Will Having a Nicer Looking Website Bring Me More Leads?

Respon­sive Websites

If I told you my web­site was based on Respon­sive Design, some of you might actu­al­ly know what I was talk­ing about more this year than last year. It is a fair­ly new way to design a web­site. Those of you who do not know what Respon­sive Web­site Design is just yet, I’ll explain. In short, a respon­sive web­site basi­cal­ly means the web­site can be dis­played on most com­put­ers, tablets and mobile device screens. In oth­er words, it responds and adapts to the screen of the end user. Before respon­sive cod­ing, most web­sites had at least two web designs: one for the desk­top and a mobile site. The more com­pa­nies find out about a respon­sive design, the more they want their own web­sites redesigned. Why not! It is new. It is hip. It is cool and it just looks bet­ter! So the ques­tion I’ll answer in this post is this: ​“If I cre­ate a brand new, top of the line web­site today, does this mean I can expect more leads to come pour­ing in soon?”

I actu­al­ly get asked this type of ques­tion often, even before respon­sive web­sites were pop­u­lar. I espe­cial­ly hear this from con­trac­tors who do not have a strong web pres­ence now and hope that by hav­ing a nice site, their busi­ness with explode with leads.

More Than the Design

The over­all design of one’s web­site is very impor­tant. I am a fan of hav­ing a qual­i­ty look­ing web­site. I think it should dove­tail nice­ly with the rest of your com­pa­ny’s brand. I see a lot of web­sites out there that look noth­ing like the com­pa­ny’s oth­er mar­ket­ing mate­r­i­al. So con­sis­ten­cy is the key! Yet here is the take­away, while a sharp and qual­i­ty web­site is impor­tant, it takes a lot more than a qual­i­ty look­ing web­site to start get­ting leads. The way to get more leads off your web­site is to make sure your web­site gets a good work­out. This is where con­tent mar­ket­ing real­ly comes into play. Con­tent mar­ket­ing cov­ers a lot of ground and is anoth­er blog arti­cle in and of itself, but in short, con­tent mar­ket­ing on your web­site involves con­sis­tent and qual­i­ty blogging.

When Should You Design a New Website

The sim­ple answer: when you can afford it. It also depends on how involved you want to be in the whole process and how much con­trol you want over your site. My com­pa­ny spe­cial­izes more in cus­tom design-built web­sites. So I do not get involved often in pre-designed tem­plate sites. Those are fine for some of you start­ing out in busi­ness or are new to the web. Yet for all the more estab­lished com­pa­nies that have a web­site already, I’d say bud­get for a new and improved web­site that looks amaz­ing when the mon­ey is avail­able for this type of project. It is not inex­pen­sive to design a cus­tom respon­sive web­site. If your com­pa­ny is focused on good social media prin­ci­ples, online reviews and qual­i­ty con­tent cre­ation, you will dri­ve more traf­fic to your web­site. Once they are on your web­site, and your web­site is designed with the end user in mind, you will see an increase in leads. The point again is not build it and they will come. Those days are over. Today it is a mat­ter of build­ing up your com­pa­ny’s brand and rep­u­ta­tion on and offline.

After I wrote this post, I stum­bled upon a sim­i­lar sub­ject from The Sale Lion’s recent pod­cast: Why Mobile Mat­ters For Inbound Mar­ket­ing. If you have 30 min­utes, it is worth your time.