Why Isn't My Website Bringing in Customers?

Search a bit for "what your website needs" and you’ll get various listicles and checklists.

Be findable.
Have social media.
Add testimonials.
Make it easy to pay you.

None of it is inherently wrong, but it treats a website like a bunch of things to check-off and that not how any of this really works.

When someone lands on your site, they’re not running down a checklist. They’re getting a gut feeling in a few seconds: does this business offer what I need and can I trust them?

That feeling comes from whether everything on the page is pulling the same direction. The branding, the messaging, the design, the thing underneath it all that so many freelancers, web studios, and agencies forget: the content.

At the risk of conjuring up the "layered onion" cliche, websites are layered beasts. There are a lot of moving parts and most people only see the whole thing or see one layer at a time. My job is seeing all of them at any given time. So instead of another checklist, here’s what I actually look for when I’m deciding whether a site is doing its job.

The goal isn't "look nice." The goal is to convert.

Let's get this out of the way first, because everything else hangs off it: a marketing website has one job: to convert. Turn an anonymous visitor into a lead, a lead into a customer. 

Looking good is in service of that, but not the whole point by itself. And the thing that your site’s design is created around isn’t some cool animation or feature you saw on a really cool site—it’s the content.

If your content is weak (too long, too vague, written three reading levels too high, says nothing a visitor cares about), it doesn’t matter how good the design is. You can polish it all you want but the second someone starts actually reading, it falls apart because the great design and the actual message don’t line up.

"Are you a real business, or a slapped-together web page?"

Just existing online isn’t enough. Being findable is the bare minimum. 

The real question a visitor is asking is whether you’re a legitimate, functioning business that your website accurately represents, or is the site just a page somebody threw together just to get that task done?

I get why some businesses just put up a webpage and call it a day—there are plenty of other things to be concerned with when running a business. But here’s the harsh truth: a cheap, slapped-together site can be worse than no site at all. It actively costs you trust.

Part of this is keeping your site current. The usual advice for this is "you must have a blog". While I would agree most times, it’s not a rule you have to abide by. Not every business needs a blog. As an example, I have a client who rarely touches their site and they do just fine—they’re B2B and that’s simply how their business runs.

Where "still active" really bites is in the design itself. When a site looks like it was created over a decade ago, people will quietly wonder if you’re even still in business.

Ah yes, social media

The checklist crowd will tell you every business needs to be on social. I don't fully buy it.

For a multitude of reasons, plenty of people are genuinely wary of social media. And in this day and age I don't blame them. If you're not going to actually be active there, what's the point? A dead account isn't a trust signal; it's just another dusty room. That energy is often better spent keeping your own site sharp or on networking.

You can make the case that being on social helps and I’d be hard-pressed to disagree. LinkedIn, Alignable, Instagram, whatever fits best for your business. But choosing not to be on social media isn't the red flag people make it out to be.

Are you talking to me?

This is the one that I think some otherwise-fine sites get wrong. A visitor (i.e. your potential custom), need to feel that you’re speaking directly to them. Their situation, what they came for, how they’ll benefit from working with you.

Here’s a real example. I had a client in a very specific niche: American soccer (football for us real ones) who want to travel to Europe to see the big clubs. This client’s analytics had gone a bit stagnant. I dug into what the business actually needed out of the site, which, to no one’s surprise, was more customers.

The issue was clear—the site was shaped more like a blog or news site with the occasional offer to buy a travel package. It wasn’t built to convert or generate leads. We redesigned the homepage around the one thing that mattered: grabbing the attention of an American fan of European football wanting to go see their club. We also built a lead magnet to provide more information and give this client a way to reach even more people. The combination made the site stickier; people stuck around longer and the leads picked up.

Nothing about that project was flashy. Well designed? Yes, if I do say so myself. But the heart of it was about aiming the message.

Keep it simple

There's a pull that designers feel as much as clients do (me included, if I'm honest): the urge to add. 

More features. More flash. Cool stuff you saw a competitor do. Something to stand out. ALL THE AWESOMENESS!

(Whoa, calm down there, slick.)

Standing out for its own sake or just adding something flashy just because it’s flashy has no substance behind it. Sometimes it comes down to a misread of the audience. You and a competitor can be in teh same exact industry or vertical and have entirely different customers. Maybe yours don’t want the flashiness at all. Copying the cool thing I saw on someone else’s website without asking "does this fit my content and does it make sense for my audience?" usually just gets in the way of the site’s actual job.

Piling on pages and content to explain things is similar. If something needs that much explaining, I’d rather ask why? What’s missing that it takes three paragraphs to get across? Because if you can’t break it down simply, people either won’t get it or, more likely, they won’t read it.

You can bolt on features and flash all day, but if the messaging’s wrong and nobody sticks around because that flashiness means the page takes forever to load, the features never get seen.

Keep it as simple as it can be to do the job well. Not simpler. Not more.

Make the next step obvious

If people can buy directly from you, it has to be dead obvious. If what you offer is a service, then it needs to be clear and easy to get in touch and start a conversation. If you offer a purchasable product, well, you better have some obvious buttons and a checkout process. Either way, the path forward can’t be a scavenger hunt.

And for everyone who's not ready to buy today (which is most people), give them an obvious way to stay in the loop. A clear call to action. A newsletter or blog if you've got one. At the absolute minimum, your contact info should be upfront and impossible to miss. And if it makes sense, a simple contact form.

Is your site pulling its weight?

Notice that almost none of the above was about looking cool. It was about whether the branding, the message, the design, and the content all pull in the same direction and whether a visitor can quickly feel that you’re talking to them and can help.

That’s the part that matters. And the part I love to dig into. Not designing or building whatever gets asked for, but working out what your website actually needs to do for your organization. More leads. Better conversions. Customers who stick. And then making every piece serve that.

If you've read this far and you're looking at your own site wondering whether it's really pulling its weight, that's exactly the conversation I like to have. Let's talk about your site.