It is very common, having to analyze a company website, with people who do not know anything about design or programming, etc. That is logical, since the interest of the entrepreneur is to know about your product or service and make it sell more.
José is one of the three partners of a small factory that falls under the name of SMEs, like many of those you can meet in your country. Those that are the ones that move the economy and that feed a large number of families.
José is the partner that is closest to technological advances.
He was the one who had several discussions with his partners so that they understood that they should have a website in their company if they wanted to continue exporting their products. After comings and goings he had succeeded and the site was finally developed by the nephew of his wife's best friend. This had been received from a web designer in a 3-month course with high marks.
After some time has passed and having to endure his partners reproaching himself for having done something that had not contributed anything, he is browsing in front of his computer. As José is a person who has a great interest in improving himself and that his company can sell more and thus be able to see his bank account grow, he had read that the key was to appear in the first places in Google.
So by doing a search you come to our website and you decide to send us an inquiry.
This query is neither more nor less than one of the many that we receive frequently, where the interest of the applicant is to appear in the first results of the searches that users carry out.
When reviewing José's company website, we can see that there are a large number of errors to correct so that it can appear not in the first results, but within thirty.
The issue is that when commenting on our considerations, he cannot understand that his current site is useless.
As I said at the beginning, it is very common that our clients are not familiar with business strategies focused on the internet, that is why we must find the mechanisms so that they can quickly and effectively realize what we want them to understand.
Maybe you are in José's position, that's why I tell you to think coldly about what you want from your website. No website is the same as another, even if they are in the same category. One company may need one thing and the other wants something different from its site. And that is not bad, on the contrary, it is logical that it is so.
Each business has different bases and that is transferred to their website and what they want to achieve with it.
Now, the concrete fact is that José wanted his website to appear in the first locations.
Let's start from the basis that we are in a country quite far from where José was, so our contact is only by e-mail, chat and on certain occasions we use audio and a webcam to talk and see each other's faces. Although this does not help him to achieve good positions, it gave José a certain confidence regarding us to continue in his quest to
solve his need.
Our dialogue went more or less like this:
VBZ - Tell me José, do you think that being in the first positions will assure you more visitors and with that more sales?
José - Of course, that's what they say in all the articles I've read.
VBZ - Good. Let's think that we managed to make your site appear in the first positions when users make a search regarding your product. What use would that be to you if when they click on the link, your site takes forever to open?
For example, what it currently takes.
José - If I admit that it has a certain delay
VBZ - ¿Certain delay ?, is an attack on the time of the users.
José - Yes, but the presentation is worth it.
VBZ - Excuse me José, users look for good information and then decide where to buy. They don't want to see a movie, much less listen to that music that adds nothing to what you sell.
José - Yes, it is true, but one of my partners wanted us to have a presentation with those characteristics.
VBZ - Answer me coldly. What do you and your partners want? Win an award for having a nice presentation (nice ?, well, I had to be a diplomat), or achieve more sales?
José - Achieve more sales of course
VBZ - Well, forget about that presentation to begin with, the only thing it achieves is that when it takes time to open the site, users choose to visit the other sites that appeared in the results.
José - So what do you recommend? How can I convince my partners that we should make changes?
VBZ - Well, to begin with I already showed you that even though it appears in the first positions it is not a guarantee that it will have more visits.
But let's go further, we managed to get the site to the top positions and when users click on it, it deploys in considerable time.
Does what your site shows induce the visitor to make a purchase?
Would you buy on that site for what you see on it?
Dear José, do not mistake your way again.
Getting to be in the first results of a search is a link in the long chain that a well-defined web development must have. If you really want more sales, then you need to change the way you view your company's website and make changes. This will not come free, but it will not be an expense like what
you did at the beginning, but it will be an investment so that your company can achieve the planned objectives.
José - The truth is that he is beginning to convince me, but…
How do I explain all this to my partners?
VBZ - To begin with, analyze the current site and compare it with sites of its competition.
Go to the address I give you below:
www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm
It is a site in English but if you do not know the language there are no problems since it is very clear what it shows. You must put the address of your site where it says "Your URL" and then click "Check loading time". First we see a box where the weight of the texts that your site has appears, then the weight of the images of the same, the total weight and how long it downloads on the user's screen.
Below we see a comparison of our site with other popular sites, from Google the simplest that is between two to three seconds late to others of almost a minute. The places that can be quiet are the ones that are within ten seconds, otherwise something is wrong. Unless it's CNN and the delay is worth it.
With this in view you can test with competing sites and compare.
After that another I recommend another site that will help you realize what search engines see from your site.
Again put the address of your site where it says "Your URL" and then click on "Run Simulator". Oh !!! what a surprise.
The search engines really see only text, no animations, photos, music or anything like that. Again I recommend that you test with other sites.
The interesting thing was that these simple tests were very helpful for them to know where they were standing and that they really had to improve their website, even though it looked nice.
Today that site works differently, with other functions that really make its owners start to see results.
And read correctly "they begin to see results", it is not the same as "they are making money while they sleep".
Internet projects take time, work and money. Like any physical business, you must have a plan of what you want, where you want to go and how, with the same website.
What has happened is that since the investment of being on the web is minimal compared to a physical business, adding to this all the gurus that promise money just to have a website, things have been taken lightly.
Now I ask you a question: how are you carrying out your project on the internet?
