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catch_more_fishIn 2016, your business’ website is either your first or second impression. Let’s say that again … slowly and really think about it … fiirrrsssstttt immmprrreessssionnn. Good. Now, how does your MSP website stack up?

I talk to telecom agents, VARs, and MSPs every day, and most of them greatly under-value the importance of their websites. They’ll say things like:

“I just need to have SOMETHING in place to show I’m legitimate.” OR …

 “If people are interested, they’ll just call me, and I’ll do the selling.” OR …

 “My wife’s cousin’s college kid’s best friend’s sister built my website, and that’s good enough.”

If you’re one of these people, you’re simply dead wrong. But don’t listen to me—here are some stats to back me up.

  • Stanford did a Web Credibility Study and found that 75 percent of users make judgments about a company’s credibility based solely on web design.
  • 94 percent of the judgments made about a site are design-related, and those judgments happen in 1/20th of a second.
  • And speaking of first impressions, they literally last for years. Even if follow-up experiences are better than the first impression, the overall increase in satisfaction is a measly 3 percent.

Knowing all of this, it’s easy to see how important a website can be for a business, especially in today’s ridiculously competitive IT, cloud, and telecom space. Your potential customers are checking out your website right now (kinda creepy, huh?). Are they filling out your lead form, or are they “leaking” to your competitor’s site?

Leaking Leads

Besides poor design, there are many other ways your site could be leaking leads.

Let’s say you’ve got them on your site and WOW-ed them with your design. Great. Now you need to ask:

  • Do you have the right customer-centric messaging? (Hint: It’s about them, not you.)
  • Can users quickly and easily find the information they’re seeking? Are you addressing their questions, concerns, and challenges?
  • Are you guiding them down a path, ultimately one that turns them into leads?
  • Is there a simple, clear call to action attached to a compelling offer?
  • Is your lead form short and sweet with a conversion-friendly design?

Got all that? If not, you officially have a “leaky” website and should halt all other marketing activities until you fix the leaks. You wouldn’t go fishing with a holey net, would you? Of course not. So please, if you answered “no” to any of the above questions, move these fixes to the top of your marketing priorities — pronto.

All fixed? Awesome! Now, let’s drive more traffic to that site.

Driving Traffic

Here are the next questions you need to tackle to drive more traffic to your website:

  • Is your site set up to be both search-engine- and mobile-friendly?
  • Are you constantly updating your site with optimized, unique, relevant content?
  • How are you staying in front of users once they leave your site?
  • How are driving your own traffic through email, PR, social, digital ads, and other means? What’s giving you the best ROI? (Hint: Measure this stuff impeccably and do more of what works best.)

It’s true: Websites require a lot of work. But when properly planned and executed, an effective website can turn into a lead generation machine for years to come.

Wanna learn more about how to make that happen? I’ll be going more in-depth on what causes leaky websites, and more importantly, how to fix those leaks, in our webinar replay.

Join me to make sure your website is ready to capture lots of leads!

Photo Credit: robin miller via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons 2.0 liscence. 


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Angela Leavitt

Posted by Angela Leavitt

With nearly 15 years of experience in sales and marketing, Angela Leavitt creates targeted and effective marketing strategies for telecom/IT industry giants and agents alike. An accomplished entrepreneur and speaker, Angela founded Mojo Marketing in 2010 and has been a regular presenter at ITExpo, COMPTEL, Channel Partners, and Cloud Partners conferences. In May 2009, Angela was a top 3 finalist for the Tempe Chamber’s Business Woman of the Year Award.

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