rate means the percentage of visitors to your website that take action through your action element.  (visitors who take action) / (total visitors to your website) = conversion rate.  And by making your action elements as one of the first things your visitors see when your website loads will help you increase leads and sales for your business.

3)  Your website isn't mobile friendly

On April 21st, Google released what they claim to be the most major algorithm update to date, and it's an update that favors websites in the mobile search results that are mobile friendly.  Conversely, websites that are not mobile friendly will be penalized and drop in the mobile search results.

In the middle of 2014, Google engineer Matt Cutts claimed that as soon as 2015 (where we are now) we may see more searches conducted on mobile phones than on desktop computers.  This means, getting your website seen at the top of the search results on mobile phones is critically important.

But if your website isn't mobile friendly, then you are working against yourself by not giving your website the chance to even rank on mobile phones.

How to fix this problem:

There are two ways I help clients fix this problem of not having a mobile friendly version of their websites:

1. Rebuild their websites with a mobile responsive theme:  We've taken on quite a few projects lately where we are completely rebuilding client's websites in Wordpress using themes that are, by design, mobile friendly.  This means, when someone accesses your website via a mobile device, a mobile friendly version will load automatically instead of the desktop version.
2. Rebuild using Duda Mobile:  likewise, we are building a lot of custom mobile sites for clients using Duda Mobile.  This platform can take any website and convert it into a custom mobile site.  And with Duda, you have a lot of flexibility in customizing the layout and look of your mobile site.  Finally, with Duda Mobile, they provide code to place in your website that will allow your mobile site to load automatically on mobile devices, and you can even set a specific mobile URL for your mobile site (m.yourwebsite.com) which will help search engines recognize that you have a dedicated mobile site for mobile devices.

There are more reasons, of course, why any given website isn't producing leads and sales for a business.  Reasons such as not presenting testimonials, or not giving social proof for your products and services.  These are equally important elements that every website should be presenting directly on the homepage or key landing pages within their website.

But the three reasons I stated above are what I consider to be the low hanging fruit opportunities that every website can fix, and will help convert visitors to your website into new leads and sales for your business.

Get a free website analysis:  if you'd like to me to take a look at your website and provide you with some feedback as to how you can start increasing leads and sales for your business, submit your website for a free analysis.

Thanks again, and I hope these tips help you as you look to increase more leads and sales through your online presence and your website.

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Written by Bobby Holland, Founder at BipperMedia.com

Bipper Media:  Create. Connect. Convert.