Ever had a conversation with a web designer or developer?
They’ll make your website beautiful, they say. It’ll capture people’s attention, they say. They’ll even make it mobile responsive so it’s easy to navigate on mobile, they say.
But in case you’ve been sleeping under a rock and haven’t caught a single episode of reality television (I haven’t watched television since 2011, so I’m partially guilty) you know that just because something is beautiful and captures attention doesn’t mean it’s very smart.
The fact is, what’s on the outside is often zero indication of the true quality of what’s on the inside. The same is true of a website.
It’s like making a cake out of nothing but dirt (in fact, the dirt in the picture is actually freshly laden with pesticide thanks to a recent visit from my pest control guy – yum!) – then putting pretty gummy worms on top of that dirt and thinking that because they’re edible and look delicious, the whole thing will be too. Oh, on the contrary.
Not only will it NOT be nutritious, but thanks to the good ole dose of pesticide, will probably kill you in the process. The same is true of your business if you use such a website.
In this article, I’m going to talk about why having a “beautiful, mobile responsive” and well- designed website is only half the battle, and why it’s the absolute last thing you should think about in terms of your business’ presence online.
1. It’s What You Say And How You Say It (Not Just What It Looks Like)
Imagine. Your significant other takes you out for a beautiful dinner. There are dozens of the most fragrant roses, elegant arrangements, and expensive glasses of premium Napa wine. The beams of moonlight fall against your face, and you’re sure this is a night you’ll never forget. And you’d be right. Because he chose this moment to break up with you, then console you with, “But don’t worry! We can still be friends.” Behold his douchey smile.
Your bewilderment is met with his bewilderment – how can you be sad? Why aren’t you happy?! It’s gorgeous!
“Gorgeous?!” you think. “You just broke up with me. There is no more relationship. You’ll be gone and I’ll probably never see you again.”
Ahhh, the fate of almost every website ever built.
If all you focus on is how gorgeous your website is, but not what the website actually has to say, your customers will likewise be gone, never to return, and there will in fact be no relationship between you and your customers, which means no business. They’ll be gone with the wind.
2. The Only Way To Know What To Say Is To Have A Strategy
Businesses on the web that don’t have a marketing strategy are like canoes on a raging river with no paddle. They have no business being there in the first place.
Let’s say you sell widgets. Great! You want people to see your widgets on your website so they can buy them. Awesome! You put a bunch of photos up on your pretty website, then realize there’s a —- ton of other companies selling the same widgets you are. What to do?
Well, a marketing strategy would tell you EXACTLY what to do, why to do it, and most importantly, what not to do. And simply putting facts about your widgets along with pictures on your website and thinking that’s enough to sell them is exactly what not to do.
90% of the time people don’t know what they want. Even when they think they know what they want. (Just ask my uncle Joe who married my ex-aunt Lisa before they split, and you’d know that people definitely don’t know what they want, even when they think they do.) But the problem is that most business owners don’t even understand what the primary purpose of a website is in the first place. When I do presentations and ask my audience what the purpose of their website is, I get all kinds of answers like “To give people directions,” or “to show them our products or services,” or “to give them information like hours of operations, promotion” etc.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
Your websites one and only job is to always be selling. Not “presenting” – selling.
Imagine going into a clothing store. You open the door to find employees who briefly stop what they’re doing to look at you, then go back to whatever they were doing before, essentially ignoring you. You walk around yourself and browse the racks. You try to find what you want on your own, and ultimately give up. This is exactly what happens on 99% of websites I see and do audits for. There’s no selling going on whatsoever. And people WANT to be sold the things they desire. A woman WANTS you to sell her the dress that’s going to mnake her feel beautiful. A man WANTS you to sell him the car that’s going to make his neighbors envy him thanks too all that ungodly and unnecessary horsepower. But you aren’t. Why? Because your website sucks. Why does it suck? Because you never even realized that it was supposed to be built from the ground up to sell in the first place.
Oops.
Which brings me to number three.
3. Web Designers are Not Marketers
People who design and code websites are not marketers. They have no idea what your website is supposed to say, and you probably don’t either. That’s because you’re too busy being good at what you do, and because it’s not your job to know what to say on a website. Your one and only job is to service happy customers who actually come to your place of business. Not “figuring out what to say and how to say it.” That’s where a marketing agency with a proper marketing strategy comes in.
And to be fair to web designers and developers, it’s really not their job to know what to say, either. For the same reason that it’s not the job of your plastic surgeon to lead you to enlightenment or to help you find inner peace. You have a therapist for that. Your plastic surgeon’s one and only job is to make you beautiful. (Or at least make you feel beautiful.) And your web design team’s only job is to take your website and make it look good – not to know what to say.
This is why most people have websites that are utterly this:
So beautiful, and dumb as a bell.
4. Copywriting Is The Lifeblood Of Every Sales Piece (Including Your Website)
Copywriting is an art and a science. And for the same reason that every person who has an iPhone think they’re a photographer because they can take a selfie and every 8th grader who dissects a frog thinks he’s Nicola Tesla, every person who writes copy doesn’t know what they’re doing. Trust me.
If you try to write your own copy or have your website designer write your copy, it’ll be like trying to perform your own nose job. Or like letting my Uncle Joe perform it. You shouldn’t do it, unless you want to walk around face-palming the world full-time because you’re walking around with a botched job of a lump with two holes in it that you can no longer confidently call a nose. Don’t walk around with a botched job of a website. Your customers will not want to “date” you and do business with you.
For the uninitiated, copywriting is simply the art and science of knowing what to say in such a way that it compels someone to take an specific action, like, say, to come in to do business with you. It’s what you say, it’s how to say, and it’s knowing when to say it. And all of those things matter, believe it or not. It’s not quite as complicated as being a surgeon…but almost. (And it probably takes just about as long to learn how to do really well.)
So, if you or anyone you know has a business they love. Please remember this. Friend’s don’t let friends dance with the creepy guy at the nightclub, and they shouldn’t let their friends’ businesses fail either because their website sucks.
David Verity is a senior marketing strategist and CEO of Trinhoval Business Strategies, LLC – the #1 marketing and advertising firm in the Turlock and Modesto California area, with clients all over the world. He’s consulted multi-million dollar corporations as well as local businesses on their marketing and advertising strategies, and is a certified expert on social media and digital marketing.