Your Website Should Make You Money

As you move around town building your business, observe the tender love successful companies shower on their storefronts, showrooms and offices. People love to invest in buildings because they're investing in their company's image, their customers' experience and their ability to command premium pricing. An investment in a storefront is an investment in a company.

Similarly, a successful company pays equally tender love (but significantly less money) to their website.

Your website is most clients' first impression of your business - the first storefront they'll visit. By the time they get in to your office for a consultation, they should already know that you're a competent, classy and successful organization because your site set the expectation.

Location

A showroom on the main drag with plenty of parking enjoys far more customers. Those that make it in the door are less aggravated by the trip and more likely to spend money.

Is your site easy to find? Do people googling your industry find your site before your competition's? When they arrive, can they identify who you are and how they can buy, or are they confused and compelled to hit the back button? A web site that makes money must be easy to find.

Class

How can a retailer in an upscale area charge markedly higher prices for the same thing than their competitor across the tracks, and not go out of business? Successful companies invest heavilty in their image because customers want to feel their trade partners are established, reputable and competent. Websites instantly reveal their owners as classy or campy, and nobody but personal injury lawyers benefits from the latter.

Clarity

Ever come across someone touting themselves as a "consultant", who never made it clear what they did? You can bet they don't have very many customers.

If your site isn't immediately clear what you do and why others benefit from your offerings, you probably won't close the deal. Your competition on the web is perpetually two clicks away, and human nature is to take business to the site that can put up fast. Online customers don't have to drive across town to find someone else that can make their case quickly and effectively.

Your Site Should Answer To You

A well-built website makes a killer sales rep. Aside from knowing everything you want it to know about your company, products and pricing, it knows who's dropping by and how long they're staying. It knows where they came from, who sent them and what they were looking for when they found it. It watches visitors' every move as they browse without creeping them out, and it can quickly alter its sales pitch, its offerings and its whole presentation to better sell to your market.

A website isn't a necessary expense; it's a revenue-producing asset. If your site doesn't make you money, it should be fired and replaced by a site designed by Melaroo.