Normally, when meeting with new clients, I suggest that website won’t be one of our priorities. I think it’s all too easy to get bogged down by trying to get your website perfect, when it’s actually much more important to be out there having conversations with people and building relationships.

That said, there are instances where a website IS a problem that needs fixing and in today’s letter I want to share with you 10 mistakes I see many business owners making, that could be impacting your sales.

1. No clear problem that you solve (aka niche)

When we land on a service provider’s website, we’re usually looking for help with a specific problem or struggle we have. If we don’t see any copy that speaks to that problem, we’re unlikely to stick around or consider engaging in the services provided.

Let me put this into context for you. As a parent to a 4 year old who struggles with big emotions, I’ve researched parenting coaches and courses a ton. If upon landing on a website I don’t see anything that relates to my particular issue, I’ll probably leave pretty quickly.

On the other hand when I came across a parenting coach who talks a lot about “Deeply Feeling Kids” and offers specific resources and services for parents of children like that, I was all over it. I joined her list, I signed up to her membership and I bought her book. I just knew she was the parenting expert who could help me.

Many of the business owners I work with struggle to narrow down to just one problem and that’s fine. You can list out a number of problems you offer support with but you must be clear and specific about which problems your services best help with so that people know you can help them when they land on your website.

2. Broken links

I see this all the time. It’s not uncommon for me to be reviewing a new client’s website and find links that don’t work and important links to boot. Links to book a consult call or to connect, links that could and would potentially lead to a sale.

And I get it, I remember speaking to the largest audience of my business journey a few years ago and wondering why, after I got so many messages and great feedback, that my subscriber count didn’t seem to go up at all. Months later, I realised that my newsletter sign up link was broken!

So it happens AND it’s so important to check regularly that any links that people might click to buy from you, connect with you or stay in touch with you aren’t broken.

3. No clear CTA or sales page

I remember being surprised the first time I saw this and have since seen it several times. This is where people might have something like a services or coaching page that explains what they do but it doesn’t have any call to action (CTA) on it. So there is nothing to tell people what to do next if they are interested, nothing, for example that says, “buy now”, or “get in touch” or “book a call”. Leaving people to wonder or guess what they should do next.

Worse yet I’ve seen many people showcase their offerings with just a few lines of description. No sales page explaining who the service is for, what it might help with and what to expect. Just a brief description and on top of that no CTA.

Let me tell you now, most people won’t spend money on something that they don’t know enough about or that they have to go searching for a way to actually buy or pay. If you are selling a service to your customers, I would recommend you have a sales page with a clear call to action at the bottom of it.

4. Too many offerings

I typically work with multi-talented and highly trained individuals who work with a multitude of modalities and thus offer a wide range of services. The problem is people aren’t usually searching for a modality, what they want to know is whether or not you can help them to solve their specific problem.

If you have too many different services, each relating to a different modality, there’s a good chance that people will find and leave your website feeling confused. When we’re not sure which route to take, we typically don’t take any. So if you are offering people too many options to work with you, without clarity on why you would use one service over another, you will inevitably miss out on sales.

Usually when I’m working with a client in this situation, I’ll ask them 2 questions, which of your services do people rarely or never book? And which of your services do you NOT love delivering? If there are any services that fall into either category, I recommend they remove them from their website or at the very least from their top-level menu. This way when people land on your site they are presented with only your most popular services and those which you actually enjoy delivering.

Another recommendation I give is that when you have multiple services, do what you can to explain why a person would choose one over the other by making it clear who the service is for. Ethical Copywriter. Lauren Van Mullem does a great job of this on her services page.

5. No stepping stone — freebie or low cost offer

A good business model will offer buyers a journey from not knowing you to buying from you and from buying a low cost offer to purchasing a more premium offering. So, if for example, you are a coach who only offers high priced coaching packages, you are expecting customers to skip a necessary part of the journey — getting to know you better.

Giving people a free or low-cost way to get to know you better allows people to take steps along the journey to buying from you that don’t feel like a huge leap of faith.

My recommendation is that you have, prominently displayed, on your website a freebie (ideally a generous freebie) and/or a low cost (less than $50) product people can buy to better know how you operate. If you can wow people with your freebie or low cost offer, you’re much more likely to see those people come back for your higher priced products and services.

6. No way to “meet” you before they buy

If the services you offer include spending significant time with your clients, I believe it’s essential that you allow people the opportunity to “meet” you before they buy. I remember years ago wanting to hire a practitioner and the minimum spend was significant. What I really wanted to do was meet her so I could be sure she was the right practitioner for me but as this wasn’t an option, I decided against hiring her.

I can’t tell you how many times people have told me that they were 95% certain that they wanted to buy from me but the decision was made 100%, as soon as they spoke to me.

There are a few ways you can do this. You can offer a call (for me this is done on Zoom) on your sales page. You might have noticed that aside from low cost offers like my workshops, I rarely have a “buy now” button on my sales page. It’s much more likely to be an application form (which is followed by a call) or a link to book a call directly.

If you don’t want to offer calls to everyone who might be considering your individual offerings, then find another way for people to “meet” you before they buy. My colleague Lauren, offers craft and copy hour, where you can bring a craft to work on and any questions you have about copy to a group video call. Or another client who is an incredible book coach who offers free Q+A calls for people who are working on a book. Doing a group freebie like this allows you to meet several people at once.

7. No blog or an out of date one

This is, in my opinion, a biggie! Since getting serious about my blog circa 2019, I regularly have people finding me through Google searches, who then end up buying from me or enrolling on to one of my services. It’s important to note that this happens without me having spent a ton of time on SEO, rather just creating high value content that answers the questions that my ideal clients have and are searching for.

If you don’t yet post new and useful content on your website on a regular basis, I’d recommend starting there. People often think that the sales page is the most important copy on your website but people regularly tell me they are ready to sign up to 1:1 with me, because of all the content they’ve read on my blog and how sold they already are on my approach. Posting regular blogs allows me to share my most up to date thinking on business growth and share details about my approach, my best advice and my point of view.

8. No pictures of you

They say a picture tells a thousand words and never is this more true than on a website offering 1:1 or group services.

If people are going to spend money working with you (as opposed to just buying a product) then they will want to know what you look like. Having pictures of you on. at least. your homepage and about page works wonders for cultivating a sense of trust and safety for your website browsers and potential clients.

And for the record, it doesn’t have to be photos from a professional photoshoot, all the photos on my website were taken by friends or family and it shows!

9. An unclear message or lack of Point of View

This is probably one of the hardest to get right because it requires us to possess that clarity in the first place. If you do have clarity on your message or you do have a strong point of view about your work or industry, then do what you can to make sure your copy reflects that.

If you don’t yet possess that clarity, then my recommendation to clients is to explore your message and point of view through your content. People often think that in order to create meaningful content that they have to already be clear on their message or point of view but in my own personal experience, it wasn’t until I got consistent with content that my message became crystal clear.

10. Bad design

This is last on the list for a reason. I think many people get tripped up by this one, thinking that they’ll never be successful unless they spend 10K on fancy website design. That’s simply not true. These days with templates, it’s pretty easy to DIY a relatively good-looking website. Having said that, if your website is really out of date and badly organised or designed, it will inevitably have a detrimental impact on sales.

If in doubt go for minimalist, clean, with lots of white space. You’ll also want to avoid large chunks of text without paragraph breaks or subtitles to break it up. It’s human nature to give up when we see a large amount of text with no breaks in it so break down your copy into smaller chunks!

And that’s it, are you making any of the mistakes on this list? Can you fix them? I’d love to know, so if you feel called to share, hit reply and let me know.