Why Your Website Is Lying...

I meet lots of wedding businesses who have fallen 'in love' with their own website.

They marvel at it's beauty and are in awe of the web designer.

In truth this is a complete waste of energy as a good looking, attractive website is useless without traffic.

Herein lies the big myth held by the majority of wedding business owners... "All my work comes from my website".

There are so many factors working against you these days, when it comes to getting business purely and solely from your website. In fact unless you are a massive brand, whereby your potential customers know your brand name (i.e. Virgin Media, British Airways, LastMinute.com etc) and so input your business name straight into the URL bar - then I can categorically tell you that it's NOT just your website that's delivering you business.

Being able to confidently state that all your customers are converted purely by organically finding you online, reaching your website and having an overwhemlming desire to hand you money is becoming extinct.

As stated above, big companies spend millions of pounds each year to ensure that you type in their domain into the URL bar. Why? Because they want to elimintate the need for you to go through a search engine and run the risk that you'll get distracted by a competitor who also advertises for their business name on Google (sneakily trying to grab your customers).

This kind of brand awareness is out of the reach and budgets of almost all wedding businesses. So why do they still blindly conceive that "All my work comes from my website" when your potential customers have no idea that you even exist without you advertising to them first to say "Hey, I'm here!".

The fatal flaw in this belief lies in extremely poor monitoring. 'Monitoring' put simply is asking each and every inquirer where they found out about you...

But...

These days, it's not even enough to ask this question. Why? Because this is where the whole problem stems from.

If you remember the last time you asked an inquirer "Where did you find out about me?", then their response was probably "On the internet/your website". But, unless you're some mahoosively famous wedding business where your potential customer knows of you well enough to type your web address into the URL bar, then the inquirer MUST have found you through a series of other steps.

It is simply not possible for someone to say they found out about you on your website, without them first knowing who you are to search for your website by name!

Can you see what I'm getting at here?

20 years ago the iPhone didn't exist, right? So how would you know to go and search for 'iPhone' if you're not even aware of it's existence? You can't search for something without first coming into some kind of advertising promoting 'it'.

This is where advertising vehicles come in. Like it or not - all businesses have to advertise in some way to become known by their target audience. Whether you use word of mouth, recommendations, magazines, newspapers, database rental, online advertising, social network advertising, affliate programmes - whatever it is. You need advertising.

Another common misconception wedding businesses hold is that so long as they're on page 1 of Google then that's all they need to do. Advertising? Pffft! Job Done!

WRONG!!

Say you're on page 1 of Google for the search search 'Wedding Dresses Birmingham'. The results displayed to a searcher based in Leeds could be vastly different to those of a searcher based in Birmingham.

Why? Well, the search engines hold on to huge amounts of information on you. It tracks the trends in your search history and also your IP address - in order to give you the most relevant search results.

What does this mean for you? This means that even though you may be on page 1 of Google for 'Wedding Dresses Birmingham' on your computer, laptop, tablet or phone - it doesn't mean that you'll also be visible to someone searching under the same phrase in a different location (unless you're using a proxy server).

The moral of the story is that you should never put all your advertising eggs in one basket - as the 'basket' may be giving you false hope.

In fact, you should always have at LEAST 7 different advertising methods on the go at any one time.

When monitoring inquiries you must, must, MUST ask them firstly 'Where did you find out about me?'. If the reply is 'On the internet' or 'On your website' you must ask them how they got to your site. Did they search for a certain key phrase and find your listing on a directory site? Did they go straight to your website as a result of seeing your magazine advert?

You should tell all inquirers 'Here's where I advertise: White Wedding Pages.co.uk, Google Adwords, Local Herald newspaper etc etc... Which one did you initially find me from?'.

If you don't monitor this way then you're doing your business a dis-service. By not monitoring you don't know what IS and ISN'T bringing you in business. So you may be cancelling the only advertising that's working for you. Eek!

You see advertising is a domino effect. People go through successive steps to get to the next and then finally wind up on a page which displays your contact details (email, phone number etc) and get in touch.

Effective monitoring is a step that's missed out by over 90% of wedding businesses. This leads to massive problems, where the majority of wedding biz are spending money hand over fist on 'advertising' but have NO idea of what's working. Because these wedding biz don't ask where people are getting their info from they justify not asking by relying on the inquirer telling them 'Oh, I've just come across your website'...

YES... BUT HOW DID YOU FIND MY WEBSITE?

So, unless you're a hugely famous wedding brand name and you appear on page 1 of Google for ALL search terms related to your business, then frankly my dear, your customers are not coming organically from your website... They're coming through something else to get to your website.

The secret: Monitor!!