I've been thinking a lot lately about how businesses value their websites. Or perhaps more importantly, how they don't!
We all know the Crown Jewels are worth a fortune. They're protected, looked after and maintained because of their value.
Yet when it comes to one of the most important assets a business owns, its website, I'm constantly surprised by how many businesses still see it as just another marketing cost.
Something they need to have. A digital brochure. A few nice pictures, some information about what they do and a contact page. Job done!
And then they leave it alone for the next five years. Sound familiar?
The problem is, your website shouldn't just sit there looking pretty. It should be working its socks off for your business.
You're spending the money. But where's it going?
Think about how much businesses invest in marketing. Paid advertising, social media, PR, email campaigns, exhibitions, sponsorships and all the other activities designed to raise awareness, generate interest and ultimately bring in business.
And where do we often want that interest to go?.......Back to the website!
Yet I've seen businesses happily spend thousands driving traffic to a website that isn't particularly good at doing anything with it.
It's a bit like spending a fortune advertising your showroom, only for customers to turn up and find the doors difficult to open, the products poorly displayed and nobody around to help them.
You wouldn't accept that in your physical showroom, so why accept it online?
What if you don't actually need more traffic? What if you just need to do a better job with the traffic you've already got?
Let's say your website attracts 2,000 visitors a month and 2% make an enquiry. That's 40 potential opportunities. Improve that conversion rate to 3% and you've got 60 enquiries from exactly the same number of visitors.
That's 50% more enquiries without spending another penny attracting people to your website. Of course, not every enquiry turns into a sale. But if those additional enquiries are relevant and your sales team can convert them, think what that could mean commercially.
Sometimes the answer isn't to throw more money at marketing. It's to make what you've already invested in work harder.
And then along came AI……
As if the world of marketing wasn't changing quickly enough, AI has added another dimension to how people find and evaluate businesses.
Customers are increasingly using AI search tools to ask questions, research products, compare suppliers and help them make decisions.
And where do these systems get their information? From a range of sources, including websites, publicly available content and third party information.
Which makes what you say on your own website, how you structure it and how clearly you demonstrate your expertise increasingly important.
If your website is thin on useful content, out of date or doesn't properly explain what you do and why someone should choose you, you're hardly giving search engines or AI systems much to work with.
And no…..simply adding a bit of AI related technology to your website isn't going to magically solve everything. The fundamentals still matter!
Good content. Clear information. Technical performance. Credibility. A proper understanding of what your customers are actually looking for.
AI hasn't made your website less important. If anything, it's given businesses another reason to take it seriously.
Not every AI search will result in someone visiting your website. Some people will get the information they need without clicking through at all. So when somebody does arrive, surely you want to make that opportunity count?
Stop thinking brochure. Start thinking business asset.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is businesses treating a website as a project with a beginning and an end. They commission it, approve the design, launch it and tick it off the list. Brilliant. We've got a new website!..........But what happens next?
Are you looking at how visitors use it? Which pages are attracting interest? Where people are leaving? Whether your calls to action (CTAs) are working? How many visitors are actually turning into enquiries?
Or are you simply looking at how many people visited last month and hoping the number goes up?
Also we need to stop judging websites purely on whether we like the design? I've sat in enough meetings where everyone has an opinion on the colour of a button or the size of a photograph.
But far fewer people seem interested in whether that button is actually getting clicked!
A website is never really finished. Your customers change. Your business changes. Your products change. The way people search changes. And your website needs to keep up.
You wouldn't invest in an expensive piece of machinery and then never service it, monitor its performance or look for ways to improve its output. So why would you do that with your website?
Is your website earning its keep?
Here are a few questions I'd encourage any business owner to ask themselves.
Can people find what they're looking for? Not what you want to tell them, but what they actually came to find out.
Are you giving them a reason to trust you? Customer reviews, case studies, accreditations and genuine evidence of your expertise all help.
Is it easy to take the next step? Whether that's requesting a quote, booking an appointment, making an enquiry or speaking to someone.
Do you know where you're losing people? If visitors are abandoning forms, quote tools or important pages, do you know why?
Can you demonstrate what your website is contributing to the business? Not just traffic and rankings, but enquiries, opportunities and ultimately sales.
You don't need to be a digital marketing expert to start asking these questions. But you do need to be asking them.
Because if you don't understand how your website is performing, how can you possibly know whether you're getting a return on your investment?
Make those crown jewels sweat!
I've been working with a client who made a significant investment in their website as part of their wider marketing strategy.
It wasn't just about giving the business a fresh new look. It was about making the website work harder, improving the customer journey and making sure it supported the other marketing activity we were investing in.
And the results? The business has reported an impressive 40.8% increase in revenue compared with the same period last year, despite challenging market conditions.
Am I saying the website alone delivered that growth? Absolutely not. Marketing doesn't work in isolation and neither does a website.
But when you start joining the dots between your marketing activity, your website, your customer journey and your sales performance, that's when things become really interesting.
Is your website working as hard as it should?
Sometimes it just takes a fresh pair of eyes to spot the opportunities you might be missing.
If you're wondering whether your website is really delivering for your business, or whether your wider marketing could be working harder, I'm always happy to have a chat.
Just an honest conversation about what's working, what isn't and where there might be room for improvement.