Why Isn't My Website Working? (2)

OK...

Number #2 on my list is poor design, specifically poor first impression.

Keep in mind, the bar on this Internet marketing thing keeps getting raised and one way it does is when your competitor bites the bullet and goes out and gets a professional designer to design a new website for him/her.

When your website leaves a poor first impression, when a bride has visited four other websites... she's probably looking for something BETTER.

Good design means it looks very professional (not home grown), it has colorful, eye-catching graphics, with happy brides and grooms, with easy-to-read text that delivers a strong marketing message.

Good design means your page loads very quickly, with no hesitation or errors (which can spook a bride into thinking you're doing something to her computer).

There is a lot of bad Internet marketing advice going around and too many Internet marketing myths to keep track of, frankly.

I Know You Want It... But You Can't Have Everything

"HELP CHRIS... we love our new website and just spent $5000 on it. It has FLASH and it's soooooo nice. But we're not getting any inquiries and we can't find it at Google anywhere."

Design vs. Functionality

If I had a $1.00 for everytime I heard that this year, so far, I'd be in the Caribbean today on vacation.

What do you want? A website that looks just the way you want or a website that actually can be found in the search engines and can convert a bride who finds it into an inquiry?

A designer/programmer will give you what you want. I guarantee it.

But it's not REALLY what you want.

So that's the question today and I think the answer is... you need a website that brides can find and one that generates inquiries (i.e. conversion).

No inquiries, no sales. No sales, no business. No business, no need for a website.

Designers mislead business owners all the time. I'm sorry, but that's how I see it. They don't tell them that there are SERIOUS problems with most website designs "that look great" and that if you don't incorporate search engine friendly features, along with conversion related features, you're website won't show up anywhere near the top of Google, Yahoo!, or MSN and the brides that do happen to find you will probably not make inquiries.