Website: Pretty or Well Done?

Have you ever heard someone say "I chose my bank because its website has great looking banners" or "I always buy from that company because they have such great videos"? My guess is... probably not.

Let's be realistic, clients don't buy on websites because they look pretty yet, some companies and web designers are still obsessed with the beauty and even sacrifice their ROI on its behalf. In the end, that "red lipstick" website becomes a waste.

Design is just superficial, the real beauty is on the inside. Could it be that their great looking design is only hiding very bad-looking moles? Let's find out! We here share with you:

7 Ugly Truths that Even the Prettiest Web Page can't Hide

1. It's not ranking in Google

Optimization and Search Engine Visibility (so Google offers your content) triumphs over beauty. More than the name of your company, Google looks for the products and services that you have to offer. If your website is hiding in the woods, would it still matter if it's pretty?

For example, Arrendamás ranks 122 keywords on Google's first 3 search results and 191 on the first 10:

• arrendamiento de equipo médico
• financiamiento equipo industrial
• arrendamiento de tractocamiones
• financiamiento de equipo industrial

Traffic makes any site look prettier.

Search Engine Optimization Tips

• Make sure your website is addressing topics and keywords that your market is looking for
• Invest more in creating high quality content, optimized content, and less on beauty
• Most businessmen consider that traffic generation make any site prettier

2. Your content is really bad

Evidence is overwhelming: original, useful and shareable content means business. If you aren't involved in the commercialization of content, then you are loosing clients that will go to you competitors.

Here are the facts

• 329 million people read blogs every month. Are they reading yours?
• 27 million pieces of content are shared every day. How may of these are from your site?
• 73% of clients would rather read blogs and articles that watch advertisements. Are you using this marketing technique already?
• 61% of consumers are more likely to buy from companies that publish content that from those who don't.
• Did you know that clicks on shared content increase the sales probability 50%?
• More than 80% of content action are taking place via email, social networks blogs and discussion forums. How are you doing in these channels?

Content Advice

Start blogging now! Do it at least twice a week. If you are in a competitive space, you might even want to increase the number of weekly publications.

Ask your customer service area and your sales staff about the questions that they usually get asked and give an answer to them on your blogs.

3. Your marketing Platform is not the right one

In order to generate traffic, potential clients and sales, you need a platform that will allow you to :

• Publish content
• Create and test Landing Pages
• Nurture prospects
• Optimize conversion rates

The time you invest using additional tools and complex configurations -specially if all of your tools and platforms aren't well integrated among themselves- might double or triple the amount of time that it takes to carry out a good marketing strategy. It can also complicate or make more difficult the ability to measure what's working -or not- in your campaigns and thus, decide what you should do in order to improve your numbers.

Ask yourself the following questions

1. Does your platform allow your site to generate and nurture potential clients?
2. How does it help in the creation of keywords and SEO data?
3. Does it offer solutions for the management of your social networks marketing?
4. Can you manage the interactions with your clients directly?
5. Does it let you and your business monitor the effectiveness of your marketing strategy?

If the platform that you are using can't do any of these, or at least give an answer to these questions, how do you know if it can really help when testing new MKT ideas? Ultimately, you need to ask yourself if your platform is really working as it should.

Advice on what to look for in a platform

• The chance to build an idea, test how it works and then improve it, is an essential part of modern marketing. Look for the tools that would help you test your ideas on your website.
• Find a tool that works for you. If you spend more time fighting with a tool than creating content, it might be a good time to get rid of that tool

4. It's not generating potential clients

Internet is the n.1 tool ever created for specific and effective commercialization. What television hasn't been able to achieve regarding the reception of the message, the Internet covers brilliantly. The commercialization of products and services on the Internet today, when carried out properly, has made the traditional prospecting technique almost obsolete.

And if you are not using your website to boost knowledge, generate leads, filter for adjustment, and offer sales to potential customers, you are getting lost along the way.

The generation of potential customers takes place thanks to the development of Call to Action (CTA) buttons, that is, by directing your client to the next step in the purchasing process. Examples of CTA's are:

• Read more
• Subscribe to our email
• Receive valuable content
• Request a quote
• Buy now
• Give us some feedback on how we did it

You can place Call to Action buttons on your website in order to automate the client's information nutrition process.

Advice to generate prospects

1. No traffic?

• Start a blogging campaigns based on keywords in order to aim at your target customers.
• Gather relevant websites links.
• Increase compatibility with your content
• Share blogs from other sites

2. Traffic but no prospects?

Create offers that help customers better understand their needs and problems. This will boost your brand awareness and generate possibilities for a bigger sale.

3. Prospects but no clients?

Create and market offers that would help you convert clients: free quotes, free trials, etc...

5. You are looking your target audience

Before you start publishing content and offers, make sure you have chosen the best target audience, one that knows how and why they buy. Know how to reach them. If you have a well defined buyer, it means that you have worked hard to:

• Understand their needs
• Identify their questions
• Anticipate the keywords they might use when asking those questions
• Know how face their problems, overcome their objections, and offer them solutions with a tone that matches the way they want to be helped by you.

Advice to better target your audience:

1. Create models of "buying personas" and use them as a reference point for the content that you'll create for them
2. Create a voice and a document with the tone of your company so it communicates in a way that your target market will understand
3. Ask your customer service area and sales department about the problems and objections that they usually hear from customers and make content that gives an answer to them

6. Nothing changes

If you aren't continuously innovating, your site isn't working! An obsolete site can easily loose efficiency. You must constantly go back and analyze everything:

• Make some minor changes on your email marketing, landing pages and conversions that are at the half of the buying process
• Use A/B test results to see what works better

Advice to improve your website

1. Use A/B tests to try new ideas, wether its the content of a landing page or CTA buttons... The first idea that you put to work is usually not the only one that you should go for.
2. You aren't sure of what your clients want or need? ask them! Create a well designed survey so that those who buy from you (or even those who don't) help you better understand what you are doing well regarding your website and -why not?- which things can be improved as well.

7. It's slow on social networks

Most visitors don't arrive to your website by chance, they certainly don't leave it by accident either, and most definitely don't share its content by accident. Be the company that distributes the content that people love. Make it easy to share and watch your customers spread the word all by themselves.

They are called social media for a reason, because they give your company every opportunity to be seen, heard and read.

Social Networks advice

1. For more "likes", actions, and re-tweets, give the title a 50% of your energy. The title is, after all, the "first impression" and, most of all, it might be the only thing that a person will read. Work hard to make it attractive!
2. Everything that is shared on social networks must be tracked by you, otherwise, you wont be able to asses if something is working or not.
3. Think about the long term: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter will eventually play a bigger role in the exposition of your content and in the positioning of search engines.

Fight those moles, don't disguise them!

Now that you've asked yourself all the hard questions, give your company the chance to discover the ugly moles that your website has and work on the solutions that will turn the tables so it all makes a difference for your clients, your employees and your company's expected results.

If you need help identifying those things that should be improved or carrying out a whole new strategy, feel free to ask for a consultation with us:

* Article based on HubSpot information.