In case you haven’t been following me for the past couple of weeks I recently published a book on how insurance agencies can get more lead through their website.
And two people have already been kind enough to leave comments about the book!
How cool is that?
Well, just last week someone (let’s call her Brenda) called me up because she had a problem with her website. Basically it USED to get the phone ringing and real emails coming to her inbox as people requested more information about working with her.
But for the past few months her site was generating… nothing!
Needless to say it was starting to freak her out.
Her first question was about whether or not I could help her since she’s not in the insurance niche. Basically, could I help her even though she’s in a different industry? (ah… yes maam!)
And secondly… what the heck happened to her leads?
Be careful who you listen to…
As you can probably imagine the first question I asked her was “when did your site stop working for you?”
Turns out everything went downhill in October.
“Well,” I continued, “what happened that month, or back in September?”
The long and the short of it was this… she hired someone to “take care” of her website while she was busy. Ostensibly the person was supposed to post content and maintain everything for her, like keeping it updated.
So what happened?
Instead, the person in question started adding stuff to her site. Stupid, useless plugins that killed the “user experience.” Annoying pop-ups that showed up every time you landed on her site or checked out a new page. She rearranged the homepage layout and added so much junk that it was busy and confusing.
Needless to say, the person she hired (at $150 an hour, no less) destroyed her functioning website in about 2 weeks.
Digging into the numbers
So now that her website was all screwed up I had to look at the numbers to see what was going on.
Things like “bounce rate” and “average time on site” can tell you a lot, especially when I compared the data to earlier results to see how the numbers looked. And the data spoke for themselves. After hiring that lady to “fix” her site the bounce rate increased dramatically while the average time on site was in the toilet.
Interestingly enough roughly the same amount of people visited her “contact” page.
Armed with solid data it was easy to remove the garbage and clutter with an eye to improving user experience. And literally 2 days after she hired me her site generated a new, viable lead… the first one in four and a half months.
When it comes to generating leads online little things mean a lot.
And it’s not about making random changes willy nilly. Rather, you need to know what you’re doing, or hire someone who can update your site with an eye to getting you more leads and sales.
Case in point, as I was wrapping up this article a good friend of mine (and client) sent me this email…
“should i just upgrade the whole theme? Probably unnecessary but definitely feels like the type is kind of small. and I’m not sure how phone freindly this theme is…”
Can you guess what my reply was?
Did I offer to upgrade everything and charge him big bucks for my time and effort?
“yep font is small, i can bump it up for you. but here’s the thing… is it working for you right now? are you getting clients in the door? if so i’d leave it alone for now, except for bumping up the font.”
The moral of the story?
You don’t make changes for the sake of change.
You do make changes that will enhance how your site is working for you, and you most certainly make changes if your site is not generating any (or enough) leads or sales for your business.
Does that make sense to you?
Schedule your website review today
Since early 2008 I have worked with dozens of clients and helped them get more than they thought possible from their websites. And I know I can do the same for you…
There are three ways to schedule your FREE website audit:
- call 888-542-2936 and leave a voice message, including your name and URL, or…
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- or click the link and complete a short webform.
Online success starts by taking the first step…
In working with clients I have been able to diagnose problems, road-blocks, issues and oversights that have prevented business owners like you from achieving their goals. To discover how I can improve your current web-marketing efforts to generate MEASURABLE results for you let me review your website, and then we can set up a time to discuss my analysis by phone.
