Right now, I have a couple of new chiropractor clients in different parts of the country. They have one striking thing in common. Both have large, content-rich web sites. Neither of their sites brings them any business to speak of. These sites are achieving next to nothing.

It continues to astonish me how many entrepreneurs have web sites that make no money. Why is the site there? Here’s the answer I keep hearing, spoken or unspoken: “Well, if you’re in business you have to have a web site.”

No you don’t! Not if it isn’t achieving anything. Would you keep an employee who sits around in the break room all day long? Your web site has a job to do. If it isn’t performing, fire it.

OK, I’m overstating things. There’s a better alternative to scrapping the site — turn it into a thriving profit center. That is a totally realistic goal for almost any business I can think of. But it requires a radical rethink.

For your company web site to make you money, you need more than a site. You need an Internet strategy. The site is just one part of a whole slew of online activity. Will that activity take time? Yes. Will it cost a ton of cash? No. Is it worth the effort? Absolutely – your Internet strategy can be your cheapest and most productive marketing investment, delivering a far higher ROI than any advertising or direct mail you can do.

That’s why my friend Andy Renk and I have dreamed up this thing called Click for Clients. We know that used right, your web site can drive business like nothing else on the planet. We also know that you probably need help.

Here’s one tip to start with. Understand the purpose of your site. In almost every business I have worked with there’s a misunderstanding right there. Unless you are literally selling widgets online, with a shopping cart, your site’s job is NOT to sell your product or service. It is to capture leads. This is a subtle but transformative distinction. Once you understand it, you will reorganize everything on the site for one purpose, and one purpose only: take names!

That’s where the achieving begins.

View Jon Ward's Profile      Subscribe via RSS