The seven fatal website mistakes
Most Australian websites are fundamentally flawed because they have no capacity to generate new business or customers, according to marketing and Internet guru Aidan Montague.
Mr Montague, a 25 year veteran of technology and business solutions, has identified the seven fatal website mistakes that can contribute to a company’s poor performance.
“With any website, function must come before fashion,” Mr Montague said. “Companies spend thousands of dollars engaging graphic designers to design attractive websites but they don’t generate a single sale or help convert one customer.
“The most important aspect of any website is what is happening ‘behind the scenes’ to drive new business, rather than a fancy front page. If there’s no way of converting customers into a sale – there’s no point in having a website at all. Unless you have a system for generating leads and your website acts as part of a wider traffic and conversion system – you are dead in the water,” he said.
Mr Montague, chairman of Panorama Synergy, says the most common website mistakes include:
1. No lead generation capability
2. Too much emphasis on look and feel (at the expense of functionality)
3. Not building a list or database
4. No optimised selling system
5. No unique selling proposition
6. Too much reliance on search engine optimisation/free traffic
7. No adequate conversion measurement
Mr Montague has created a website to assist small and medium enterprises capitalise on converting unique website visits to confirmed leads and potential sales. He said online marketing could be broken down into three key areas:
1) Drive traffic
2) Convert traffic
3) Have a structured system to do both
“This is not about re-inventing the wheel – it’s about common business sense,” Mr Montague said. “Businesses need to recognise the potential for online marketing and ensuring they’re doing everything possible to increase business traffic via an effective website offering.
“If their websites don’t have a way to capture customer information – they’re losing sales,” he said.
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