Is Your Website Earning Its Keep? How to Upgrade Your Online Presence

Episode Transcript

Steve: What do you call a salesperson who never talks to anyone? They never answer questions, and all they do is just leave people confused.
AnnieLaurie: Well, that’s easy. I call ’em unemployed.
Steve: Ha. Exactly. And yet there’s really good chance that your website might be doing exactly that. It’s on the payroll, but it’s not producing leads or customers.
Steve: And it’s probably just leaving people confused. Now, if that was a salesperson on your team, you wouldn’t tolerate that from them, so why do you tolerate it from your website? It’s time to get your website working and producing results. Welcome to the Growth-Minded Marketing Podcast. I’m Steve Phipps.
AnnieLaurie: And I’m Annie Laurie Walters. We help growth-minded CEOs and marketing managers like you simplify marketing and lead with confidence.
AnnieLaurie: Today we’re talking about how to upgrade your online presence so it actually works for you instead of quietly working against you.
Steve: Now, if you’re new to the podcast, welcome, you’re joining us in the middle of a series where we’re walking through our guide marketing framework. That’s a five-part system that we built to help CEOs and their teams create a focused, effective marketing strategy so you’re not wasting time on tactics that don’t move the needle.
AnnieLaurie: Guide is an acronym we use to help simplify and give structure to marketing for growing your business. Guide stands for G, generate your Strategy and Story U, upgrade your online presence. I inform with content D, develop your sales plan and E evaluate and adjust.
Steve: Today we are unpacking the letter U, which is upgrade your online presence, and it’s all about turning your website and your online presence into a 24 7 salesperson, not just a digital brochure that’s collecting dust.
AnnieLaurie: ~But before we begin, if this is your first time joining us, we’d actually recommend hitting pause and going back to listen to episode one. It gives you the big picture overview of the entire Guide marketing framework, and that context will make everything we cover in this episode more impactful. You can find the link to the first episode.~
AnnieLaurie: ~Ah, I wanna say that again, sorry. Okay. Please. ~But before we begin, if this is your first time joining us, we’d actually recommend hitting pause and going back to listen to episode one. It gives you the big picture overview of the entire Guide marketing framework, and that context will make everything we cover in this episode more impactful.
AnnieLaurie: You can find the link to episode one in the show notes,
Steve: so strap in and let’s start turning clicks into clients. Now, if you’ve ever thought our website looks good, it’s fine. Let me be clear. In today’s marketplace, fine, won’t cut it. Your website needs to be a high performing, always on salesperson, one that’s building trust, and they’re helping prospects move forward and take action.
Steve: If your website isn’t doing that, you’re losing business plain and simple.
AnnieLaurie: It’s true. A nice looking site that doesn’t help people understand what you do or take the next step isn’t helping you grow. It might look polished, but looks aren’t everything. Your website should actually work. A tool that builds trust, answers real questions, and moves people to take action.
Steve: So before we move on, ask yourself, is your website doing its job?
Steve: Because what’s coming next will help you. Turn it into your company’s best salesperson working 24 7 to win the right clients and help you close more business. Now, again, if you’re just joining us, our framework, the Guide Marketing Framework, is a simple structure that we use to help CEOs and marketers focus on the right parts of their marketing without getting overwhelmed.
AnnieLaurie: Today’s focus is on the U Upgrade, your online presence. This is one of the most overlooked and often the most costly gaps we see.
Steve: Now, your website and your digital presence, as we’ve said, should be a 24 7 salesperson. But if your website is outdated, it’s hard to use. It’s hard to find information. It’s packed with jargon or overused phrases that don’t mean anything to your buyer.
Steve: Well, your clients, your potential clients are most likely going to leave your site within a few seconds, and there’s a high likelihood that they will turn to a competitor who is answering their questions and whose website is easier to navigate even if that competitor’s not better than you.
AnnieLaurie: It’s amazing what happens when you stop trying to make your website impressive and start making it useful.
AnnieLaurie: Instead, Steve, give us a real world example of what that shift looks like.
Steve: Yeah. But we’ve seen what happens firsthand when companies take this seriously. And let me also say, your website can look fantastic, but it also needs to be useful. Maybe it’s not all that great looking, but if it’s building trust, you really want both.
Steve: And so this specific example that we have in mind is one of our clients. They’re in the enterprise expense management space. And as we’ve worked with them and they’ve updated their online presence, they’ve clarified messaging, they’ve cleaned up their navigation, created a lot of helpful, useful content, so blogs and guides, case studies, things like that.
Steve: Within a few months, they saw increased traffic of over 140%, and they’ve seen more than three times the number of qualified leads coming through the site. And so this isn’t magic, it doesn’t just happen, but it is making your website actually work for your buyer.
AnnieLaurie: Stories like this are becoming more common because buyer behavior has changed.
AnnieLaurie: One of the more sobering stats that we’ve seen is that 80% of buyers decide who they’re going to work with before they ever talk to a salesperson. Let that sink in. 80% of buyers have decided who they’re gonna work with before they ever pick up the phone. And it got me thinking back to a previous podcast we recorded Steve, in episode one you said people want to be able to go through the buyer’s journey by themselves as much as they can.
AnnieLaurie: Can you break that down for us? What’s really going on here?
Steve: Well, there, there’s a couple of things that, that are going on here. Number one is people are tired of being sold. I don’t know anybody who wants to be sold. People like to buy. And in that process, buyers want to be able to get the information, they wanna be able to get answers to their questions.
Steve: And so, I mean, think about it, you as a buyer, what is it you’re looking for? You want information. How much does this cost? What are the potential problems of this? How does this compare to other products or other services? There’s a whole variety of questions that people are asking, but if your website doesn’t answer their questions clearly, they don’t feel understood, and they’re likely to move on somewhere else where they can get that information.
Steve: So don’t let your website be that website.
AnnieLaurie: So Steve, let’s shift from the why to the how. What specific steps can our listeners take to make their online presence actually support business growth?
Steve: That’s a great question, Annie. Laurie. There are four key upgrades that I think every marketer, every company, every CEO should be looking at right now.
Steve: And these aren’t nice to haves. These are fundamental and foundational. And number one, make your website the most helpful salesperson on your team. The most helpful person on your team. You want your website to function like a great salesperson. They’re clear, they’re responsive, they’re ready to answer every question the buyer has.
Steve: Honestly, we’re not trying to just pitch everything again. People don’t wanna be sold. They want to buy. Treat them with enough integrity. To answer their questions, even the hard ones. So if somebody lands on your site and gets confused, frustrated, or can’t get their answers, they’re gone. It doesn’t matter how good your services are.
AnnieLaurie: And don’t forget mobile, we see it all the time. A great looking site on a desktop turns into a jumbled mess on a phone, which is crazy because oftentimes people are viewing your websites on a mobile device. It needs to be easy to navigate, quick to load and answer the questions. What do you do? Who do you help?
AnnieLaurie: Why should we trust you and how do we take the next step?
Steve: Exactly. If your site doesn’t work well on mobile, it’s like having a salesperson on your team that’s never available. Your buyer reaches out and tries to schedule a meeting, but they’re not available. And if they do get them, they have nothing useful to say.
Steve: They just stare at ’em. First impressions matter, and if your website is creating friction, people don’t stick around. And that’s why it’s gotta be clear and fast and helpful from the first tap or click. People get impatient, they’re not gonna wait around.
AnnieLaurie: Alright, number two, make your messaging about them, not you.
AnnieLaurie: We still see so many websites filled with, we do this. We’ve been in business for 20 years. Our team does this. Our process looks like that. But even though it feels intuitive to explain who you are and what you do, and tout your successes, see if there’s still a problem with this approach, unpack that for us.
Steve: So the problem here is this. Too many companies make themselves the hero of the story. They make the story all about them. But think about, again, when you are the customer, what are you looking for? You’re not looking for somebody to tell you all about them. You’re looking for a guide. That’s what your customers are looking for.
Steve: Now, we’ll dive deeper into this in a future episode, but here’s a high level takeaway for you. Your prospect doesn’t care about you. At least not yet. What they want to know is, can you solve my problem? And if you can help them with that, then they want to know about how you help them and why they should trust you.
Steve: And so that’s ultimately the question that your website needs to answer how you solve their problem and answer it quickly and clearly. And one of the biggest ways that we see companies miss the mark is, just as an example, companies will focus on features. Not the benefits. So you may talk about what you do, but you don’t talk about how it benefits your customer.
Steve: So an example, a feature would say we offer 24 7 support. A benefit says you’ll never be left hanging. When something breaks, you see the difference features describe what you do, and you need to have that information there, but you also need the benefits that explain how it helps the buyer. When you make that shift, your messages start to resonate because you’ve moved from making it about you and what you do and how what you do is helping them, the buyers, and that’s what starts to build trust and drive action.
AnnieLaurie: That’s such a good distinction, and honestly, it’s one that’s really easy to miss, especially for entrepreneurial CEOs who are so passionate about what they’ve built. You wanna tell people everything you can do, and that enthusiasm is great, but if it’s not framed around your customer’s story, it all starts to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher,
Steve: wah, wah, wah.
AnnieLaurie: Right. They’ll tune it out really fast. The key is to show them that they are the hero and you are the guide who’s gonna help them win the day. Steve, give us another quick example, maybe a before and after, or do this, not that, just to make sure that the listener really connects the dots.
Steve: You know, I will hear in just a second.
Steve: I just wanna say one other thing about what you were just saying, and that is a lot of times what I see is the CEO or the sales team, they know what they do so well. And so they communicate that information ultimately on the website, but in sales conversations. And so there’s this flood of information that oftentimes the buyers don’t understand, or there’s so much of it that’s overwhelming.
Steve: So I think that’s another important nuance to consider is that it’s not just talking about you, but it’s sometimes putting so much information that it’s difficult to understand. And so. To give a specific example of, something that we see on a lot of websites. People talk about how many years they’ve been in business.
Steve: So for instance, we’ve been in business for over 40 years now, depending on what you do and your audience, that in and of itself may not really mean much. The question is, how do you put that into a context that your customer can see the benefit to them? So the example of this would be we’ve been helping businesses like yours reduce expenses for over 40 years.
Steve: That brings in a very tangible benefit. It’s not that the original statements are wrong, but they’re focused on you, the company. Not the buyer. So the fix again is reframe it, flip it in a way that helps your buyers understand how it benefits and helps them, how it solves their problem.
AnnieLaurie: Here’s a quick tip, action item, if you will, just take a minute and scan your homepage.
AnnieLaurie: If you see more we and our, then you see you and your, it’s time to flip your messaging, talk directly to your buyer and make them the hero, not your company.
Steve: I love that test, Daniel Laurie, because that’s such a quick and simple, but it’s incredibly insightful and my guess is that most listeners should go do that test.
Steve: You’re gonna find that most of the verbiage is we and our versus you and yours. So number three is you gotta show up in the search engines. This is, even as search is changing significantly right now because of ai, a lot of the times marketers get stuck here. They might think that search engine optimization is just about putting keywords in the right places.
Steve: Today it’s about way more than that,
AnnieLaurie: right between Google’s new AI powered results and people turning to tools like Chat, GPT to find answers, you’re no longer just competing for page one On the search results page, you’re competing to be the trusted answer that shows up first, wherever your customers are looking, whether that’s Google, Bing, cha, GPT, copilot, Claude.
AnnieLaurie: Any place they’re searching, including social media, because we’re seeing younger buyers using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and even sometimes TikTok, to search for products and services rather than relying on traditional Google results.
Steve: I think it’s interesting to note. In Q4 of last year, Google’s market share fell below 90% for the first time in almost a decade.
AnnieLaurie: That’s truly Shocking.
Steve: We’re seeing that trend
AnnieLaurie: and I don’t think people really are. Not, everyone realizes this train is coming down the track as fast and furious as it is, right? Steve?
Steve: Well, exactly. I mean, as I’ve been doing presentations on AI and marketing and Google. A lot of people are unaware of this shift in buyer behavior to AI driven search, and it’s gonna have a significant impact.
Steve: You know what, we should probably toss that link to the guide. We have an AI guide that talks about that. We have a whole page on ai, so that would be a great resource. We can put that in the the show notes so that if you wanna dig deeper into that, that’s another resource that we can make available.
AnnieLaurie: I think that’s a good idea. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. And I think it’s just worth making the point that as we’re having this conversation about upgrade your online presence, this is going to be the sneaker attack that comes and takes you by surprise, like the thief of the night.
AnnieLaurie: Like we have to start looking at websites, social platforms, all the different places that your company has a presence online, no matter where it is, and make sure that. It is written, optimized in such a way that the AI tools are gonna start. Picking up on that and returning your content as results within those tools.
AnnieLaurie: It’s really a new ecosystem and even the people in the search engine world are just now starting to really, get down to the nuts and bolts about what does this mean? What kind of changes do we make? We’re learning as we go. But, I do feel like it’s something that as we’re talking about, upgrade, your online presence really needs to be underscored
Steve: a hundred percent.
Steve: And we’ve got some resources related to that, that we’ll share. And really what it means is that your content has to be clear. It has to be useful and built around what your audience is actually searching for. And yes, the technical side of your website still matters here.
Steve: The meta tags, the site speed, the structure, but really the biggest shift is about building trust. That way you’ve built trust ever before. Someone is gonna think about clicking schedule a call.
AnnieLaurie: Exactly. And what would be really wise for everyone listening to do is to take some time and do a quick SEO audit because there are SEO best practices that are not going away.
AnnieLaurie: Even as AI is changing things, there are certain things with regard to SEO that you need to be doing on your website, on your social media, other places. You need to audit it so you don’t have to be an expert. But there are just a few baseline things that you can do today right now to make sure that you are at least positioned with the foundation to build upon as AI keeps changing how search results are delivered to people who are searching your customers.
AnnieLaurie: So we’ve got a step-by-step guide on our website that walks you through it in plain English. It’s very easy to use, and we’re gonna drop that link down in the show notes as well.
Steve: And that tool will show you how to check your rankings, identify technical gaps, and figure out if your content is helping drive business or if it’s just taking up room on your site. And so here’s one more piece of this that a lot of companies miss, especially in B2B, and that is Google doesn’t just care about keywords anymore.
Steve: And again, this is incredibly important, not only for Google, but also for ai. So chat, GPT, perplexity, you know, pick your AI search engine. And so Google has a framework that’s really useful here, and it’s Eat EEAT. It stands for. Experience, expertise, authorit and trustworthiness, and they’re looking for your content to demonstrate each of those things.
Steve: And if your site’s not showing them your thoughtful content, that’s not salesy, it’s unbiased and honest, demonstrating client proof. Testimonials case studies and clear positioning, you’re going to struggle to rank no matter how good your services are.
Steve: Go to chat GPT or Perplexity and ask them to give you their top five recommendations for the services that you provide and see who they list. Now, if your company’s not listed, ask that engine what you need to do on your website so that it would consider you in the future. That’s a very practical tool and process that you can use to begin to identify, I can almost guarantee you that one of the things it’s gonna come back with is you need data on your website.
Steve: You need case studies, testimonials.
AnnieLaurie: Absolutely Steve and listeners stick around because in the future, Steve and I plan to bring you a lot of great content about how to use chat GT in your marketing. So if that is something that you wanna learn more about, definitely subscribe and hit the notification bell on your podcast listening service because we will be sharing more about that in the future. And if you do in the meantime, wanna learn more specifically about eat, you’ll find content about that on our learning center as well. So make sure you go to way find marketing.com and see all the wonderful content that we have made available to you for free on our learning center.
AnnieLaurie: So moving on to number four. We need to be present where your buyers are, especially on LinkedIn. Okay. So beyond the website, if you’re in B2B and you’re not showing up on LinkedIn consistently, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Steve: Exactly. Social media and LinkedIn in particular for B2B, which is a lot of who we work with, it’s not just about sharing company updates, it’s where people are looking to see if you’re active and credible engaged in your space.
Steve: It is a great place for connecting with buyers.
AnnieLaurie: And no, you don’t need to be everywhere or post every day, but you do need a professional profile. You need a clear message, and you need to post regular content that shows that you’re thinking about the same problems your buyers are trying to solve.
AnnieLaurie: You’re establishing thought leadership, building that trust. Steve, you’re very active on LinkedIn. Why don’t you give us a few tips that our listeners could implement right away?
Steve: Absolutely. And let me note that we will dig into this more in our next episode, when we talk about informing with content.
Steve: But for now, here are three quick takeaways. Number one, optimize your profile and that should entail. Content that talks about the problems that you solve. Yes, it’s important to have your experience, et cetera, et cetera, but your headline, your summary, your about all needs to focus in on the problems that you solve and who you work with.
Steve: Number two, use a professional headshot and have a picture that actually looks like you, not something that looks like it’s from 20 years ago. Then number three, share content that your audience actually cares about, how you solve their problems. Again, this isn’t about how great you are, it’s about solving your customer’s problems.
Steve: So remember, LinkedIn’s not a megaphone. It’s a conversation. Use it to connect, not just promote.
AnnieLaurie: Now before we wrap up this section, let’s call out a few of the most common traps we see folks fall into when it comes to their website and digital presence. These are the things that quietly kill momentum, and most of the time they’re totally fixable.
Steve: Yes, they are. So the first one is thinking that a pretty website is the same as a productive website Now. A website may look great, but if the person who built it doesn’t understand marketing strategy, content, user experience, SEO, it’s just a digital brochure. Remember, your website should guide your buyer being a salesperson, answering questions.
Steve: It’s not just there to impress them without good. It looks.
AnnieLaurie: Trap Number two, your content isn’t answering your buyer’s questions. It might be vague company focused or just plain hard to find. And when that happens, buyers move on fast. We’re gonna dive deeper into that in the next episode, so stick around for that.
Steve: So the third trap is posting once on LinkedIn and calling it a campaign. One post isn’t marketing, it is a whisper in a loud room.
AnnieLaurie: Four thinking. SEO is something you check off once. It’s an ongoing effort and often it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Search trends shift, algorithms evolve and content must keep up.
Steve: And the fifth trap is believing that your website should be about you. It’s not. It’s for your buyer, and it should be about your buyer. If it doesn’t speak to their needs and guide them forward, it doesn’t talk about how it solves their problems. Then your website very well could be undercutting your growth.
Steve: You might not see the impact right away, but lost trust, missed leads and poor user experience do add up quickly.
AnnieLaurie: The bottom line, you don’t have to do everything, but you can’t afford to ignore it either. Your website isn’t a set it and forget it tool. You need to focus on things like messaging, design, mobile usability, and how your site guides users to take action.
AnnieLaurie: Then keep those things fresh. Make updates appropriately. Revisit it regularly if you want your online presence to actually support your growth.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, Steve, we’ve covered a lot in this episode. Coach us through some next steps.
Steve: All right. Audit your website. Seriously, get out your phone and act like you’ve never seen your website. So pull your website up on your phone. And then ask yourself about your website. Can I instantly, or within five to 10 seconds understand what our company does?
Steve: Is there a clear and obvious next step to take? Do I immediately understand the benefit that I get if I become a customer here? Does this site make me feel confident that they can actually solve my problem? And is it easy to use on a mobile device? And then the last thing is, again, like we’ve been asking, is this focused on me as the customer or is it more focused on the company?
Steve: And take it a step further. Ask someone outside of your company to do the same thing. Ask somebody that doesn’t know what you do. A fresh set of eyes is going to catch things that you’ve stopped noticing or maybe you never noticed in the first place.
AnnieLaurie: And once you’ve done that, don’t let the findings sit on a sticky note.
AnnieLaurie: Prioritize the changes. You don’t have to rebuild your entire site, but you do need to start moving forward.
Steve: Even small things like rewriting your homepage headline, or simplifying your navigation can make a big difference. If you’re not sure what to change or where to start, just reach out. We can help you get unstuck.
AnnieLaurie: This episode is brought to you by Wi-Fi into marketing. We help growth-minded CEOs and their teams stop spinning their wheels with confusing marketing and start scaling with a clear focused plan.
Steve: If your online presence isn’t helping you grow, it’s time to fix that.
Steve: So head over to wayfind marketing.com and take our free guide marketing assessment. It’ll take you about five minutes, and when you’re done, you’ll get a personalized score plus immediate access to our Guide Marketing Playbook. And that’s over 30 pages of actionable tactical things that you can do for your marketing based on your assessment.
Steve: It’s packed with practical steps on how to clarify your message, improve your website, and align your marketing with your sales goals.
AnnieLaurie: In our next episode we’ll dive into the eye of guide, which is inform with content, we’ll break down how to create content your buyers actually wanna read and how it can become your best marketing tool.
Steve: It’s time to go make your website earn. Its keep. We’ll see you in the next episode.