E59: Why Most Small Business Websites Need to Be Rebuilt (And What Actually Converts)
Overline
Most business owners build their website like a digital billboard, a place to show how great they are, when a website really has one job: to be your best salesperson, collecting leads and making you money. In this episode I break down the two jobs your website has to do, the three make-or-break sections every site needs, and a real client rebuild (White Fox Salon) that tripled their monthly leads. If you'd rather hand it off, here's how we build websites that convert.
Key Moments
2:10 The hard truth: your customer judges you on your website, not your experience
3:00 Your website's two jobs: look better than the competition, and convert
4:05 Section 1: your header (three questions in five seconds)
6:20 Section 2: a clear, direct call to action
7:40 Section 3: social proof (and how it ties to SEO)
8:10 Case study: White Fox Salon, 3x the leads
11:40 The one thing to remember
13:00 Get the free 14-section website wireframe
Full Transcript
(0:40) Your website might be costing you customers right now, and not for the reason you think. Most business owners built a website that's basically a digital billboard, just to show how awesome they think they are. But your website really only has one real job, and that is to be your hardest-working salesperson, collecting you leads and actually making your business money. So today I'll show you exactly what your website needs in order to do that, and why most of you need a rebuild.
(1:19) Welcome to the Marketing Domination Podcast. I'm Sean Garner, and I'm the founder of Sean Garner Consulting. We are a digital marketing agency that helps local service business owners get found, get more leads, and dominate their market. But I'm not just a marketing agency owner, I'm a business owner myself. My wife and I own a medical spa and a functional medicine practice, so all of this stuff we talk about is not just theory. It's playbooks we put into practice in our own businesses. This show is for business owners who are great at what they do and would rather do just about anything else than have to worry about marketing. Each week I break marketing down into plain English so you know exactly what you need to be working on so your business grows, and you don't have to become the marketer yourself. So let's get into it.
(2:13) Here's the hard truth. Business owners typically spend a lot of money on a website, think it's going to work, and then wonder why the phone doesn't ring. The reason is that your customers, most of the time, have never met you. They don't know you have 20 years of experience. When they land on your website, within seconds they're instantly comparing you to your competition. If your competitor's site looks better, they're going to assume they have a better level of service. If your competitor's website is clearer, they win, even if you're actually better at the work you do. Your website has to reflect the level of service you give, because that's the only thing the customer is judging you on.
(3:00) Most owners build their website as a digital billboard and don't think about it as a sales asset. It shouldn't be designed just to make the business owner feel good. It should not be a digital business card. It should do two things if you want your business to grow. Number one, your website has to look better than your competition. You're being compared on first impression. Think of your website as a digital storefront: when a customer drives by or walks into a real storefront, they judge it based on how it looks compared to other businesses in the same niche. So it has to stand out from a design standpoint. Number two, your website has to be wireframed to convert. By convert, I mean we want potential customers to take an action, and the action we want is more leads and more sales. Make more money.
(4:05) To make that happen, your website needs three make-or-break sections. The first and most important is the header, the first thing you see before you scroll. The header has to answer three questions within five seconds, or your potential customers leave for your competition. Number one, what do you do? I can't tell you how many websites I look at where it's not even clear what they do. In fitness, imagine a site that says "look, feel, and perform your best." That sounds great, but what do you actually do? That could be a medical clinic, a supplement, a fitness program, an app. Be very clear about what you do. Don't assume that because you're a plumber, an HVAC company, a med spa, or a chiropractor, people know what you do. Tell them.
(5:20) The second thing the header needs is: how do you make my life better? Remind your potential customers how their life gets better after they get this. We don't sell the thing, we sell the solution to the thing. People aren't looking for your service, they're looking for a solution to a problem. The third thing is: what do I need to do to get it? Be specific and direct. Even if you're a plumber, name the exact services, don't hide behind vague taglines or the business name. If your header doesn't do those things, you're losing money.
(6:23) The second section you need is a clear, direct call to action. This is the second biggest mistake I see: putting things like "Contact Us" or "Learn More." We're wasting money by making customers burn too many calories to figure out what to do. Tell them exactly what to do to get their problem solved: Book Your Appointment, Schedule Your Assessment, Call Now.
(7:40) The third section is social proof. Don't just say you're the best, prove it. That's one of the big secrets to SEO, the O is optimization. It's being clear and proving it to Google and to ChatGPT and these crawlers, on why you deserve to rank where you want to be. Everyone wants to be at the top, but don't just say you're the best, because every business does. You prove it with Google reviews, testimonials, before-and-afters, and portfolios. If we're good at what we do, we should have those, and they help you rank AND help the customer choose you once they're there.
(8:10) Now, some of you have a website you think looks really good. Just because it looks good doesn't mean it can't be improved to convert. We saw this with one of our clients, White Fox Salon. Their original website didn't look bad, honestly better than a lot of service businesses. But the copy wasn't written for what people were searching for, so it wasn't getting found. And their booking process was really clunky, the initial form took on average 13 minutes to fill out, giving them about an 11% conversion rate. So even when they got found, nobody was filling out the form.
(9:30) So we completely elevated the website. We elevated the look and styling, added a video, added a lot of copy about the services they actually provide, listed the main pillar services they want to show up for, embedded their Google reviews, rewrote the page copy around the right keywords, and rebuilt the form. Now they rank in the top three for "Amarillo hair salon" and "hair extensions Amarillo," and their monthly organic traffic from Google went up over 100% in the past three months since we started SEO once the new website launched. Then, just by fixing the form and the conversions, we more than tripled their monthly leads coming in from the website.
(10:57) Imagine what that would look like for your business: three times the leads. And here's the crazy part, they didn't add new services. Same business, same great-looking brand, same level of service. All we did was create a clear experience, use words customers were searching for, and wireframe it out so everyone who came to the site had a quicker path to becoming a lead.
(11:39) So the one thing to remember is that your website is not a digital billboard. It should be your greatest sales asset, but it only does that if it looks better than your competition and is clearly wireframed to consistently bring in leads and make you money. Remember: not a billboard, a sales asset. To do that, it has to look better than your competition and be wireframed to convert, with those three make-or-break sections, a clear header, a clear call to action, and social proof.
(13:00) Those are just three of the things your website needs. There's a lot more, in our opinion, 14 sections you need. I'm not going to walk you through all 14 here and put you to sleep. We put the entire wireframe on our website so you can get it today and compare it to your existing site to see what sections you're missing. And if you go through it and think this is too much, don't worry, we'd love to see if it's a good fit and serve you. Go to seangarner.co and book a call with me. We'll review your website and your marketing and show you exactly what to do so your business gets found everywhere your customers are looking, stands out online, and has a website that actually makes you money. Because once your website converts, you have to get found, so next episode we'll talk about the real SEO you should be doing. Go to seangarner.co, click Resources, and download our client wireframe template. I'll see you on the next episode.
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