Why Small Business Websites Fail
Mistakes to Avoid
Around 50% of small businesses still do not have a website even though nearly 90% of people now search on the internet to find a business. So what about the other 50% of small businesses who have spent time and money to develop a website? Are their websites bringing in a constant stream of new work? The answer is probably not. Most small business websites do not work effectively to bring in new customers.
Here is a list of the common mistakes small businesses make with their websites:
1. Lack of Good Content
Your website might look great but if it does not contain useful content your potential customers will just click away. In recent years, the trend has been to have simple one page websites with lots of engaging photos but little content. It is true that these websites look great but how good are they at getting new customers for your business? For example, if you are an electrician you should have lots of detailed information about the services you provide and where you provide them – so that customers are confident when they call you up that you can do the job.
2. No Plan
Some small business owners sometimes naively believe that they can simply set up a new website and it will quickly find it’s way to page one of Google by itself. Unfortunately, this does not happen – particularly for more competitive industries. For example if you type in ‘Plumbers Melbourne’ you will get 12,400,000 results. It takes a lot of effort involving an extensive suite of tools and techniques to get any website onto page one.
3. Expecting too much from Google AdWords
When managed properly Google AdWords can be a great tool for getting people to your website. However, it can be expensive, especially for small businesses. Some of the mistakes small businesses make when it comes to Google AdWords include:
- Expecting instant success. It takes time to ‘fine tune’ a campaign. Time needs to be spent trying out different techniques to find out what works best. That is why we recommend that you run your campaign for at least 3 months before you make a decision about it’s effectiveness;
- Not spending enough money on the campaign. If you can’t afford to spend very much on your Google AdWords campaign it may be better not to advertise at all and consider using a different technique to promote your website. You can’t expect everyone that goes to your website will become a customer so only being able to afford a small number of clicks to your website per month is unlikely to result in more sales; and
- Thinking once you have set up a campaign it does not require ongoing management. It is easy to waste a lot of money on Google AdWords. There are lots of things that need to be constantly managed to minimise the cost. These include monitoring search terms to add inappropriate ones as negative terms and ensuring that quality of your adverts remains high so that you do not have to pay too much per click.
4. Not Understanding how SEO Works
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), when managed correctly, is one of the most cost effective ways to get more people to your website in the long term. However, it is not a quick solution. That is why we recommend that you run an SEO campaign for at least 6 months (or even longer if you are in a particularly competitive industry) before you make a decision about it’s effectiveness.
Some small businesses think there are lots of tricks you can use (eg hidden keywords, lots of (usually irrelevant) backlinks) to get your business onto page one. These ‘tricks’ may have worked in the past but they don’t anymore. Any good SEO campaign should revolve around creating great content (using keyword terms your customers are using to find your type of business) that is constantly changing.
It can cost a small business quite a bit of money to create a website in the first place. Given this, time should be spent on a plan to make the website successful in bringing new customers to your business.
Dynamic Websites specialise in small business web design. We are based in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn and provide services throughout Australia. We understand what it takes to get a small business online at an affordable price and with the minimum of fuss. Along with designing websites for small business, tradies and NDIS service providers we provide online marketing services. Our online marketing for small business extends to Google Ads, Google My Business, Microsoft Advertising, search engine optimisation (SEO), content writing and, blog writing.