I see it all the time. Marketers throwing money at the wrong place at the wrong time.  

Instead of making their website high-functioning, they try to cut corners and ‘get it done’ while adding another tactic that drains the marketing budget.  

And it doesn’t help with platforms offering “build it in a weekend DIY” website builders - you can build your website for cheap, then you end up wondering why it’s not working to bring you business.  

The truth is, a good high-functioning website should work for you. It should be a marketing machine disguised as a beautiful, engaging online brochure.  

Whether it’s for a personal brand or an enterprise company, websites play a critical role in most everyone’s business marketing strategy.  

In this article, I am going to show you 5 website elements you can assess easily to ensure a better customer journey. But first, let’s lay the foundation.  

The Purpose of a Website

Websites are pivotal to successful buyer journeys. It’s the first place people go to find out more about you when they encounter your brand. They may have heard about you, or maybe they were searching for the solution you provide online and they landed on your site. 

Your website is where all roads lead - meaning it’s a single point of relevant information about your services and products. From social media posts, to events and other marketing tactics, the idea is to drive traffic to your website and lead them on a journey.  

A journey to learn more about one thing: How are you going to make their life better? 

Can you solve their problem?  

Because we are communicating in a digital world, your website must be deliberately and strategically designed according to your business plan, marketing plan, and your brand story. 

The Customer Journey

When a prospect lands on your website, they’d better have a great first impression that encourages them to stay and keep scrolling to find out more.  

Next, you want to make sure that the prospect is led through your homepage to take the action you want them to take. This could be clicking one of your service boxes to learn more about your offers. It could be that they click your About Page, which is very likely since it’s the 2nd most viewed page on your site after the Homepage.  

Your website is where people go to learn about you, and to buy! Or at least take the next step - like booking a call or signing up for a free download.  

As in any marketing endeavor, we must keep asking questions, and websites, one of the most expensive business expenses, deserve no less.  

You will want to ask questions like: 

• Where are our leads coming from?

• When they download a free offer, are the Thank You pages nice and inviting?

• How are our social posts performing - are they engaging? 

• Do all the Call-To-Action buttons work?

• Is the navigation easy and smooth?

• Are people clicking on all the sections on the homepage? 

Because if you don’t understand what’s working on your website, and what isn’t, then you won’t know how to give your visitors to your website a great experience.   

You simply won’t get traction.  

I hope you’ve got a great website that is functioning to give you new leads while you sleep!  

The good news is that there are some easy ways to measure your success. In this article I’m going to take you through 5 assessments you can make to ensure that visitors to your website are happy, and can easily choose exactly what they want to do next! (remember: that means what you want them to do next.)  

Let’s dive in!  

Start here: Don’t Ignore the Obvious

Analytics and statistics are definitely not my thing - I have people on my team who take care of all that. But there is not an entrepreneur who should ignore the obvious - the data.  

Your website is the place to start when evaluating what factors need to be addressed. You don’t have to look far to get relevant and insightful analytics.  

Easily accessible, the information we have at our fingertips, no matter what your background, gives us all we need to perform our own assessment. What I’m about to suggest will tell you volumes, and takes less than an hour to assess, and will tell you what you need to do to improve the customer journey on your site.  

Many website builder platforms like Wix, Wordpress, and GoDaddy have analytics built in.  

Google Analytics is a fast and easy way to see where your website visitors are spending their time on your site. Take a look at each element in the report and assess it for that location, that use. What parts of the site are people viewing the most? Can you assess why? Do you really need it? Is the customer journey affected if it’s removed?   

Below we will go through 5 elements to assess.  

Using your analytics, assess each to determine if you should remove that element, or is it an integral part of your visitor’s journey.  

Evaluate these five elements to improve your website effectiveness.  

1. Rotating Banners

The top banners on your website pages are prime ‘real estate’ on a website. Rotating banners are also known as “image carousels” or “sliders”.

While they allow you to show multiple banner messages to your website visitors by presenting them one at a time, it may not be performing like you thought it would.   

They usually rotate automatically at fixed time intervals. Sometimes a visitor can control the rotation with banner navigation.It is easy to see the benefits of using rotating banners on your website because then you have several top banners to communicate multiple messages. 

But in fact, rotating banners will not only dilute your message, but a study at the University of Notre Dame found that only 1% of website visitors wait or click to see the other banner messages!  

This means your message is totally lost as your visitor zooms down the page to figure out if you can solve their problem.  

This statistics tells us that the top banner header images aren't a great place to drive action. 

A better strategy for that section of your website is to deliver simple and clear messaging on what your company offers and why that is beneficial to the reader. This will compel visitors to engage with more of your website, pushing them further through the journey to becoming a customer. 

2. Social Media Links

Social media icons have become super familiar, and recognized by our brain as ‘happy food’ - that wonderful dopamine hit we get when we find ourselves diving into the rabbit hole of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram...    

We expect to be entertained, to visit with people. And if you do this right, if you’re strategic about what platforms you’re on, it’s a great way to drive traffic to your website.  

But there is a big mistake many businesses make on their website. They put their social icons in the upper right corner - a terrible place to put them! 

Think about it - if you land on a website to find a solution to your problem, and you see the social icons in the upper right, you’ll click to see what they’re about on LInkedIn or Instagram.  

But when you do, there are a million things that can pull your attention away from their site. You go down your feed and don’t even remember why you were there.  

These icons serve as super-compelling exit signs.  

When you look at the data, you may see that those social icons placed in the upper right corner are taking your visitors right off the site - and never coming back.  

Conversely, if you put your contact email or phone number in that spot, you have a better chance of seeing your leads increase.  

If your analytics show that website visitors are leaving your site through your social media links, it’s best to put those social icons in the footer of your website.  

3. Blogs

Blogs are great for business. They can gain visibility for your brand, position you as a thought leader, improve search engine rankings, educate customers, and communicate marketing messages.  

The analytics problem with Blogging is that you have to do it regularly. If you can’t commit, then just don’t do it at all. They are only valuable if you regularly publish posts that are highly relevant to your niche. 

Otherwise you can actually do damage to your brand because of search engine rankings. Search engines assess content and the regularity of updates.   

In addition, your regular visitors want to see new content or they’ll be less likely to come back. These are people who are interested or intrigued by your message or your services, but haven’t taken any action yet. New visitors may notice “oh, they posted last week” (good!)... or “they have posted in months!” (not so good). If people see you publishing erratically, you can lose trust if you appear disorganized and haphazard.  

Check your analytics to see how your blog is performing. You will see if your visitors are enjoying it and if not, you will know the content or the consistency is making it flounder. You can adjust.  

4. Popups

Popups on websites are a big controversial subject. 

Popups are supposed to give marketers a way to push important messages, but if the pop-up interrupts the customer journey in any way, it can be detrimental to your website traffic staying power.  

You want to keep visitors on your site as long as possible and lead them to action, but if they get irritated and frustrated, well, your first impression is out the window. And you know it's very difficult to undo a bad first impression.  

But if done right, you can get high conversion rates. 

 In a study by Sumo found in measuring over 1.5 million popups: 

• the average conversion rate of the top-performing 10% was 9.3%, 

• the remaining popups had a disappointing 3.1% conversion rate! 

Filter your pop-up through these 3 things to make it worthy to keep on your website:

1. They promote an action that is highly valuable to your visitor.

2. They have a high conversion rate.

3. They don't have a negative impact on website performance, such as increased bounce rate. 

Removing popups from your site is definitely a viable option. You may find that the user experience is greatly improved and helps you drive conversions in other ways.  

5. Lead Generator Forms

Lead generation is non-negotiable for any entrepreneur. In fact, I don’t know a single business owner who says they don’t want new qualified leads.  Lead generation forms are a great way to offer something in exchange for your prospect’s email. 

Did you know that email marketing still has a 4400% ROI - and has for a number of years? We’ll see if this changes with the new privacy laws, but studies show that email has the highest ROI of all marketing channels.  

According to research from Litmus, you’ll get $36 USD in return for every $1 USD you spend on email marketing, which can have huge implications for your bottom line. 

However, we must watch for low-performing contact forms that will clutter your website and disrupt visitor journeys. 

Use website data and contact form submissions data to assess which contact forms perform best on your site. You can look to your email marketing platform like Mailchimp or Active Campaign, Hubspot or Zoho.  

Finding communication methods that work well for your customers is a simple improvement that can drastically increase satisfaction and sales. 

Maybe your lead offer isn’t performing. You wouldn’t want to remove your leads funnel - but you could create a different offer that is more enticing, or redesign the form.  

In Summary

Websites are meant to be a powerful marketing tool - functioning in a way to leverage all the innovations available today. But in order for them to be valuable, we must keep track of how they are performing, like any other technology.  

Most marketers spend their time seeking out new elements to add to their websites to drive higher conversions. However, taking the time to assess the applicability and success of your current elements can be a quick and easy way to boost success. 

When you build a website the right way, based on a clear, cohesive brand story and simplified marketing plan, you have built a strong foundation.