Having a live website and having a website that works are two very different things. Today, it's relatively straightforward to set up a domain, a template and a contact form, meaning your site can be live within an afternoon. The tricky part is the part that encourages the right people to find your site, trust it when they land on it, and pick up the phone to you as a result. These are the aspects of building a website that are invisible, but are the key in catapulting your site from being one that is just 'live' to one that really 'works'.
Contents
- A website being 'live' doesn't automatically make it 'findable'
- The importance of having a website 'strategy'
- What needs to happen after the website is launched
- The advanced technical work at the heart of a good website build
- A quick way of telling what sort of website build you have
- The virtues of quick website builds in the early days
- What needs to happen to change the outcome
A website being 'live' doesn't automatically make it 'findable'
You can have the most visually striking website in the world, packed with clever animations, slick page transitions, and fancy interactive elements - but it's all completely worthless if the people and customers you are trying to reach can't find you because the real groundwork was never laid. Search engines need particular structures to be able to understand what a page is about and who that page is for. A template site that was never set up with those things in mind is practically invisible to Google. What's worse, is that a business owner will never know that is the case from looking at their site's homepage, meaning that it often feels like a mystery when they are receiving no enquiries. We have explored this very issue in more detail in a separate post if you want to read more.
The importance of having a website 'strategy'
'Strategy' sounds more complicated and serious than it really is. All having a strategy really means is understanding and deciding who this page is for and what the one thing you want them to do is once they land on it. A website built without addressing those questions ends up trying to say everything at once and trying to offer something for everyone, making it confusing to visitors, and they often end up doing nothing at all.
What needs to happen after the website is launched
Building a website is the visible half of the work. Monitoring whether people are finding it, what they're searching for when they do, and which pages they click away from without doing anything after the website is launched is the second half of the work. How this part is managed is what transforms a website from being a static portfolio site into one that is more intelligent and that grows with the business over time. Google Search Console and basic analytics aren't complicated tools, but it's very rare they are set up on a template site, meaning the business is essentially functioning in the dark with no idea whether working or just sitting there. Without that visibility, every decision about the site is a guess.
The advanced technical work at the heart of a good website build
Much of the technical work that powers the most successful websites operates behind the scenes and is largely invisible when it's built properly. These are factors such as page speed, clean code, the way in which headings and images are marked up so that search engines can read them correctly and competently crafted URL structures. None of these are represented visually on a website, so it's easy to overlook their value when comparing the aesthetics of a template build against a bespoke one - but you can almost guarantee that those elements will be the reason why two sites that look almost identical perform completely differently.
A quick way of telling what sort of website build you have
Obtaining a decent understanding of where your own site sits in this is actually relatively straightforward to do. Open Google and search your business name alongside what you actually do, (eg, plumber) and your town, for example, and see whether your site shows up at all, and where. Pull up the site on your phone (using your mobile data rather than fast wifi) and see how it performs. How long does it take to load? Is it easy to navigate on your phone? Try to find out how your customers found you, and whether you're appearing in any searches. These simple checks are in no way conclusive, but if more than one of them looks a bit suspect, you might have a site that is just 'live', rather than one that is really working for you.
The virtues of quick website builds in the early days
None of this is to say there is anything wrong with someone having put a site together themselves or having paid for a quick, affordable build to get your business live in the early stages. That is often exactly the right, and most sensible, thing to do at that time. It's just important to bear in mind that having a 'live' site doesn't automatically mean 'working', and it is genuinely very easy to think you have done both, when you only have the first.
What needs to happen to change the outcome
The difference between a site that generates enquiries and one that doesn't isn't usually about how it looks. It's about having a website structure that aligns with how your visitors think and behave. It's about laying the right technical foundations to allow search engines to find and understand your site, and having someone dedicated to monitoring that after the launch. If your current site has been live for a while and you're still not sure it's doing anything for the business, it's worth taking a proper look at - and it's exactly the kind of thing that we like to talk about.
