#50 - Why Your Website Isn't Bringing You Leads

If your website isn’t bringing you leads, it’s not because you need better design.

It’s because your website isn’t doing its job.

In this episode, we break down the real reasons most small business websites fail—from vague messaging and weak structure to missing trust and no clear path for customers to take action.

We also call out a major issue: too many businesses are copying big brands. Clean design and minimal copy might look good, but without clarity and direction, they don’t convert.

Success online is simple—but not easy. It requires clear messaging, a strong offer, and a website that actually guides people toward action.

If your site isn’t working, this episode will show you where it’s breaking down.

SOURCES:

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-users-leave-web-pages/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/trustworthiness-websites/
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/mobile-site-speed-conversions/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-best-practices
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/website-conversion-rate-optimization
https://cxl.com/blog/conversion-optimization/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/11/25/landing-page-best-practices
https://neilpatel.com/blog/conversion-rate-optimization-guide/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
https://www.sweor.com/firstimpressions

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Your website's not working? Well, you're probably using the wrong playbook on this episode of Over the Bull. Thank you so much for listening. Okay, so every week, literally, when I'm putting the podcast together, this is a culmination of experiences that happen within our agency. And this week's no different. It's like I have a concept based upon certain situations. I come up with it. And then it just gets backfilled with things that go on within our agency that kind of complete the podcast. And this week is really no different. So I'm going to take you back and talk to you a little bit about a situation I was in this week. Now, I'm not going to name the client or the situation, but just imagine it's a group setting and the decision makers are all in the room. Now, this company brought in a designer. Now, this person's not a web person and they're not a marketing strategist. This was more of a general designer, someone who worked with some larger organizations, had some recognizable names attached to what they'd done. And you could tell everyone in the room was locked in on everything she was saying. Every suggestion, every measurement, every opinion, no pushback, no questions, just acceptance. Now, she's walking around with the measuring tape, talking about graphic sizes, spacing, making layout decisions. And I'm sitting here thinking, this has nothing to do with whether this is actually going to work for this business. Now, my role was execution in this moment. And as you can imagine, you know, when you're in the marketing world and you see the holes as they're being presented, you know, you always want to raise your hand and say, okay, guys, there's a real problem here. But, you know, you have to pick and choose your moments, and this was not that particular moment for me. I was there to observe and execute what was decided. So I'm not correcting anything and I'm not stepping in on this situation at this time. But I do see this happening all the time. And to be clear, this isn't about that person being good or bad at what they do. That's really not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is people tend to follow perceived authority. I mean, think about it. You go to the doctor, you see someone in a white coat, they tell you you're going to die, and a lot of times those people die. Why is that? Would they have died anyway? Maybe, maybe not. But the placebo effect is a very interesting study to kind of help you see that the influence of authority is a very real, tangible thing when you give that authority to someone. Now, especially when that authority comes with experience or big names or just confidence in the room. And what ends up is decisions are based on what sounds right, what looks right, or what worked somewhere else. Instead of what actually works for this business, this audience, this situation. And that's the same thing that happens with websites. Okay, so let's jump into websites and kind of tie this thing together. So if your website isn't bringing you leads, it's probably not just because you need a better design. That could be on the fence. A lot of people automatically think that's the case. And it's probably not because your market is too competitive or everything is saturated. You know, we hear these things and we just kind of absorb it and then say, yeah, that's the case. Now, most of the time, your website just isn't doing its job. In a lot of cases, it's trying to act like a big brand because people, when they look at building these things and you see a lot of this, okay, I'm just going to call it what it is, posturing, where people will do arbitrary measurements or make arbitrary decisions, but then make them sound dogmatic. A lot of times people are mimicking what they see in other areas. And so a lot of times you see designers mimicking big brands. And this in itself is one of the biggest mistakes small businesses can make. You know, I read a book, I can't remember who who wrote this, but he was prominent back in the day. But basically what he said was that when you're doing certain kind of marketing, sometimes if they're a large company, you're just trying to appeal to a board of directors. But in the real world where you're trying to create a revenue stream and positive ROI, you know, you can't afford if you're a small business to do some of these things. So big brands can get away with things that small businesses just simply can't. Nike can say, just do it. Apple can run ads that barely explain anything. So why is that? Because you already know them, you trust them, you've seen them over and over again. Small businesses don't have that luxury. But what happens? You have people who try to copy the look, the style, the minimalism, and they strip out the very things that a business actually needs to succeed. Details, explanation, proof, direction, all those things that drive people to engage with businesses. So now you've got a clean looking website, but nobody knows what you do, who it's for, or what they're supposed to do next. And if someone has to figure that out when they land on your site, you've already lost them. Confidence in a room doesn't equal correctness. And just because something worked for a big brand does not mean it's going to work for you. Okay, so let's talk about the reality. Success is basic in a way. So here's the part nobody talks about success online is not complicated. It's actually pretty basic, but simple doesn't mean easy. At the most fundamental level, this is all you're trying to do. You present an ad or a message with a clear value. You send people to a page that builds confidence, you give them a compelling, clear offer, and you make it obvious how to take the next step. That's it. That's the whole game, folks. Now, here's where it gets real. People don't all behave the same. Some people want low commitment, they want to look around, they want to understand, they want to think about it. Other people are ready right now. They want to call, they want to book, and they want to move forward. If your website speaks to one of those groups, you're losing the other. And here's where people get tripped up. Those steps sound simple, but every one of them is full of problems. Your messaging may be off, your targeting may be wrong, the website may not build trust. Your offer may be unclear, your next step may be confusing. And the reason this is hard is because there's no universal answer. So when you think template, when you think about choosing a template or a design that looks good, or you're thinking about do-it-yourselfers, or you're thinking about using some canned solution, or someone's telling you they got the answers, keep in mind there is no universal answer. AI cannot generate it. Um the do-it-yourselfers cannot generate it. Um freelancers who work in a certain market, they can't generate it because there's no universal cookie-cutter solution, period, ever. It doesn't matter how good the website looks if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. I would rather have an ugly website that does its job than a beautiful website that does nothing. Now, every business is different. Every customer is different, every market is different, every competitor, you guessed it, is different. So you don't solve this once when you're in a field like mine. You work through it over time. And that's why we've developed something we call our clear model. It's just a way to bring clarity to each step. So we don't guess, we're not copying competitors, and we're not chasing trends. And this is what you've got to be able to accomplish as well. If you're just choosing templates and running ads and doing, you've already lost the battle. You're never going to succeed on the level that you can succeed. Period, ever exclamation point, put whatever emphasis you want on it, but that's just the reality, guys. And when those fundamentals aren't dialed in, it shows up in the same ways over and over again. So let's walk through the real reasons your website isn't bringing you leads. All right. So, you know, I've always wanted to do this David Letterman top 10, like, you know, just a salute to him, you know, because uh I just thought that'd be neat. This is not going to be the case because simply I don't have that many. But uh reason number one, no clear call to action. So people land on your site and they don't know what you do. No direction, too many options, call, email, form, social. Now they have to decide. That's a little something we call friction. Friction is a bad thing. Friction means you have to stop and think. It's not something that you can easily go through. Now, if someone lands on your site and does not know what to do, and I'm going to throw out the number five seconds. Now it's arguable seven to ten seconds, they're gone. You've lost them. This is where the engagement piece breaks down. Your website should guide people, not leave them standing there. One primary action, make it obvious and repeat it. Now, you see we're also creating a recipe here. So you can imagine that there are nuances in each one of these uh points. It's this is again, it's not dogmatic, it's just bringing up points that you need to consider. Now, weaker generic headlines. Oh my goodness, I still see this where they just put the name of the service in big bold text. Oh my goodness, this comes straight from the big brand mindset. Minimalism turns into vagueness. Welcome to our website, quality service you can trust. But that doesn't mean anything. They can get away with it. You can't get away with it. If I can take your headline and put it on your competitor's site, it's not working. This is where your value position breaks down. Say what you do, say who it's for, say why it matters. Clear beats clever. You want to make sure people understand why they should choose you versus the other options that are around. You've got to differentiate yourself. And the hard part is you've got about seven seconds to do that. All right. So the number three reason we're going to talk about here are trust signals. Big brands are the trust signal. You're not. So you have to prove it. So think no reviews, no testimonials, no real photos, no examples, just stock images and generic copy. People don't trust websites, they trust evidence. Show your work, show your results, show your real people. Now, if you can imagine, this is a direct conflict with freelancers and most agencies today. They want to use AI, they want to use generic content, they want to post a bunch of stuff to your blog that's generic. Now, why do they want to do this? Because it's easier for them. It's less work for them. Okay, so reason number four, poor mobile experience. This one's just execution, but it kills everything. Most traffic today is on mobile. Now, keep in mind different markets, different devices. There needs to be homework. So I'm making general statements here to make a point. Now, the idea is if the mobile experience is bad, then you know this actually started back, I think, in 2000 and probably 2012, 2015. Uh that's when you really started to see a huge move where everybody was saying build mobile first. So that kind of gives you an idea of how old this is. Uh now keep in mind, you know, there's a reason that you know laptops still exist and tablets are still there and still that other stuff, but in most markets, you can definitely see the strong impact of mobile. So, you know, small buttons, cramped text, slow load times, people just won't deal with it. They leave. So when you're looking at these websites, we had somebody that that questioned one of our creatives, and they were like, How do you compete building websites the way you build it when there's all this stuff that now is being generated? All that stuff that's being generated that looks dynamic and actionable and all these buttons and all this movement, it's noise. It's distractions. It may look cool, but it's distractions. When you build, this has been going on since the Renaissance times. If you go back and study those paintings, you'll notice that they used gestures, arrows, where the eye is pointing. They would do this to direct the human eye to go from place to place to place on photos. Nothing's really changed. And if you have a bunch of noise, a bunch of animations, a bunch of this and a bunch of that that's going around that website, guess what? You've confused people. And guess what they do? They leave because they're looking for something. They're not looking for all the noise and distractions that are on the site. They're looking to achieve a goal. And if one thing is true about the world today, people are impatient. And they're more impatient than ever. You know it, and I know it. If I can't find it, I go somewhere else. Okay, now here's another one. Reason number five: no traffic strategy. Now, this is the one nobody wants to hear. A website does not generate traffic. Okay, so getting a website does not generate traffic, it converts it. So if anyone's telling you that your website's going to bring a bunch of people to it without a strategy behind it, it's like a bow without a motor, it's like a bow without a cell. Use your own analogy, but basically it's going to do nothing for you. A lot of businesses think we built the website, now it should just work. Now that's not how it works. And if you are being sold that or being told that, it's not true. You're being sold a website, you're not being sold a strategy. Those are way different things. The strategy actually drives the website. The website is a tool within the process, it's not the process. So make sure to put an exclamation point on that one. Okay, big brands, they already have attention. You don't. You're going to have to earn it. You're going to have to earn it through SEO, ads, content. You're going to have to pick a lane. Otherwise, you've got a billboard in the woods. Okay, so the question now is, is well, how much do you invest and what do you do? Because here's what really happens with most businesses, and you probably know this, is when times are good, you do less advertising. And when times go bad, you're desperate and you don't do advertising because you don't have the resources to do it. You work on one end of your uh pipeline, and then you jump over to the other end of the pipeline and you forget one of the other sides of it. And then you scramble mode to try to figure one or the other out. That's not how it works. You build momentum and you keep building momentum over time. That's how you stay in the front. That's how you gain market share. Pushing and pulling, not being deliberate, not putting a real budget to things is a good way to kill your business. Just think the heart of your business. Okay, so we see it all the time. A business comes in with this, well, not even necessarily a clean modern site, but they'll they'll come in with a site. It may look good, but there's no clear message, no direction, there's no proof, and these websites aren't generating anything. Now, that's the best case scenario. In most cases, to be perfectly honest with you, they're using templates, they're using do-it-yourself website builders, they're using generic AI content that they think is good, they're using uh a freelancer because they think they're saving money. Um I mean, this is probably describing part of what you're doing right now, and this is why your business is struggling. There are no shortcuts, guys. I can't tell you how sad it is when I meet some of these businesses and they've paid thousands of dollars for a website, and then I go look under the hood and I show them that that designer used a$65 template, and it probably took half a day for them to build that website. This is the reality. This is what we're really running into. All right, so here's what we do, and I think this is good advice for you. Um what we do is we clarify the message, we fix the messaging, we fix the structure of the page, we add trust, we define the action, and we modify that, we massage it, we test different things out, and then we start to get it working. So it's kind of like you got a, I don't know if any of you can relate to this, but it's kind of like uh if you're working on something and it's got a carburetor, uh, bolt engines used to have carburetors, and they would be uh it would misfire or something like that, and you'd clean the carburetor out, and then you would do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and then the engine starts to run smooth. Well, that's kind of what happens here. You can't just go out and start running ads and then expect the magic to happen. It doesn't work like that. And not only that, but once you get this engine working, you need to constantly keep it moving, which means you don't slow down on ads, you don't hit the brakes, you go harder. When you have success, you invest more, you don't invest less. It's counterintuitive. And so if you can imagine that if most people are doing it the wrong way, then kind of going against the grain and making sure you're doing it the right way is what's going to make your business different. Okay, so here's the big takeaway. Most websites don't fail because they look bad, although there's a lot of them that do. They fail because they don't guide people, they don't build trust, and they're trying to behave like brands that already have the attention. Now, if your website isn't bringing leads, don't start by redesigning it. Don't start chasing trends and don't start copying bigger brands. Start with the basics. What's your message? Does your website build confidence? Is your offer clear? And do people know exactly what to do next? Do they understand why they should choose you versus anyone else? Or are you just putting out the same generic copy as your competition? Because if you're putting out the same vague messaging, people default to price. This is why people think price is everything. Price is not everything. There are brands that work all the time, little, small, whatever, and they work at different price points. It's not the price point, it's the fact that you've not differentiated yourself enough to build value in what you offer. And if you can't explain it, and that's not conveyed on your website, your customers certainly are not going to understand that. Okay, now here's the deal: success online isn't complicated, but it is precise, and it does require massaging by a professional. And that's where results actually come from. It's not about picking the magical right template. Uh it's not finding the person who's got the measuring tape. You know, obviously I'm, you know, not a physical measuring tape in this case, who's going to go through and um, you know, kind of give you some show, a dog and pony show about what needs to happen. That's not where the magic is, guys. All right. So what I recommend you do is if you're struggling with your website, you really need to take a hard look at it. And you need to say, is this website really a reflection of my specific business? And if it's not a reflection of your specific business, if it's generic, if it doesn't say who you are, then this is part of the reason you're failing. If you're not funding your marketing and you don't have someone at the helm who's really working with you on that, obviously that's another reason that your business may not be performing that well. So it's simple in a way, but it's not easy. But the steps in between are complicated because they're nuanced. You know, I've done things where we've run websites and we've just moved some basic things around, adjust some sizes on stuff, and then it starts working. And the little thing always pops up in my head where I go, what if this client stopped before we found out these little nuances that helped their business get to where it is? They would have never known. They would have never experienced the success that they experienced because they gave up too early. And the trick is to find someone who's really going to work with you, who's going to do a good job, not shortcut it, and not put in a half-hearted effort or a generic effort in order to fulfill their agreement and just uh move on to the next project. The trick is to find someone who's really going to work with you. And you can usually tell because if they're not conveying your business, if they're not doing what we're talking about here, then they're not doing you justice. Okay, guys, that's the uh the uh story this week with Over the Bull. I hope this helps you out, and I hope it helps you understand a little bit more about your website, what it does, and why you may need to look at that a little more intentionally within the proper context of your business and what makes you good, what makes you do what you do and why you've been uh able to accomplish what you've accomplished to this point and what people value in what you're bringing to the table. Okay, guys, until next week, I hope this does help you out. This is Kim Carroll with Over the Bull.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bull, brought to you by Integris Design, a full service design and marketing agency out of Asheville, North Carolina. Until next time.