5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee (3 page)
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Authors: Steve Johnsen
Tags: #Business, #Marketing, #Web design
I believe the only reason for having a business website is to make your business money. Just like
a good, hard-working employee
, your website should be working
tirelessly
for you to grow your business.
W
hen you hire an employee, you expect that employee to work
diligently
to make you money. Your website should be no different
. So what does a website do to make you money?
To be effective, a website
must
accomplish the following three things:
1. Present a professional, polished image and message to your prospective clients.
2. Get found by those prospective clients.
3. Convert those prospects into customers, making money for your business.
I wrote
5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee
for one purpose: to empower you to strategically direct how your website is built so that it makes money for your business. In this book, you will learn the five easy steps that will solve many of the technological mysteries you’ve encountered
…
five simple areas on which you need to focus your attention when having your website built, so that it actually makes money for you.
There are myriad factors involved in
I
nternet marketing, and it can seem overwhelming, but this book will demonstrate that it’s actually not that complicated.
The way in which all the elements work together is actually very simple, and
is
based in common sense.
You can
—and should—expect
your website to be your #1 employee.
This book will show you how.
As mentioned in the last chapter, I strongly
believe
that
the only reason for having a business website is to make your business money.
There is a basic concept that most bus
iness people are familiar with:
return on investment
.
*
Your website is an investment, and as such it should provide a return.
The first rule in investing:
don't lose any money.
The second rule:
don't forget the first rule.
– Warren Buffett
[*Return on investment (ROI) means the benefit you gain by investing in something. If as a manager or business owner, you invest in something, you expect to get more than your investment back. If you invest $100, and get a benefit of $120, then you have gained $20 on your investment (20% ROI). If you get anything less than $100 out of your investment, that is a negative ROI.]
A couple of years ago, I helped a publishing company
with their website
, on which t
hey had spent more than $25,000 dollars. The site was actually very
elaborate
and
quite
nice-looking, but after all their time and money, the site was bringing in
less than a $1,000 a year in revenues.
Getting
a few hundred dollars
back from
a $25,000+ investment is
clearly
a
very
negative ROI!
T
he website actually took away from their bottom line rather than adding to it
.
I’m sure you know someone who can relate to that situation. Like many people I talk to, the owners of that business were frustrated with their website, and could not understand what they had done wrong. Fortunately, we were able to provide a solution.
How did we help? First,
we
built
them a new site, at a fraction of the cost of their original website.
(The new website was different from the old website in a few fundamental ways, which I will mention a little later in the chapter.)
W
i
thin a few months of
its
launch date,
the new website had
earned
the company
more than $40,000
.
A few months
after that
,
it had made
more than
$100,000 in revenue
.
With some ongoing SEO work and a few changes in the products’ pricing and positioning strategies
, within
about
a year
the website
was
earning
more than
$1,000,000
per year in revenue
. I
n terms of
ROI
, the new site
totally flipped the equation
on its head
. I
nstead of losing money on their website,
this company was
now
making money
—
and
making quite a bit of it!
For a
relatively
small investment, they were getting a
massive
return—in fact, more than 1
0
,000% ROI in the first year alone.
*
[*Just to be clear: Not all of our clients receive results as dramatic as this publishing company did. We generally take on projects where we believe our clients can achieve at least a 10x return on their investment. But, of course, no marketing program can have a guaranteed result, especially in the online marketing world where everything is constantly changing.]
How
would
you
like to have
an extra
$40,000 in the next few months? Or an extra $1,000,000 per year?
The question I know you’re dying to ask is, “How did that happen? What was the difference between the new website and the old one? What is the difference between a website that makes money and one that does not?”
The difference
in building a
successful website
versus an
unsuccessful one
doesn’t, in reality, have to be that vast: however,
the difference in results
can be very significant
.
One of the reasons
the
publishing company had struggled with their
original
website is that they
had fallen for five common myths
concerning websites. These are the five most common myths
we
have encountered
in our work
with
literally hundreds of
busin
ess owners and executives.
In this book, we’re addressing, and dispelling, these myths.
The first of the five myths I’m addressing in this chapter is that
which I discussed in Chapter 1: the belief that if you own a business, you need a website.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not against websites. However, t
he problem with this thinking is that the website is
not
the end
-
goal; the website is a tool to help you reach the end
-
goal.
What
you need is not a website. What you need is a profitable business. Your website is simply a tool to get you there.
When clients come to
us
saying that they need a website,
our
first question to them is always, “Why?” Why do you need a website? What do you want it to do? What business are you in? How is this going to help you grow your business?
If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
– Zig Ziglar
Once you answer those questions, you’re on the path to understanding that a website is a strategic
marketing tool which can be built to accomplish a specific business goal.
It is o
nly after that goal is defined
that
the website
can
be designed to accomplish it, rather than being built simply to “have a web presence.”
The second myth that small business owners often hold is that
websites are expensive
.
As a consumer, when you want something, the important question is, “What is the cost?” Successful business owners have a different mindset. The question they as
k is, “What will my return be?”
Here is a trick question that illustrates this key distinction
:
Which is more expensive, a $
1
,000 website that makes $100 a year, or a $
6
,000 website that makes $
100,000
a year?
Stop and think about that for a minute.
While the $
6
,000 website is a much larger investment, the $
1
,000 website is actually more
expensive
, because it’s losing the business money. The $
6
,000 website has a much better ROI, and is therefore
less
expensive. If you could have a site that made you $
100,000
per year, wouldn’t you find a way to borrow the
$6
,000 to get it?
When business owners think that websites are expensive, this sometimes causes them to hold back from investing in a site that will provide huge value for their business. On the other side, it sometimes causes them to greatly overpay for a site that will not actually do much.
Ultimately, all b
usiness owners
must
think in term
s of the return on investment: i
f I
invest
this money
,
what am I going to get back?
If
$
6
,000 will generate $
100,000
, it suddenly becomes essential to invest that money. In other words, don’t look at the price tag; look instead at the return.
Smart business owners are constantly looking for ways to invest in their business.
The third myth I experience constantly in my consulting work is that
looks are everything.
I do feel strongly
that
aesthetics
are
an
extremely
essential feature of most
website
s
—
the look of a website
communicate
s
your brand, your values, and your
company’s
personality
. Your website design can be a key factor in making customers
comfortable working with you,
and it
can make you appear very professional
.
The world wide web is actually the great leveler.
Because a website actually only consists of bits and bytes, with good design a new business on a
small
budget can look like a billion
-
dollar company
.
With all that said, looks are not
everything
. In many
important
ways, the design of the website is as important to its function as paint color is to a car. It’s not the paint that makes the car go fast
.
I
t is what goes on under the hood that matters.
In terms of what this means for a website, the technical and functional aspects of a website have a much bigger impact on its performance
than the design
. I have seen ugly websites that make a lot of money, but I have never seen a poorly coded or poorly functioning website that made very much
money
for the business.
The publishing company’s first website (the one that was not earning them much money) actually looked very nice. It was built by a graphic designer who spent a lot of time making every page look great. The big problem, however, was that the pages were coded in such a way that the search engine could not read most of the content. Hence, the website could not show up in search results when potential customers were online looking for a solution.
The fourth myth I commonly hear is that
everything
has to go
on the
web
site.
Companies, especially those that use their websites for retailing products, end up putting too much on the website: too much content, too many images, too many competing colors
, too many different marketing messages, too many details
…
and
the list goes on. The issue with doing this is that the purpose of the website becomes lost in the fray; if your website’s purpose is to sell products, you need it to be clean
-
looking and simple to navigate.
The publishing company I mentioned in th
e previous
chapter had hundreds of products in dozens of categories
—but the
ir original website
had no search function and no easy way to navigate the categories
. Although your first impression of the site
was of a
very
nice visual design
,
it was nearly impossible for people to find what they were looking for!
On your website, it should be easy for people to find what they are looking for and take action to engage with you. They also must be able to find your business’s phone number. This may sound trite, but many, many websites make it
nearly
impossible to contact the company because their phone number and customer service email address are buried amongst a barrage of information and imagery.
Have you ever been on a retailer’s website to buy something and been frustrated by the checkout process? Have you ever gotten so frustrated that you changed your mind about buying from the company?
O
n a retailing website, it should be easy for people to find
products,
continue shopping at various intervals, review their orders, check out, and pay!
The bottom line is, a website does not need to have everything on it. Rather, since your site was built to accomplish a specific purpose, it should be designed to make it easy for visitors to do just that. A cluttered website prevents customers from receiving the messages they need to receive, understanding the brand and why it’s special, and easily navigating the website.
