4 Reasons to Be Merciless About Your Client’s Website

It seems the thought that website design and inbound are separate ideas is still hanging on. For some people, these are both separate disciplines and don’t have a lot of interaction. 

This Couldn’t Be Further from the Truth

At our agency GuavaBox, we realized early on how much of an impact a website can have on the overall effectiveness of an inbound campaign. It didn’t matter how great our inbound campaign was, if the website wasn’t up to par, the lead machine just wasn’t syncing. 

The Inbound Partnership Journey

Season 2 of the Happy Client Show has been dedicated to the Inbound Partnership Journey. Successful inbound partnerships intentionally encounter four major milestones:

• Inbound GamePlan
• Build the Engine
• Tweak/Redesign the Website
• Inbound Campaigns

Where we find ourselves today is after strategy. We know our client’s Buyer Personas, and know them like our best friends. We’ve outlined the major content pieces to address them and have built the funnel.

Everything is ready to go, but before the rubber meets the road, there’s one last thing to do. Check out the client’s website. 

A Bad Website is Inbound’s Kryptonite

Here are four reasons you need to be merciless about your client’s website: 

Reason 1: Website Design & Development is within the Inbound Discipline

Website design and development is a particular set of skills and knowledge. Serious website developers are well-versed in several key areas of knowledge:

• User-experience
• Action-orientation and conversion
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

All of the above points are key to inbound success. The inbound industry has made its way to power with website design best practices in mind. Website design and development is as much a part of inbound as marketing automation.

We’ve come to a point where you can’t do inbound without doing website design and development. That’s just a fact of life.

Reason 2: Overall SEO Power Comes Down to Website Development

SEO power is vital for inbound success. Although strategic social media position is part of the attraction phase of inbound, the majority of traffic is going to be scored from organic search. The ability to climb the ranking ladder comes back to the quality of your website. 

So, you can produce all of the SEO-primed blog posts and pages you want, but if the site housing those assets isn’t optimized then it’s all worth nothing. 

Here are some factors that contribute to high-ranking content and pages:

• Page speed—the faster the better.
• Structuring—how is the site built? Is it consumable by search engines?
• (Newer to the SEO scene) SSL. Does the site not only have an SSL certificate, but safe, on-page assets?

Clients with antiquated or overwhelming websites will render our inbound campaign efforts useless. The content will not rank and thus it will not convert. 

Reason 3: Conversion is Dictated by How a Website is Designed

User experience and action-orientated design are two fundamentals we covered above. 

Let’s say that, yes, you are in position to win over the search engine overlords. Let’s say you rank high for a relevant web of content that brings in your ideal visitors. Is that quite enough?

In short, no. Once you earn an organic visitor, you have to keep them otherwise that win is worth nothing. This comes down to site design. A blog post has to be optimized for the reader. It has to be easy to navigate. It has to be pleasing to the eyes. It has to flow. It has to present a next step—a conversion opportunity—without being busy. 

A website has to be designed to convert visitors to leads. It won’t just happen on its own. 

Visitors Are Hard to Win

Site visitors are hard to win. It takes time and resources to elevate a website to show where your client’s ideal customers are. Do you want to pour those hard-won battles into a site that won’t convert?

When you’re approaching a new client’s website, it’s important to evaluate it. Will it convert visitors to leads, does it need tweaked, or does it need redesigned? 

Reason 4: The Setup of a Website Will Affect Lead Generation and Marketing Automation

Whether you decide to build a website on HubSpot’s Content Optimization System (COS) or the WordPress framework, the end result will affect how you manage inbound. You need to help your clients carefully evaluate what’s not only best, but what will bring the biggest return on investment. 

If you’re dealing with a client on HubSpot, and their site is built on WordPress, there is going to be a gap in your ability to integrate. More so, you’re not going to be able to take their HubSpot account to its full potential by leveraging Smart Content. 

If your client is already utilizing and is committed to HubSpot, it makes sense nowadays to build their site on the COS. This integrates every single element under one powerful roof. It also allows you to leverage the Holy Grail of conversions—Smart Content. 

Smart Content recognizes and modifies the site based on people who’ve converted already. This allows you to turn your entire website into a marketing funnel. 

Again, WordPress can’t achieve this. The overall result to consider? The entire lead generation and marketing automation picture is a bit different. 

There You Have It!

Website design and inbound aren’t separate. They’re under the same discipline and are leveraged in harmony for the benefit of growing companies. 

Remember, a bad website is inbound’s Kryptonite, so be merciless when it comes to evaluating your client’s websites before launching inbound campaigns.