 After reviewing and
analyzing more than 300 websites over the past three years I have come to the conclusion that
there are 5 main local internet marketing mistakes local businesses make with their websites
that keep the websites from producing a significant number of customer leads.
Here are the five mistakes, and surprisingly none of them have
anything to do with SEO, SEM, or PPC!
Local Business Website Marketing Mistake #1
The website was built without any consideration or
understanding of fundamental direct marketing principles.
Most web designers I’ve met are talented graphic designers
who know absolutely nothing about marketing
fundamentals. Therefore, it never surprises me when
reviewing a potential client's website to find dozens of fundamental marketing mistakes staring me
in the face.
Example: The website text (copy) talks about the company, its history, and captivates (ha
ha) with a menu list of services. The site copy is invariably written in the first-person past
tense “We have been in business since 1982” and fails to engage the reader who has a problem and is
looking for a solution. Good lead generating websites and webpages will have large portions written
in the 2ndperson present tense “Is your low water pressure driving you crazy?”
Local Business Website Marketing Mistake #2
Too much flash and images, not enough
content.
Example: A potential new client was just referred to me about 45 minutes ago. This client,
located in beautiful southern California just might have the prettiest website I’ve ever
seen.
I’m telling you, this site is absolutely breathtaking; from the
opening flash video to the entire site content, complete with trendy music playing in the
background. This site is easy to look at and pretty easy to navigate around. So what’s the
problem? The entire site is built in Adobe flash which the
search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing cannot read!
So to this company’s human visitors this site seems to have around 20
pages of nice content, but to the search engines it looks
like one page with essentially zero content. Now, while
this website is the most extreme example I have ever seen, please take a look at your site and ask
yourself if it is structured to be persuasive both to search engines and to your
human visitors, especially your new potential customers.
Local Business Website Marketing Mistake #3
Fundamental marketing research to discover your most
important buying phrases has never been done.
The Internet is a wonderful source of information and education and
search engines such as Google do quite a good job of delivering results that match the intention of
your customer.
The problem with your local business website however is that before
the site was ever designed the “webmaster” never bothered to spend the hours necessary to discover
the intentions of your customers and how your customers perceive, search & find the types of
services you offer. (Notice the second person voice?)
Example: A large high-end remodeling company’s website was not providing the number of
leads the owners were hoping for. After our team did some initial research we found that their
website (which was very nice looking) had been built without any buying phrase research having been
completed.
We could tell by reviewing how the site was structured and what
phrases were being emphasized. What we found was that the term “custom finished basements” was
being emphasized because this was how the owners perceived their business. The problem and the
reason why the site was not delivering the amount of leads the owners were hoping for was that very
few homeowners are searching for “custom finished basements”- that’s not the way they express the
intent to remodel their basements. The owners would’ve been far better served by focusing their
sights and structure around the term “remodeling contractors” or even “basement contractors”. These
simple, rather bland words are examples of important buying phrases for the remodeling
market especially when associated with geographic terms such as city names and zip
codes.
Local Business Website Marketing Mistake #4
Having website design that is difficult to navigate and
confusing to the eye.
Important pieces of information such as the phone number are either
missing or hidden deep inside menus.
Example: It is not uncommon to find HVAC contractors with websites that do not have a
clear call to action for repair and emergency repair services on the homepage along with the
emergency repair phone number.
Now while I firmly believe the research that shows that many people
who are visiting your local business website are not looking to make a purchase immediately,
certain service providers such as HVAC contractors and plumbing contractors will get a fair number
of visitors who are indeed immediately looking to take
action.
And trust me, if they do not see a phone number immediately upon
arriving at the website they will click the back arrow (what is known as a “bounce”) and go to the
next search engine result before they ever take the time to search out the information on your
website.
Local business websites must speak to the conversations going on
within their prospective clients’ heads and do so in a
clear logical way. One tool we use to help design a
clear, logical, uncluttered site is a predictive attention tool that helps predict where a visitor
to a website will look during the first 3-4 seconds of landing on the page and the path the
visitor’s eye will follow. Of course, your most important message should be right on this
path.
Local Business Website Marketing Mistake #5
Not having a way to start and
carry-on a conversation with site visitors who are NOT ready to buy and are looking for decision
supporting information.
In Local Business Website
Marketing Mistake #4 I spoke to having a site design that
is ready to convert those visitors to buyers who are ready to take action. Well research shows that
in many cases your visitors are not looking to make a purchase immediately but rather are looking
for decision supporting information from someone they can trust.
Example: Your products and services might represent a fairly large investment in
time, energy and resources for your client. Right?
Also, I’ll bet you that if most of your clients do not purchase
your products and services frequently or even more than once in a ten-year span, then they really
don’t understand how to purchase your products services or what constitutes a good purchasing
decision. Herein lies the opportunity for the savvy local businessperson.
The businessperson who crafts a website and complete marketing system
to educate and guide the potential prospect across the buying continuum will ensure that they
capture a larger share of the local business pie than their competitors. And the best part is that
when you outsource this marketing system to the hands of a professional (such as
FetchLocalCustomers.com) this
conversational marketing system is completely hands off and turn-key.
Well, there you have them; five principal reasons why local business
websites fail to attract and close more business than they should. Stay tuned for part two when we
get down to some of the details that you must get straight in order to ensure that your website
becomes a highly productive local internet marketing machine.
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