Don’t pay for google ads that send prospective clients to a bad website

by | Jun 20, 2020 | Random Rants

I haven’t blogged in a while, it’s been a busy 12 months, also because I just haven’t had any golden thoughts of wisdom to partake of late. That changed today when I was hung up on by a prospective client I was sharing sound advice with. Yep, someone called me, asked me to help them with their website, then told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, and hung up. Happy frikkin Tuesday.

Anyway, as anyone would do I started to second guess myself, wondered if I came across argumentative or rude, listened to my heart beat a little faster, took a deep breath and sent a Skype message to a good friend who is a ‘knower of all things internet’.

Me: “What advice would you give to this person who wants to spend money on Google AdWords?”

Internet-knower: “The website needs to be redone. If they want effective spend on ad campaigns it needs to better reflect their offering”

Thank. You!

This prompted me to let my fingers to the talking. And here we are.
So, as I was saying earlier on the phone: Don’t spend money on Google advertisements that send prospective clients to a website that:

  • Has 1 paragraph of text on the whole homepage that is all one sentence and contains 9 pieces of important information
  • Doesn’t contain professionally composed, easily read content
  • Doesn’t effectively explain what you do or sell
  • Can’t be viewed on a mobile device
  • Contains unprofessional images taken on a mobile phone
  • Has an outdated design
  • Doesn’t contain relevant or focussed content
  • Doesn’t include an effective call to action
  • Has a picture of your cat on the home page

 

Google AdWords works hard to ‘Win the Click’.

You’re paying google to go out, find prospective clients and shoot them back to you.

Imagine paying a salesman for hours of his time to door-knock and entice people to come your Italian restaurant, only to have them arrive and there’s nowhere to sit, the food is cold and you haven’t got any drinks to go with their meal.

This is what you’re doing when you run good ads to a bad website. The disappointment of the prospective client is massive. They’ve been presented with a plethora of options when doing a google search, and out of all that madness clicked your advert.

Great! Go Google! Job done!

Then they arrive at your website and it’s not what they expected

  • If they’re looking on a mobile device and your website isn’t responsive, they can’t view most of the content, see the images or click the tiny contact us button with their fat fingers
  • They were looking for something modern and professional and arrived at your website that was designed in 1998.
  • They’re trying to read your 8pt text and find out if you have the service that they looking for
  • They’re using the latest browser and half your website doesn’t load because it was created in 2004
  • The blurb on your homepage is hard to read because it’s 1 paragraph and mentions what you do, where you’re located, who you service and the products you sell all in one long sentence

 

The job of a good business website is to get people to convert

Once people have arrived at your website, it needs to work hard to convert the prospective client into a real client. Remember, you’re not waiting there with your charm and charisma to spruik your services and win them over, your website must do that job for you.

A good website considers the client journey, offers clear concise information and navigation, has appealing design and imagery, conveys who you are well and gives plenty of opportunity for the prospective client to convert through targeted calls to action.

Contact us. Read more. View our services. See our products. View our sale items.

If your website does not do these things, the conversion is less likely to happen, or worst case scenario, not happen at all.

If your homepage shows a wishy-washy ‘informational’ website, people are not going to hang around. You need to convince visitors quickly why they should contact you over your competitors.

Remember the Italian restaurant? All those excited, hungry people are lining up at the door, but if you’ve got nowhere to sit, cold food and no drinks it won’t take them long to go somewhere else for dinner.

Even if prospective clients have worked with you previously, a bad website is not going to convince them to come back. What will convince them is a modern, functional website that showcases your product or service well, captures their attention immediately and allows them to easily contact you with minimal fuss.

THEN you can be ready with your charm and charisma to sell them whatever the heck you want.