4 Reasons You’re Not Seeing Results With Your Website

You have gone through all the ‘website best practices.’ You think you have a great website design. You did your research. You spent money. You worked on your SEO.

But still, your website is not delivering the results you were hoping for in terms of unique visits, sales, conversions and more importantly, revenue.

There are several reasons why your website might not be delivering your desired results. I’ll tell you some of them and also show you ways to fix the problem.

Your website is not optimized properly

Is your website findable? If your target audience cannot easily find your website, it will certainly be some time before getting impressive results.

There are a wide range of optimization mistakes you could be making that are preventing your website from ranking. Poor content and linking are the two biggest SEO mistakes people make with their websites.

Is your content engaging, updated, and relevant? How about your linking strategy? Is your internal and external linking correct? Have you linked to relevant content within your website? Have you linked to or from reputable websites?

It certainly helps to work with an experienced SEO expert to ensure your site is properly optimized. If you are unable to hire an SEO, it is possible to do some of the basic optimization work on your own.

To test if your site is optimized for best results, including keywords, title tags, Meta descriptions and links, use tools such as the Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Your website ranks low in usability

Is your website conveying a good first impression? The first thing that attracts or repulses visitors is the look and feel of your website.

You do not have to spend huge amounts of money and/or time to obtain a well-designed website, however, be wary of cheap offers. If somebody is offering to build you a site for a very small sum of money it is very often the case that “you get what you pay for”. So, whilst you may feel you have got a bargain it’s usually a short term solution which will yield no long term results. A great web designer will always be worth the money you pay simply because they will give you a product that is designed to get results. They won’t be the cheapest, but they will be worth it in the long run.

It is also very important that your website reflects modern design trends. For example, right now minimalist and flat designs are popular design trends that are responding to the consumer’s need for simplicity.

The best way to know whether certain aspects of your website are acting as roadblocks is to conduct a usability test. Tools such as IntuitionHQ, Usabilia, and Juicy Studio among others can help to assess various features of your website that may be affecting usability.

Your conversion funnel is too complex

Is your website making it easy for browsers to convert to buyers? Your conversion funnel is your moneymaker; if things are not working there, your sales and revenue flow will be completely non-existent.

Many things about your conversion process could be keeping your site visitors from taking the specific actions that are important to your bottom line. Common conversion funnel obstacles include having a time-consuming or invasive lead generation form, lacking a strong call to action, not having a proper/optimized landing page, a complex checkout process, too many distractions at the point of purchase; and the list could go on.

To alleviate conversion funnel obstacles, conduct A/B tests to find out what is working and what is not for your website visitors. A/B tests can be as limited or as expansive as you want because there is a wide range of aspects you can test.

Some tests you should definitely conduct are for the call to action, the design or layout of the lead generation form, landing page copy, pricing schemes and layouts, and the checkout process.

Your website is not optimized for lead generation

Is your website designed to generate leads? Remember, it is still the case that “the money is in the list”. If you are letting your website visitors come and leave without capturing their contacts for future engagement, you are losing out in a big way.

But, it is not enough to just have a lead generation form or an email box on your website. Site visitors need something more to compel them to take an action as intimate as giving out their contact to a person they have never met.

The lead generation process starts at the point of your copy if you are doing Pay per Click campaigns or your content if you are doing conventional search engine marketing. Whichever path your visitors use to reach your website, they need to be greeted with content that is so engaging, they wouldn’t want to miss out on being part of your mailing list.

Another important aspect of the lead generation process is the call to action. Data shows that a personalized call to action generates more leads than a standard one. For example, a user is more likely to take up a call to action that addresses them by their name.

A/B tests can be very helpful in determining which aspects of the lead generation process need to be optimized. Some elements that require testing include landing pages, call to action buttons and text, lead generation forms, and onsite copy. Do not be limited to these components; test as many areas of the lead generation funnel as possible.

Improve Your Website Results

Just because your website is not an overnight success does not mean you cannot fix it to get the results you want. It does often take time and effort. Many people abandon their website because they believe it just “doesn’t work”. The fact is, every website can work and if it is currently not working you just need the patience and take the right steps to diagnose the problem and then correct it. The rule of thumb is to ensure you use an experienced website designer and keep testing and improving on different aspects, so you can position your website for consistent conversions, sales and revenues.