3 Tips to Help You Answer the Question, Is My Website Good?

I recently started thinking, how do non web professionals know what makes a website good? During a recent networking meeting I was chatting to some fabulous business women about how we can help and support each other in business. We talked about how to manage our time better, manage client expectations and how to get better engagement on social media.

The social media conversation started to focus on me and one of the points that came up was that some people might not engage with my posts because they don’t realise they need our services because they don’t realise their website isn’t good. One of my networking friends went on to say that she had a website which she thought was fine until she employed the services of a marketing manager who told her, very to the point that her website was awful. When she received this feedback she realised that when it came to websites she was unconsciously incompetent (see The Four Stages of Learning to find out more about the stages of competence), basically she didn’t know what she didn’t know. She’s not a designer or a marketer. She just thought she had a website with the information on it that it needed and that was fine.

So how do you answer the question, is my website good?

1. Take a critical look at the design.

Now, you may not be a designer but try and cast a critical eye over the design of your website. Compare it to other websites in your field. Think about how it makes you feel when you arrive at it. Is it inspiring to look at? Does it make you feel excited to want to work with you? If the answer is no then your website visitors are going to feel the same and that’s not what you want.

Take a look at other websites that do inspire you and make a note of the design features that attract you. Then take action to get your own website’s design improved.

2. Consider whether the purpose of your website is clear.

Think about what you want your website to be doing for your business. What is the primary purpose of your website? Is it to get people interested in your service and to make an enquiry? Is it to encourage people to join your mailing list? Is it to showcase and sell products?

Once you have identified the primary purpose, now put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client and take a look at your website through their eyes. Does your website do what it’s supposed to and are you making it really easy for them to do it? Are the “Get In Contact” buttons clear? Are the “Get my Free Download” or “Join my Mailing List” buttons obvious? Does “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” stand out enough?

If those things aren’t clear or the website visitor has to go down a rabbit warren, clicking on lots of different pages before they can achieve the action you want them to take, then your website isn’t working.

3. Is your ideal client the hero of your story?

Have a look at your website and think about whether you are engaging your ideal client straight away. Are you showing them that you understand what they need, that you have a solution for that and that you have helped others in their situation, either through using your services or buying your products? If not, then your website isn’t doing its job again.

We look at far too many websites where people launch into talking all about themselves. They are telling people how they got into what they do, that they changed career because of X, Y and Z, sometimes they don’t even make any reference to what it is they actually do until about two paragraphs in. Most people would be bored by then. By all means put your own story on an About page but the homepage of your website should make it instantly clear what you do and how you can help the person coming to your website. Once they are hooked then they might want to find out a bit more about you, but let them make that choice, don’t force your life story on them before they have asked.

To get more guidance of how to make your ideal client the centre of the story on your website, I highly recommend Donal Miller’s Building a Story Brand book. I love this book. It makes everything make sense around getting your marketing copy right and I recommend it to everyone, purely for that reason. There are no affiliate links here!

You should now be closer to answering the question, “Is my website good?”

But this is just a starting point. There are lots of other things to consider when it comes to creating a really good website that speaks to your ideal client and helps your business grow. This is why we created our 12 Day Perfectly Planned Website Challenge. We take you through the process that we use when planning a website for a client or our members to ensure we make their website good, really good, some have said amazing, but we don’t like to brag! 😉

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash