Does your website truly support your business growth? Guest expert Rob Swagten lays out 7 questions to find that out – and to ensure your website is as stellar as your business

Are you truly utilising your website as a tool that drives business growth? If your answer is not 100% positive, this will be an interesting read for you! 

To get started, it’s essential to understand that a website is not just a digital brochure or an online business card; it is a powerful marketing tool that can make or break a business. 

I believe a website is not something to be set in stone. It should be an asset that is fluent and flexible with who you are, what you offer and how your business is evolving. If you’re truly “in it to win it”, your website is never finished. It can always be optimised for specific goals or be broadened to target different ones. 

So how can we truly get the most out of our websites? It all starts with asking the right questions. Questions that will make you aware of important opportunities for growth. With this awareness, you can start taking the logical steps to improve. 

In this blog post, I’ve outlined 7 powerful questions that can get you started. Continuously asking yourself these questions will surely move your business forward and drive growth. I recommend you go through these and think about your answers at least once every quarter. Enjoy the read! 

1. What are my website objectives?

One of the most critical aspects of website design is setting clear objectives that align with your overall business goals. 

When you want to improve your website, it’s crucial to start with the end in mind and establish what you want to achieve with it. Setting website objectives will help you create a website that truly works for your business. 

Often it’s beneficial to align these objectives with the SMART criteria that come from your overall business objectives.

Here are some examples:

Business objective: Create more revenue / Have more sales calls

Website objective: Increase the number of leads generated through the website by 30% in the next quarter by implementing a lead magnet and optimising the website for conversions.

Business objective: Increase brand awareness

Website objective: Increase website traffic by 20% through social media and increase the average time on the website by 20% in the next six months.

Business objective: Improve customer retention

Website objective: Increase customer engagement and loyalty by 20% in the next quarter by creating a customer community on the website and providing personalised content and offers. 

SMART objectives provide a clear and measurable direction for you and your team to work towards, helping you to prioritise your efforts and work more effectively.

2. What do my prospects need in order to take the desired action? 

Understanding your customer is essential in all your marketing efforts, and also for your website. 

What your clients need exactly will differ per business and offer. Doing research to better understand your customer is always helpful. 

A core thing to research is your prospects’ objections. Put simply, what prospects need in order to take action on your website is that you clear out all their objections. Clear their objections and they’ll take action. 

Besides the insights from your personal research, there are a few pillars that pretty much all potential clients need to get in order to take an action on your website. They are the following: 

  • Clarity: People need to be able to quickly and easily understand what the product or service is, what it does, and how it can benefit them.
  • Credibility: People need to feel that they can trust the product or service and the business offering it. This can be established through social proof, such as customer testimonials, case studies, as well as third-party endorsements or certifications.
  • Relevance: People need to feel that the product or service is relevant to their needs, interests, and goals. The website content and messaging should speak directly to their pain points, desires, and motivations.
  • Value: People need to feel that the product or service is worth the price and offers value for their money. The website should clearly communicate the features and benefits of the product or service, as well as any unique selling propositions or competitive advantages.
  • Ease of use: People need to feel that the action-taking process is simple, easy, and convenient. The website should provide clear and straightforward instructions on how to move forward.

From these points, you can also derive valuable questions: Is my website clear? Does my website create credibility? Is it relevant? And so forth.

It is most important to ask these questions when you’re creating the website for the first time. If you’ve done this well from the beginning, you probably won’t have to continuously ask yourself these questions. If you haven’t asked these questions from the beginning, it’s good to do so now. 

3. Is my website fulfilling its intended purpose? 

As you’ve set your website objectives, you also want to measure if they’re being met. This is mostly where plain numbers give you the most important answers. 

For most, this question will lead to this follow-up question: How many of the desired actions are actually taken on your website, and is this enough to fulfil your website objectives? Knowing that will help you determine if something needs to be changed. Have these numbers clear, track them, and review them. 

If you’re not reaching your objectives, it’s time to figure out what needs to be changed. To do this, you can dive deeper into the analytics of your website. Are people navigating towards the pages where you want them to go? For how long are they on the pages and where do they usually leave? What are the sections people read and what are the sections most people skip?

Knowing the answers to these types of questions will help you and/or your web developer on where to make changes and/or start experiments.

4. Does my website accurately reflect my brand image?

You’ve probably heard sayings like this before: “You are your business”, “People decide to buy or work with you because of you”, “You are what differentiates you from your competition.” 

And these statements are true for many entrepreneurs. They are able to connect with potential clients because they show their personality and others can relate with them or like them. 

The question to ask is, if your personality shows through on your website? As your desired brand image and likes and dislikes can change, it’s wise to continuously ask this question and not only when initially creating the website. 

5. Is the content on the website relevant, engaging, and up-to-date?

This one is pretty obvious. The world changes. Situations change. People’s perceptions change. You change. Your business changes. I can go on… Therefore, you always have to keep asking yourself this question. 

6. Is working on my site easy and pleasurable or energy-draining?

As you are your business, let’s not forget yourself and your own experience! 

Is editing or maintaining your website causing headaches? As an entrepreneur, your time and energy preservation is essential, so maybe you should do something about that! This might be a good time to talk to a professional to see how you can get a back-end website that is more pleasurable and efficient to work with. 

Trust me, things don’t have to be complicated. 

7. Do you feel pride, excitement and joy when looking at your website? 

For many entrepreneurs, our business is like our baby. It’s something we’ve raised with blood, sweat and tears and something we stand behind with all our hearts. 

To continue the analogy, when you look at your website, do you feel like a proud parent watching your child giving a stellar performance in public, or do you feel a bit embarrassed? 

This is important! Because if it’s the latter you’re probably not having a website that’s aligned with you. Your website should be a resource that you are proud to share with others. You should truly feel like the more people see your website, the better!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Swagten is an entrepreneur and freelance web designer based in Amsterdam. Through web design, Rob likes to make businesses shine as they should. He enjoys creating websites that are immersive digital experiences, rather than just standard templates for the information. 

Rob is inspired and driven to help entrepreneurs make their grand vision a reality so they can make more impact in the world. Learn more about Rob and his services by checking out his website, connecting with him on LinkedIn or reaching out directly at hello@robswagten.com. 

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