If you don’t get business leads from your website, you should read this.
Consumer Experience – Just a few years ago:
- Pick up the Yellow Pages and try to find a nearby supplier of the product you’re looking for
- (Sometimes) Call them to ask if they have what you need
- (More often) Hop in your car and drive to the location
- Locate the establishment, find parking and hope they have the style/color or other specifics that you’re looking for
- Purchase the item
- Drive home
- Hope that there are no problems or issues with your purchase
Consumer Experience – Today:
- The vast majority of consumers use the internet to find their goods and services
- They use search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo to locate possible sources and compare prices
- Once they choose a potential supplier, they turn to social media to get consumer feedback on that supplier, and reviews of their product or service. If they don’t like what they see, they go back to #2 to find another candidate. Once satisfied, they
- Purchase the product online and have it shipped – or if local, drive there and buy it
In today’s online world, it is critical for a business to have a solid online presence and reputation. Those that don’t will likely not be here in 5 years. If your website is not ranked at or near the top of Google, Bing and Yahoo, you probably won’t get today’s consumers coming to your business.
Here at MVP, we have seen many websites that were built without even the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). These websites can only be found if you know the name of the company or business. The main purpose of any website is to have a place where people can learn about your products, and where you can convince them to come to you rather than to one of your competitors. That’s all well and good but if nobody can find your website, they won’t even know that you exist. We call that a lazy website because it just sits there and does nothing.
Here are three very important website statistics you should monitor:
- Number of unique visitors per week/month
- Number of page views
- How long the average visitor stays on your site
If your visitor count is low, the cause may be that you’re not being found high enough in the search engine ranking so consumers don’t even know to visit your site. If your visitor count is good but your page views or average time on site are low, your website may not be that appealing or possibly the navigation is too complex.
There are a number of things that can be done to make your website work for you instead of against you. Have a professional review your site and your site statistics, and then provide recommendations on how to improve the areas that are lacking. Your website will be better off and so will your business.
, Jason Alba explains that there are six major benefits to LinkedIn:
