THE BUSINESS LEAK SERIES
Every business website should have a clear purpose within the customer’s journey. An e-commerce website may be designed to move visitors towards a purchase, while a professional services firm may need to establish credibility and generate qualified enquiries. A school may need to help parents understand its offering and encourage an enquiry or application.
The objective is therefore not to force every visitor towards the same action. It is to understand what the visitor needs to know at each stage of their decision and make the appropriate next step clear.
Without that purpose, a website can become little more than a digital catalogue. It contains the expected pages, describes the business and provides contact details, but leaves the visitor to work out the journey for themselves.
That is where a website can begin to leak opportunities.
YOUR WEBSITE HAS A JOB
WHAT JOB IS YOUR WEBSITE REALLY EXPECTED TO DO?
A website can be professionally designed, technically sound and visually impressive, yet still fail to generate meaningful business results. The problem is not always the design. Sometimes the website simply has no clearly defined role in the customer’s decision-making process.
So before asking whether your website needs a redesign, ask a more fundamental question:
- What job is your website actually expected to do?
A brochure tells people about your business. A salesperson helps them decide what to do next. That distinction is at the heart of an effective website strategy.
A BROUCHURE WEBSITE
A brochure website is primarily concerned with providing information. It tells visitors who the company is, what it offers, where it operates and how it can be contacted. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Good information is essential to building trust.
The problem occurs when information becomes the end goal rather than part of a decision-making process.
A visitor may understand what a company does without understanding whether it is right for their particular problem. They may read about several services without knowing which one applies to them, or reach the bottom of a page without knowing what they should do next.
The website has informed the visitor, but it has not necessarily helped them make a decision.
THE SALESPERSON WEBSITE
A good salesperson does more than provide information. They understand what the customer needs, explain the relevant solution, address uncertainty and help the customer determine an appropriate next step.
A strategically designed website can perform many of these functions.
It should establish relevance quickly by making clear who the business serves and what problem it solves. It should then provide the evidence and information necessary for the visitor to evaluate the offering with confidence. Finally, it should make the next step appropriate to the visitor’s position in the decision-making process.
That might mean requesting a quotation, booking a consultation, viewing relevant work or simply learning more before making contact.
The objective is not to make a website more aggressive. It is to make it more purposeful.
5 SIGNS YOUR WEBSITE IS ACTING LIKE A BROUCHURE
- 1. Your homepage describes the business without establishing relevance. Phrases such as “quality solutions”, “professional services” and “committed to excellence” may sound polished, but they often communicate very little about the customer’s actual problem.
A strong homepage should quickly establish what the business does, who it serves and why the offering matters. Visitors should not have to interpret generic marketing language before they understand whether they are in the right place.
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2. Your services are listed without a clear customer journey. A services page can contain everything a business offers and still leave visitors uncertain about what to do next.
Listing services is not the same as helping someone understand which service is relevant to their situation. Effective website content connects the service to the customer’s need and provides a logical progression towards an enquiry, consultation, quotation or another meaningful action.
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3. Your calls to action lack context
Having buttons does not automatically make a website conversion-focused. “Click Here” gives a visitor very little information. “Request a Quote”, “Book a Consultation” or “Discuss Your Project” communicates what happens next and reduces uncertainty.
A call to action is therefore not simply a design element. It is part of the customer journey.
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4. Your navigation reflects your organisation rather than your customer
Businesses naturally structure information around departments, services and internal processes. Customers usually arrive with a problem, requirement or question.
Your website navigation should help visitors find what is relevant to them rather than simply reproduce the way your organisation is structured internally.
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5. Your website contains information but provides little direction.
Testimonials, case studies, service descriptions, credentials and articles can all strengthen a website. However, when these elements exist independently without guiding visitors towards a meaningful next step, the website becomes a collection of information rather than a coherent marketing system.
This is one of the more subtle forms of a website leak because everything may appear to be working. The problem is that the individual components are not necessarily working together.
5 SIGNS YOUR WEBSITE IS ACTING LIKE A BROUCHURE
A strategically effective website should progressively answer four questions:
- Am I in the right place?
Your positioning and value proposition should make the relevance of the business immediately understandable. - Can this business solve my problem?
Your services should be explained in relation to customer needs rather than presented simply as a list of capabilities. - Can I trust this business?
Testimonials, case studies, credentials, experience and clear communication provide the evidence visitors need to evaluate the business with confidence. - What should I do next?
The website should provide an appropriate next step based on what the visitor is trying to accomplish.
This is where website conversion strategy becomes more important than design alone. Good design creates clarity and usability, but strategy determines what the website is trying to achieve and how each element contributes to that objective.
DIAGNOSE BEFORE YOU REDESIGN
When a website is not generating enough enquiries, the immediate reaction is often to rebuild it. Sometimes that is necessary. But redesigning a website before understanding why it is underperforming can simply produce a newer version of the same problem.
If the positioning is unclear, a new visual identity will not necessarily solve it. If visitors cannot understand the value proposition, changing the layout will not address the underlying issue. If the customer journey is fragmented, adding more pages may actually increase the friction.
The better starting point is diagnosis.
Examine what visitors are expected to understand, where uncertainty develops, what actions are available to them and whether those actions correspond with the objectives of the business.
Instead of asking:
“How can we redesign our website?”
ask:
“What is preventing our website from doing its job?”
That distinction can save a business from spending money solving the wrong problem.
REQUEST A WEBSITE DIAGNOSIS
Your website does not need to behave like a pushy salesperson. It does, however, need to participate meaningfully in the process of turning attention into interest, interest into trust and trust into action.
A brochure gives people information about your business. A salesperson helps them understand what that information means for their situation and what they should consider doing next.
Your website should be capable of doing both.
If your website is attracting visitors but those visitors are not progressing towards meaningful enquiries, the problem may not be a lack of traffic. There may be a leak somewhere in the journey.
Before investing in another redesign, campaign or marketing push, diagnose the website you already have.