Is Your Website Doing Its Job?

For most businesses, having a website is a given. It’s often one of the first things you invest in when you start out, and it becomes the place you send people when they want to learn more about your business.

But having a website and having one that works for your business are two very different things. A website should do more than simply exist. It should help potential customers understand what you do, build confidence in your business and make it easy for people to take the next step, whether that’s getting in touch, making an enquiry or finding out more.

So, is your website actively supporting your marketing, or is it just sitting there?

Your Website Is More Than Just a Place to Be Found

It’s easy to think of your website as a digital brochure, and there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a place where people can find out what you do, understand more about your business, explore your services and know how to get in touch.

The difference is that, unlike a printed brochure, your website is not static. It’s something that can and should evolve with your business.

Your services may change, you may start working with different types of customers, you may have new examples of your work to share, new testimonials to add or a different message you want to communicate. Your website gives you the opportunity to keep that information current and ensure it continues to represent your business accurately.

How effective is your website at doing those things? When someone arrives on your website, can they quickly understand who you are, what you offer and who you help? Does it reflect the quality of your business? Does it answer the questions someone is likely to have before they decide whether to contact you?

Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference

You do not always need a complete website rebuild to make improvements. Often, small changes can have a big impact, whether that’s updating your content, improving your messaging, making information easier to find or adding more recent examples of your work.

Here are a few questions to help get you started:

• Is it immediately clear what your business does?
• Are your key services or products easy to find?
• Is the language focused on your customers rather than just your business?
• Are your contact details and next steps obvious?
• Does your website show what makes your business different?

Of course, there are other considerations too. A website may look fine on the surface but still have underlying issues that affect how easy it is to manage and keep current. Sometimes a website has simply reached the end of its lifespan, whether because of outdated technology, an unsupported template or because it’s no longer practical to maintain. In those situations, starting again may be the most practical option.

The important thing is to understand what your website needs rather than automatically assuming you need a brand new one or, equally, continuing to patch something that’s no longer working for your business.

It’s also worth looking at your website from the perspective of someone who’s never come across you before. This can be one of the hardest things to do because, as a business owner, you naturally want to tell people everything. You know your services, your experience and everything that makes your business different. So it’s natural to want to include as much information as possible.

One of the things I see quite often is businesses trying to fit too much onto their home page. The result can be that the most important messages become lost amongst everything else.

The other common challenge is creating a website around what the business wants to say rather than what a potential customer needs to know. Your website should make it easy for someone unfamiliar with your business to understand whether you can help them, what you offer and what they need to do next.

This is where the user journey matters. Can people easily find the information they need, whether that’s your opening hours, your address, details about your services or simply how to get in touch and make an enquiry? A website that’s easy to navigate helps remove uncertainty and gives potential customers the confidence to get in touch.

Your Website Should Support Your Marketing

Your website doesn’t work in isolation. Your social media, networking, referrals, PR and other marketing activity all play a part in bringing people towards your business. But when someone wants to find out more, your website often becomes the place where they decide whether to get in touch.

That’s why your website needs to work alongside your wider marketing, not sit separately from it.

If you’re investing time and effort into getting your business noticed, it’s worth making sure the place you are directing people to is doing its job too. A website doesn’t need to be complicated. It simply needs to be clear, relevant and helpful to the people you want to reach.

If you’re wondering whether your website is still working as hard as it could be, I can help you take a practical look at what is working, what could be improved and where you might get the biggest impact from making changes.