4 Common Ways Your Website Is Leaking Cash

Today I am sharing with you the Top Four Most Costly Mistakes People Make on Their Websites (and how to correct them)! Correcting these four mistakes can increase traffic to your site, improve your ranking on Google, generate more leads and ultimately increase your sales. Here they are:

Mistake #1: Not Knowing How Your Site Is Performing

The metrics of your site have so much to tell you, but if you aren’t using them (or worse yet, you don’t have them *gasp* ) you will have no idea how your site is actually performing. You might be getting plenty of traffic, but you’re not converting the traffic you have (getting leads or making sales). Or maybe you aren’t getting any traffic at all and that’s why you aren’t making sales or getting leads. Not knowing how your site is performing is the most common (and in our opinion the mostly costly) website mistake. The first step to overcoming this problem is by installing Google Analytics on your website so you have a great picture of how your website is performing. Here’s a great article to show you how to download it now. You want to look at these three primary pieces of information:

• Traffic (the number of visitors to your site)
• Bounce Rate (how many people leave your site before exploring any other page)
• Conversion Rate (how many people took the action you wanted them to take, i.e., gave you their email address, purchased your product, signed up for your newsletter, etc.)

If your traffic is minimal, then you know you need to increase traffic to your site. The primary way to accomplish this is by generating content your audience wants to read and then pushing that great content to them through a well thought out content strategy. (See #4) If your traffic is great, but they are bouncing (leaving quickly) then you know you need to adjust your content or possibly your call to action. And if you're getting lots of traffic, but they aren't buying, you know you need to change the way you are presenting the opportunity to buy. (There is a lot more you can learn from your analytics, but these are some great first steps in avoiding this mistake.)

Mistake #2: No Primary Call to Action

Your primary call to action is the number one thing you want visitors to your site to do. Do you want them to download something, sign up for something, buy something? Remember, if you don’t know what you want them to do, they won’t know either. Your message has to be crystal clear. One of the more common mistakes we see is placing the call to action below the fold on your website. “The Fold” is the point on your website where someone has to scroll to see more information. You don’t want them to have to scroll to see your primary call to action. Place your call to action in your banner, or somewhere prominent and above the fold.

Mistake #3: Things That Kill SEO

In retail, taking inventory is what you do to determine what you have on hand; what you’ve sold, what you want to replace, etc. In the website world, taking inventory means knowing which pages are performing the best (which ones have the most traffic, have the best performing keywords, highest conversion rate, etc.). If you don’t know what you have, and how it’s doing, you might accidentally get rid of a page or some content that is generating some heavy SEO credit (this is bad, bad, bad). One of the best practices we can recommend is never deleting a page (or update your website) without knowing exactly which pages are your top SEO performers. Bonus Tip: Create a helpful 404 page that allows people to find other helpful content if a page is broken on your site. It’s very important to your SEO.

Mistake #4: No Content Strategy

Content is the text and video information you present on your website that constantly pushes traffic to your site. Your content must be current, relevant to your target market, and informative. Building a robust and thorough content strategy takes work. We recommend using an editorial calendar to determine exactly what type of content you will generate and how and where you will communicate. Blogging, podcasting, webinars, and guest blog posts (which are epic for SEO because you not only have YOUR audience, you now have the guest blogger’s traffic as well! #winning) – these are all great examples of content. Content is still king. And hey, we get it. Some people would just rather have someone do all this for them. No shame in that game. Learning how to interpret your analytics, constantly creating updated content and calls to action, and worrying about SEO; that’s some heavy lifting, especially when you have a business to manage! If you still have questions about how to optimize your website for maximum traffic, maximum lead generation, and maximum sales, or you just want someone else to do the heavy lifting for you, we'd be happy to help you at Beefy Marketing. Beefy will create a custom (yes, custom, not template-based) website for you and then manage your website for you. They update your content, make sure your site is secure, and keep your design fresh and current, all for one low monthly fee. Beefy’s motto is, “Manage Your Business, Not Your Website.” We agree, that’s great advice. Have a great one!