25. Reasons Why Your Website Isn't Generating Leads

Burhaan Pattel  0:00  
Hey, welcome to the marketing stack podcast. And in this episode, I talk about why your websites are not generating leads, I give you the reasons I give you some of the things, some of the mistakes that you're making, that your website isn't actually converting the leads why you're maybe getting some traffic, maybe you're doing Facebook ads, maybe you're good, you've got organic traffic. And those that traffic, those people coming to your website are just not converting. They're just not becoming customers. And so I go through those reasons. On this episode, I don't want to go ahead and say that websites are dead, like, the whole internet is built around this concept of websites. Facebook is a website, believe it or not, yes, it's an app for your phone or for your some whatever your devices. But ultimately, it's a website. Started as a website, it will always be a website, Google is a website. Right? So not saying websites are dead. I'm saying your website isn't converting. And I'm gonna discuss why.

Burhaan Pattel  0:58  
I help my clients with this exact thing. I help them with their marketing on the internet, and I help them get their website to convert more clients, ultimately get more leads, and then convert them into more clients. So there's a sales process there, there's a couple of things that you need to do. And what I'm doing right now is discussing the reasons why your website isn't working, right? What are the mistakes that people make when people make websites, and why they don't actually generate any business? First of all, I'll go into a little bit of a backstory. So you know, you were sold on this idea that you needed a website, and over the last 10, 20 years, people have been talking about you need a place on the internet, you need your own space on the internet, or Facebook page just isn't enough because you're subject to Facebook's rules, and you're subject to the algorithm. And these are the issues that you have.

Burhaan Pattel  1:47  
So you're convinced by either teenager who wanted to make money off you who said you need a website, or maybe an agency approached you and said, Hey, you need a website. Or maybe you just by yourself decided that you needed a place because maybe you watched a YouTube video like this one. And you decided to make a website, however you made your website, you basically in my is my opinion and this is not the case for everybody. But you just got something done. Right? You did the best that you could to put something up there so that you had your name on the internet, you bought a domain name, you went through the process, maybe you saw an ad by Wix or Squarespace. This video is not sponsored by the way. And so that's why they convinced you, they sold you into this idea of having a website so fine. So you have your website, but your website is on, you're not generating any leads, it's not actually getting you any more clients.

Burhaan Pattel  2:38  
Maybe one or two, but it's very inconsistent, then you got sold on the idea that you needed to do content. Okay, so now you start posting content on you start blogging. And there are some people out there who have blogged and done it consistently and cater to Google's rules and cater to all the search engine rules and have been able to generate traffic to their website. And in a lot of cases, people who still have have traffic to the website are not converting those people into leads. They're not converting people into customers. They may be but my thing is, most likely they're not. The majority of people who have websites don't convert their traffic into leads or customers. And so I mentioned the fact that, you know, you're making this content now people say, Oh, you need to share this content, your blog post to Facebook, or you need to share it on Twitter, you need to, you know, post it on Pinterest. And while that does generate traffic, now you're bringing people in to your website, because that's your hub, that's your place.

Burhaan Pattel  3:42  
If you have a problem of converting your traffic on your website, no matter how much traffic you're going to bring to it from posting online, you're not going to convert that traffic if your website doesn't cater for conversions. So it's kind of chicken and egg, right? Like, we want to convert, we want to make content, we want to make content. We want to make content, like this video, but we're not converting that content. Because our website doesn't cater for conversions. purpose of this video is what are the mistakes that people are making on their website, that they're not generating the leads? Yes. So what do we do? One is we can focus on, we can focus on building the website in a way that's valuable to other people, most likely you built your website catering for yourself, you've put out messages, where you're saying, I do this, I do this, I do this, instead of saying, I do this for you, I can do this for you.

Burhaan Pattel  4:37  
Or you're talking specifically to your customer and you're saying you have a problem with your website, you have a problem with your copywriting. These are your problems. Let's talk about it. Right, your the framing of your content may not necessarily be correct. And so you're not speaking the language of the customer of your prospective prospective customer. And maybe you're not giving them anything, and these are already some of the tips, maybe you're not giving them an opportunity to connect with you. I've seen a ton of websites where there isn't a phone number on it, there isn't a contact form on it, there isn't a link to Facebook Messenger, there isn't a live chat on the website. So the person's ability to connect is limited, because we're just not building the websites to cater for that connection. Makes sense?

Burhaan Pattel  5:25  
So if we have those, you know, if we have those forms, if we have the phone number, if we have the live chat, if we have all of these things built into the website from the get go, you're giving people the ability to connect with you. And now you may think, Oh, I just want my website to function independently. You just want leads automatically, you just but ultimately, there's a person on the other side of the business, right? The person who's visiting your website is not a robot? Hopefully not. Right? You want them to become a customer. So how do you become How do they become a customer? Well, you've got to speak to them. Okay, so how do you speak to them? Well, through all of these things that I've just told you, when they opt into your newsletters, send them an email back, send them emails regularly, communicate with them, open up the conversation. This is why Facebook is doing so well. This is why Instagram is doing so well.

Burhaan Pattel  6:16  
Because it has built in features to create conversations. It's a business that's catering for communication. It's a distribution platform to get your message in front of a lot of people, but to form a conversation around that topic. So the content that that does really well on Facebook is content that's shareable. Right? So people can share and talk about it, discuss it because it's influential in their life, or it has an impact in their life. It caught the attention. Or it's funny. It's interesting. Or maybe it's cute, right? Maybe they learn something, and so they share it. Or maybe they learn something and they comment, or maybe they disagree with something. And so they comment, the commenting, and the engagement is the conversation piece. So if you look at your website, ask yourself when you're reviewing a website, is my website, giving people the ability to communicate with me or my people in my business with my team.

Burhaan Pattel  7:13  
If it doesn't do that, then you need to change it, you need to work on it, so that you can actually have it do that, so that it can start a conversation with your customers. And so how do you do that? Well, I mentioned opt ins, right? So when people opt in, they give you an email address, you can give them something for free, maybe a PDF, maybe an audio download, maybe you you promised them a competition, maybe they're gonna win opt in for something, maybe they're maybe they book a call a free consultation, if you if you if you're able to sell them on the fact that they can spend a little bit of time with you. Maybe that's the thing that they need, right? Or maybe that's the thing that they're willing to do before you they actually buy something, maybe they need to speak to you, have live chat on your on your website. So the live chat is maybe a support function. But it could also be a sales tool, and a lot of businesses are using live chat as a sales tool.

Burhaan Pattel  8:06  
Again, so how do you start the conversation? Put a phone number on the website? If you have a physical phone number? Or if you have a phone number that people can call you? And you're available during certain hours? Have them phone, you? Just I mean, why wouldn't you? That's how businesses operated in the past? Why aren't we doing it now, I have no idea. The other thing you can do is you think of if you think of Facebook, and you think of Instagram, as extensions to your website, or extensions to your business. So maybe you start the conversation on Facebook, maybe you start the conversation on Instagram. And so you use those social social platforms, not to just put your content out there and hope for the best is to start connecting with people on those platforms, comment on people's things that you find interesting.

Burhaan Pattel  8:50  
And on people's things that could potentially be your ideal, or the person who could be your ideal customer, start connecting with those people. And then the website is secondary. But when they come to look for you, or maybe they check on you, or maybe they click on the link in your bio, or maybe they click on the link on your profile on Facebook, they're going to come to your website and get that free thing that you put on your website. Because your website is offering a conversational style approach. It's a giving approach, the same way that you're connecting with them on social. And so that message from social from Facebook and Instagram, or Pinterest or whatever platform is bringing that same conversation over now to your hub to your website. And it could even be that, you know, you see somebody that says, hey, like how do I? How do I fix the conversions on my website? And so you take this video, you share it with them.

Burhaan Pattel  9:41
And you say, Hey, I found this, I created this video to help you with your conversions on your website. You don't spam them the link, but you converse with them on the platform that you're talking to them on. And you say hey, by the way, I did actually make a video. This might be interesting. So build a relationship. Build a connection with them first. So that they can actually continue that conversation through your content, and then discover you that way. Maybe they subscribe, they need to spend maybe a bit of time get to know you build that, like know, like and trust factor so that you can actually then have that conversation to start selling the process, start the sales process with them.

Burhaan Pattel  10:21  
One of the other things, one of the other things is, so I mentioned free content. So blogging is a form of free content. But the question is, are your is your blog or are your blog posts written in a way that it opens the conversation? Are the topics catchy enough to solicit a conversation? Are they dynamic enough? Or are they punchy enough to create a divide in people's opinions where they actually communicate with you? Whether it's their positive or negative opinions? Do they say, Hey, I liked what you said and you mentioned this thing, and so now you open up the discussion where they now want to ask you questions. Are you writing your content, just to get views for people to just consume and leave or you're writing your content to hook them in, to give them some information?

Burhaan Pattel  11:17
Obviously, it must be interesting, engaging or funny or educational. But then are you leaving enough room for them to still be curious to then get them get more of the story or to confirm and continue that conversation going forward via email, or via live chat, or via messenger or via buying something from you. So that's very important. The other thing that you could be doing on your website is, it's just too confusing. Maybe you have just too many things in the menu. Maybe you haven't optimized your homepage. So that it's, it looks and feels easy to use, maybe it just loads slowly. And so people are leaving, because hey, like, I don't have time to wait five seconds for this page to load. Like, I normally visit websites and loads in a second, like, why are you wasting my my time? Right?

Burhaan Pattel  11:17  
These are all the things that that that affect the performance of your website, and working on them one by one, I mentioned a lot of things in this video. So you might have to rewind to catch up on some of those things. And obviously, I'll put timestamps, or there are timestamps in the bottom of this video in the description. And if you want more information on on, you know how to optimize your website further, then definitely get in touch with me, right, my email address is in the about section of this video, come over to my website, so you can actually see how I'm generating leads for my business.

Burhaan Pattel  12:38  
One of the other things that you could be doing, and this is a proven technique, and I've left this to last is to actually build a sales funnel. So now it's not your homepage that you send people to you send them to a very specific landing page, which has very little distractions, you're not linking them out of that page to anywhere else, except for opting in for the thing. So if you're doing a webinar, they only can opt in for the webinar on that page, there's nothing else that you can do. It's a very focused page, that maybe you run a Facebook ad to, or maybe you run direct traffic to, from organic posts. And that's the only thing that they can do on that page. Now, you may argue that that's not your main website. But hey, what are you doing? Like? Are you building your business online to just give away free and not get back anything or not generate customers?

Burhaan Pattel  13:28  
Or are you actually focusing on your landing pages? Are you actually giving specific things to people for the things that they actually want in the business want help with, where you actually give them the webinar that's going to teach them the thing that they've been looking to solve, or you're going to give them a free PDF, where they come specifically to that landing page download, to opt in for that thing. And that specific thing solves them solve something for them. Right. So that's what you've got to do is just work on these things in on your website, try to reframe yourself, try to rethink the way that you're building your website, or that you're putting content on your website.

Burhaan Pattel  14:08  
And I think you'll find that that'll make a huge difference, the conversations that you have on social also follow that over to your website. And if you're listening to this episode on whatever podcast platform that you're on, consider following or subscribing wherever you're on if you like the content and if you want to listen to more content from from me Burhaan Pattel at the Marketing Stack. So thank you so much for listening to the episode. I do appreciate your follower subscription if you follow it and subscribe. And definitely leave a review if you if you're feeling inclined. And if you enjoyed the episode. So thank you so much, and I'll catch you in the next one. Bye for now.