As anticipated, my last blog about a simple web site related topic like the conversion rate between visitors to your web site and the number of potential customers engaging with you (for example by completing a contact form) created quite a bit of correspondence.

The vast majority of comments emphasised complex and (to be fair) quite interesting ideas about how to get the best out of your website. But I felt they missed the point. Most businesses are run by hard working individuals who have not got time to understand and implement subtle marketing ploys.

Which brings me to the question of how you eat an elephant. The answer is, of course, a mouthful at a time. To try and take too big a bite out of a problem leaves you with bad indigestion.

You need a website for two reasons, to increase your brand awareness, and to generate sales, and not necessarily both at the same time. Whatever tactics you use to achieve your goal need to be SMART (Google this if you can’t remember the acronym!).

I believe that life is complicated enough without making it harder than it needs to be.

The next time you want to make your business better, talk to someone who can talk to you about it in simple “plain English”.

Identify the problem, break it into manageable chunks, and deal with it! Life is hard enough, without it being taxing.

I was talking with a client about the amount of business they were generating from their website. The key interface between the business and the customer is the contact form, that tells the business about what the customer needs, as well as a contact name, number and email.

A brief look at Google Analytics revealed some interesting statistics:

• In the last month, their website had received just under 6,000 hits, and
• In the same period, only 54 click through’s to the contact form had been generated by the website, meaning that
• Less than 1% of visits had resulted in a request for a contact.

This was pretty depressing, but it explained why the business felt that it wasn’t getting much benefit from the website.

By looking at each page, it became apparent that there was no obvious “call to action”. Even if the visitor was keen to make contact, it wasn’t clear how they should.

I’m no web-master, but I do understand the importance of making sure the link between you, your product, your “shop”, and your customer, is seamless.

When was the last time you asked someone to give you honest feedback about how easy you are to locate, find out about, and to buy from?

Problems are not always what we think they are. Take walls for example. You bump into them all the time in everyday life, and the same is true in business. You hit a problem that just won’t budge, or get resolved.

I have a thought – walls are not always what they seem. Maybe the wall is in fact the vertical face of a step.

In order to check whether you are looking at a wall or a step, you need to step back and look at “the big picture”.

Businesses do not grow in straight lines, and the size of step required to get to the next level can be daunting.

The climb may leave you puffing and panting, and probably wondering if it was worth the effort.

We all need the occasional leg-up to help us climb up, but the effort is always worthwhile. To work out if a wall is really a wall or the vertical face of a step needs perspective and experience.

Climbing steps can be hard. But it takes you higher, which has to be better than hitting your head against a wall.