Why is My Website Not Generating More Leads?
16 Mar 2024 | 6 min readOK, so youโve got this swanky new website with all the bells and whistles.
But the sheen is beginning to wear off because it doesnโt seem to be generating leads or the volume of traffic you were expecting.
Why?
Weโve highlighted some key reasons and suggested solutions to your challenges below.
Is Your Website Optimised for SEO?
You could have a website that looks like a million dollars, but that will mean diddlysquat if search engines and (subsequently) potential leads canโt find it.
Equally, you could write something Shakesperean on your homepage and in the inner pages. Yet, if it doesnโt relate to the services or products you offer or that people arenโt looking for, then that copy wonโt make your website discoverable.
With so much competition online, itโs vital that your website is SEO-friendly and properly optimised with keywords that help your prospective customers find you.
Yeah, yeah, we hear you groan. Keywords, eh? That old chestnut.
Ah, but youโre thinking of the bad old days when SEO agencies with questionable principles would charge companies huge amounts of money to stuff keywords and key phrases into garbled pages of generally meaningless copy.
But those days are gone. Google is far more sophisticated and stringent with its standards these days. In fact, Google and other search engines will even punish websites and brands that indulge in those spurious practices these days.
The reason why SEO copywriters are so highly sought after today is that they are skilled at crafting balanced, keyword-rich website content that is both readable and highly relevant to the searches that your potential customers are performing when trying to find something on Google or another search engine.
Thereโs far more to optimising a website for SEO than just copy. Such as backlinking (whereby you ask partners to link to your site), setting up business listings on Google My Business or submitting an XML sitemap, to name just a few.
But taking a strategic approach to keywords and having an experienced copywriter weave those keywords into valuable content is a great place to start.
Is Your Website Giving Google What It Wants?
Remember a second ago when we said that Google will punish websites and brands that try to stuff SEO keywords into written content? Why would Google do that?
Because it wants to stay on top of the world by making it easier and easier for users to find exactly what theyโre looking for when they use Google as their search engine of choice. And, if users get frustrated by the results that Google is returning, then they will look for a product or service elsewhere*.
You may be familiar with the term โuser experienceโ (or its acronym, UX)?
Nobody outside of Google actually has the magic algorithm in their hands. But what we do know is that Google will reward and give higher ranking to websites that offer great UX.
In simple terms, websites offering good UX are those that:
1. Combine relevancy (keywords reflecting what the user is looking for)
2. Readability (great copy thatโs simple to read and understand)
3. Are easy to navigate and use
4. Are slick and load easily
Which brings us nicely onto mobileโฆ
* Donโt be fooled into thinking that Google has everything its own way when it comes to search:ย online shoppers are far more likely to search for products on Amazonย (and some other eCommerce platforms) than they are Google right now
Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?
Smartphones are everywhere. They dominate our lives.
We hardly need to tell you what people rely on them for, from monitoring fitness to online banking and from remotely controlling their heating to keeping up with their favourite celebrities.
Mobile internet usage has finally overtaken desktop internet usage, and the majority of eCommerce traffic comes from smartphone users.
Why are we telling you this?
Because โ and we canโt stress this enough โ you need to make sure that your company takes a โmobile-firstโ approach to their website development and content strategy!
If you build a website and create content designed for desktop, then you are going to create a lot of barriers to purchase or navigation for mobile users.
For instance, pages and images will take forever to load on smartphones if they havenโt been optimised for mobile.
And, as mobile internet usage is skyrocketing, you will be creating poor user experiences for people that might have potentially become your customers if you create your website and content with desktop users primarily in mind.
Would-be customers in 2020 and beyond just wonโt have the patience to stick around for poor mobile user experiences โ theyโll just go and find another website (probably your competitorโs) instead.
Mobile-first. Itโs the only way to go if you want to create and convert leads.
Does Your Website Have Clear Calls to Action?
What is it that you want a user to do when they visit your website or specific web page?
If you donโt know, they wonโt know either. Thereby greatly diminishing your chances of converting that lead into a customer.
A call to action (CTA) isnโt just a big button on a page saying โBuy here nowโ or โContact usโ. Your CTA needs to form part of a whole โ a web page and user experience that shows the lead why they should contact your team or buy a product.
Your copy, images and other media (a video or infographic, for example) should all flow into a smart CTA that actually persuades or inspires the user to click on that button.
Do You Have a Clear Content Strategy?
Are you just chucking quickly thought-out and random content up on your website, or do you have a clear, coherent digital content marketing strategy that will persuade your target audiences to engage with your business?
In simple terms, todayโs businesses need to treat their websites like a magazine.
Work out who your audiences are and what they like (and donโt like). How do they behave online? Explore and agree on these customer behaviours, and then create a content calendar based around them.
Does your social media strategy align with your website content strategy? And, for that matter, does your overall marketing and sales strategy properly connect with your content and social media calendars.
And donโt be tempted to let just anyone create your content. It will result in poor website or SEO performance and reflect poorly on your overall brand. Todayโs consumers and B2B prospects are increasingly demanding great content that engages and even entertains them โ create great content on a consistent basis and you may turn that prospective lead into a loyal customer with high lifetime value.
Letโs E.A.T.
Great content is highly beneficial to your overall brand building strategy and activities.
But itโs also all very important to your performance on Google, which now assesses websites on the basis of E.A.T. (Expertise; Authority; Trustworthiness).
Expertise: Do you really know your stuff? Do you know how to write or communicate about it in an engaging manner? Or are you copying and pasting and throwing things down on the page hoping Google will recognise keywords?
Authoritativeness: Why should we pay attention to what youโre writing, saying or showing us? Should we listen to you? Do you have a good reputation in your field, or are you really over-reaching yourself?
Trustworthiness: Does this website offer a good user experience (UX)? Does it offer a good mobile experience? Or is it slow, clunky, and frustrating to use? And is this content that the brand or website owner has put time and effort into – or has it just been thrown together?
If you donโt get E.A.T. right, your website is going to be far less likely to attract and convert leads.
Chetaru Create Websites That Attract and Convert Leads
Your website is the key to unlocking your brandโs success.
But, with so much fierce competition out there, you need your website to be performing at its best if it is to attract and convert leads.
Thatโs where Chetaru comes in. We create attractive and responsive SEO-optimised websites that help you stand out from the crowd.
Chetaru uses the combined power of great responsive design, UX, SEO, and sustainable ongoing content strategies to drive leads to your website and keep them coming back for more.
Get in touch with us at info@chetaru.com to discuss the next steps in your digital journey.