Anyone who’s been alive for at least a few years knows what it feels like to be sick and what it feels like to be healthy. Eventually this personal experience leads to an understanding of the signs of sickness and health. It even helps us learn how to tell when other people around us are sick or healthy.
The health of a website — just like our personal health — is a system of systems that fluctuates over time in response to internal and environmental factors. With experience, we can learn how to tell when a website is sick or healthy.
Unfortunately, many websites are stuck in a “failure to thrive” mode and have never experienced a healthy cycle. Therefore, many business owners have not experienced their own websites in a healthy state. They might perceive the unhealthy state as being normal.
What does a website do when it’s in good health? How does it function?
It functions as an integral part of your overall business health. In other words, business would suffer if the website was not there. The website does not just sit there and do nothing. It does not merely point to your business like an ad, a business card or brochure.
You know you have a healthy, viable website when . . .
- You are not embarrassed to show your website to customers or prospects. You encourage people to visit your website because you know that it is current, relevant, and useful.
- You can trace new business and new customer inquiries back to your website. The website directly contributes to online or offline sales, new customers and new conversations. You know for a fact that these results come from the website because you have a tracking system in place. This can be as simple as asking customers how they found out about you while you’re still on the phone with them. Or before they walk out of your door. Or as part of your response to their email inquiry.
- You have inactive customers re-engaging with your business. Or you have current customers engaging more often as a direct result of your website and your online efforts, including email programs. Again, this can be traced directly back to your website because you have systems in place to measure those results.
- If you have a membership site or organization, it is easy to acquire and retain members because you have online systems that simplify customer service and member management.
- It is easy for customers to pay for products and services on your website. The website allows you to process more orders in less time.
- You spend less time on the telephone providing general information and explaining policies and procedures because that information is easily found on the website.
These are just a few indications that your website is healthy and viable. A healthy website is part of your business. It serves an important role in customer acquisition and creates income. It is not something that just consumes resources without making a discernable difference.
Is this a pipe dream or is it reality?
If you have not yet experienced this with your website, you can call me to find out why. I will ask some questions and provide concrete, actionable feedback. There is no obligation to work with me, but you will find out what needs to be done. In fact, you are free to hire someone else to act on the feedback I provide. My main concern is that you understand what would make your website healthy and viable and what it would take to get it there.
Your website is increasingly the first place that new prospects and customers experience your business. Your site visitors assume that your website represents your best effort. If your website is in a coma, they will assume your business is in a coma, too. They will move along without a second thought.
Fortunately, there are ways to jolt a website out of the coma state and into a viable, vibrant, healthy life. I have helped clients do everything I’ve described above. It’s work that I find to be incredibly rewarding.
Feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback. I enjoy hearing from you.