If you’re just tuning in, we’ve been discussing how to know whether your current marketing strategy (or lack thereof!) is working for you. A website assessment is one tool to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing tactics.
An effective website is one that is easy to find, painless to navigate, and has relevant content that answers your customers’ questions, leaving them wanting more.
When you consider how long (or short) browsers linger on websites you’ll see why your website (for better or worse) has a big impact on the success of your marketing strategy. Here’s a statistic that truthfully might depress you. A survey from Contentsquare’s 2021 Digital Experience Benchmark report showed that the average time spent on a webpage across all industries is 54 seconds.
Bottom line: if you don’t prioritize fixing your website as part of your B2B marketing strategy, your prospects are likely going to run into the arms of your competitor, which has a site that gives them what they need.
Feeling a bit of pressure? That’s normal but stick with me because we’re going to show you some tools (including a website assessment) to help you rank higher and create a website customers keep coming back to.
Read our earlier posts:
How Strategic Marketing Helps You Stop Guessing and Start Growing Your Business
An Effective B2B Marketing Strategy: Why Messaging and Audience Matter
How to Improve Your Search Engine Positioning
Before you conduct a B2B website assessment let’s figure out if your prospects can even find you easily. If you search for your website by the service you provide (say “managed IT providers near me”) instead of your business’s name, can you find it? How far do you have to scroll to see it? (If it takes a while or doesn’t come up at all, chances are that your website isn’t optimized for search.)
If a client can’t find your desired results on the first page of Google, they’ll likely change their query, rather than look at the second page.
90 percent of survey respondents said they were likely to click on the first set of results (Searchengineland, 2018).
Keywords and Optimization Strategy
If you’re not doing this already, you need to make a list of what questions your customers are asking. You should also use an SEO tool to do keyword research and find out what terms prospects are searching and competitors are using and incorporate keywords strategically into your website’s headlines, copy, and even image names. This will help you boost your rank in a crowded field of options. Google Search Console is a free tool that can help you gather some data about your appearance in their search results.
Do you have a beautiful website that maybe just isn’t driving the results you want? Fear not! You don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In other words, instead of scrapping all of your existing content and starting from scratch, you can use an optimization strategy to improve your SEO positioning. This means you can add keywords to help you rise above the noise and improve your organic search rankings. (Marketing agencies offer SEO management and website optimization services if you need help.)
If your business is targeting a local market, be sure you have your physical address and include the region you serve in your copy, so you appear in local searches.
Your website has the power to be a 24/7 sales tool for you but only if it’s findable, clear, and user-friendly.
How’s That Website Working for You?
Once you’ve optimized your website, here are some tests you should run to see if your website has what it takes to engage your visitors. But before you get started, run these tests using a desktop, a tablet, and a phone to replicate your customer’s experience. Navigation bars, banners, and images will all look different depending on your device. A webpage that’s a breeze to navigate on a laptop may be frustrating on a phone.
Depending on who you ask, nearly half or more web visits are conducted from mobile phones, so when you’re testing a website, make sure you are evaluating the experience on a desktop, tablet, and phone. (63 percent of Google’s US organic search traffic originated from mobile devices (Merkle Inc., 2019).
People spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting in a carpool line. Waiting to have their oil changed. That wait time is often spent multitasking. I don’t know about you, but if I visit a website on my phone and text is cut off or a form doesn’t completely load, I’m out. I will go to a site where I can get the information I need in the palm of my hand. A website that is not compatible with today’s mobile environment is a missed opportunity.
How to Conduct a 3-Part Website Assessment
Now it’s time to place yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes and think about their user experience (UX) when you visit your site. Is your website confusing or compelling? Let’s use this 3-part website assessment to gather some data!
- The Grunt Test: Could a caveman go to your website and, in 8-10 seconds, figure out 1) what you do, 2) why it matters, and 3) what to do next? If you confuse, you lose.
- You vs. We Test: Take a page on your website and count the number of references to “we, our, us” (including your business name) and compare it with the number of references to “you” and “yours.” Your goal is to aim for a ratio of three or more references to your customer for every single reference to your business.
- Navigation Test: Is your navigation too complex, leaving visitors overwhelmed by the options? Are your witty page names so confusing that prospects can’t find the information they’re looking for? If your website isn’t easy to navigate, people will quickly move onto a competitor’s site that is.
Website design and development are important. There is no doubt that compelling imagery and a great brand will turn heads. However, a website that’s “just a pretty face” but is confusing is sort of like giving someone bad directions. Your business’s website should easily lead your prospects through the buyer’s journey, not with unnecessary detours, bad signage, and dead ends.
Again, if your website is not in need of an overhaul you can likely make tweaks to your current copy that can improve the user experience for your prospects.
Once you’ve made changes, make sure you’re tracking statistics related to your website such as organic traffic, bounce rate, average time on page, and conversion rate to learn more about your visitors and how they’re spending time on your site.
Custom Website Development and More in Memphis and Beyond
It’s quite possible that this post has left you feeling like you’re in over your head when it comes to fixing your website. Your website assessment may have revealed you need to make some changes and aren’t sure where to start. We make it our mission to take the confusion out of marketing and use strategic tactics to get you results. We offer website optimization services if you need to start there. Let’s talk about how we can help you with a website that works even when you’re not.
