A client said to me this morning, ‘We’re thinking of investing in Google Ads.’
This often comes up in a first chat or a Take Heart Hour. When we’re not seeing the sales or leads we want, we assume we need more people through the door.
Imagine a clothes shop full of people, all with garments laid over their arms that they want to buy, but nobody can find the till. You can put another 50 people in there, but if no one can find the till, then no sales will be made, no matter how brilliant the clothes are.
You can get as many people as you can through the door, it won’t make a difference.
Now, put the till where everyone can see it. Better still, install two tills, and hang a big sign above them saying ‘Please pay here’. And even better still, employ two sales assistants who are kind, approachable and make the customer feel seen.
Watch the sales increase, not just that day, but for weeks and months to come. As long as the product stays brilliant, the structure is in place to sell it.
This is the trap that many websites fall into. So when a founder asks me about paid-for traffic, my response is never ‘What’s your budget?’ It usually goes something like this.
‘Before you spend another pound, there are three things I’d like you to explore.’
1. Measure what’s already happening
How many of your visitors are becoming customers, enquiries or supporters?
You don’t need thousands of visitors or sophisticated dashboards. Just understand what your website is doing today, so you know whether tomorrow is any better.
2. Decide what success looks like
Choose the one thing you want people to do when they visit your website.
Book a call. Buy a product. Join your waiting list. Make a donation.
If you’re asking visitors to do five different things, they’ll usually bounce to avoid decision fatigue.
3. Experience your website like a first-time visitor
Try to do that one thing yourself. Start on your homepage and follow the journey. Where do you hesitate? When do you have to stop and think? Is there copy that makes you wonder what to do next?
These are the moments where your visitors are getting stuck too.
When you’ve been working on your own website for months or years though, it’s much harder to spot those moments.
Here’s an exercise I love.
Visit a website you’ve never seen before, preferably within your own industry, and pay attention to yourself, instead of the website, as you explore it for the first time.
Where do your eyes go? What makes you pause? When do you feel reassured? When do you feel lost?
You’ll start noticing tiny moments of confusion and delight that most people never consciously register. Once you learn to spot them in other people’s websites, you’ll have a better chance of seeing them on your own.
This isn’t really an exercise in UX. It’s an exercise in perspective.
(It’s a version of what UX researchers call a five-second test)
The temptation is to think that marketing and your website are two separate things. But they’re not.
Marketing gets people to your website, and your website decides whether they stay. The better your website is at helping people understand what you do, the more effective every future marketing campaign becomes.
That’s why I’d always start here. Before a bigger ad budget and more traffic and more data and a website redesign. Make it easy for people to understand your value and take the next step.
When you’re ready to bring more people through the door, they’ll be arriving at a website that’s ready for them.
Eyes still not feeling fresh?
Book a free 20-minute chat and we’ll talk through your website, your goals and what’s getting in the way.
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