7 Deadly Website Assumptions (from Duct Tape Marketing)

Businesses often make incorrect assumptions about their websites that hurt their online success, and in turn, hurt their business. I'm reading the book Duct Tape Marketing (an excellent marketing guide for small businesses), and it has a list of common assumptions that I recognize from my conversations with businesses.

Let's look at these assumptions and why they're wrong. Here's my paraphrasing of the false assumptions from the book.

"An attractive website is an effective website"

More important than a website's design is the way it works for your target audience. That includes its appeal, its navigation, and its communication of the right message. It's more important that they engage with the content than salivate over the design. Of course, good design can certainly help by supporting the more important aspects. Following design conventions is a good way to start, and doing user testing is the best way to refine the design to support the site's goals.

For more about this, check out my post Website Mistakes Small Businesses Make, and How to Fix Them.

"I know what my customers search"

You have the curse of knowledge; you're an industry insider with years of experience. You speak in your industry jargon. Prospects lack your knowledge and experience, so they may not search for the same terms you would. Don't trust yourself to come up with your keywords. Instead, conduct keyword research to see what phrases people actually search for. Also, ask your customers what they search for.

"People will go to my contact page to find me"

If you put your primary contact info only on your contact page, some people will never see it, because they'll give up first. To make it easy for people to contact you, put at least basic contact info on every page. This is especially true if you have a phone number you want people to call, or a location you want people to visit. Mobile users want to find your contact info quickly.

"No one read blogs"

It's true that not everyone browses directly to blogs to read them, or subscribes to RSS feeds. However, a huge percentage of the links people click in search results are blog posts. If your site has 10 main pages and no blog, you're much less likely to appear in search results than if you had 10 main pages and 50 blog posts.

For more about this, check out my post Why your business website needs a blog.

"People will find my site by searching for it"

Don't rely only on SEO (search engine optimization). Although you'll likely get a percentage of traffic from search engines, you should also promote your site through other channels. Consider social media, other websites, advertising, PPC (pay-per-click), and offline media (such as your print materials).

For more about this, check out my post Business Website Mistakes.

"Traffic is the key"

Conversions are more important than traffic. Traffic includes all the visits to your site, many of which will never turn into business. Conversions are those who enter your sales funnel (by filling out a contact form, calling you, etc.). They are much more likely to turn into business. Jantsch (author of Duct Tape Marketing) suggests taking 50% of your traffic generation efforts and money and putting it towards conversion optimization. This often includes landing pages and testing.

For more about this, check out my post Website Mistakes Small Businesses Make, and How to Fix Them.

"People will come back because they like my site"

Give people a reason to return to your site, such as great content, free seminars/webinars, and ebooks. People are busy, forgetful, and sometimes lazy. Don't count on them making the effort to revisit your site. Increase your chances by offering an opt-in: something valuable in exchange for their email subscription. Studies show that email marketing is more effective than social media.

Conclusion

Have you been making these assumptions? It's not too late to change your mind. Let's talk about your website, and how to improve it.

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One comment on “7 Deadly Website Assumptions (from Duct Tape Marketing)”

  1. I totally agree with the conversions part. You must not rely on SEO alone but also make use of other medias like Social Networking sites and paid advertising. Just be sure to also optimize well your website to lessen the bounce rate of your traffic and will be diverted to conversion.

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