13 minute read
BUSINESS
The Hitlist: Getting Bigger and Better Business from Your Website
After a few months’ hiatus (a baby came along!) I am back with my monthly Pulse business feature. This month, I introduce a new set of articles called ‘The Hitlist’. This will be a series of short lists: The very best things you can do to improve different parts of your business. After all, who doesn’t like a clear and defined set of actions that can be readily applied and will make a noticeable difference, right? This month, the focus is your website, which is the most central communication piece in your business. One way or another, all roads lead through or to your website so it has to be as good as it can be, no compromises.
Darren Isaac is the owner of TFA, a multi-award-winning brand, marketing and creative agency.
56 The Triangle The Carriage Works Wolverton Park Rd Milton Keynes MK12 5FJ www.t-f-a.co.uk 01908 263650 OVERVIEW A few years ago, TFA redefined its brand positioning (how we portray where we sit in the market) and with that, totally changed our website. We went from being a somewhat small-minded, boutique-like design agency to a marketing consultancy with a focus on building brands. By shifting our stance, simplifying the design to feel ‘bigger’ and add confidence, we created a strong perception of being a much bigger organisation with bigger capabilities. This inevitably led to us winning bigger clients, bigger deals and becoming what we wanted to be – we are now nearing a team of 30-strong. The overriding point here is, you have to portray an image of where you want to be, not where you are now (even worse, where you were five years ago).
The following Hitlist will give you my top, actionable tasks for making your website pull in more visitor traffic and convert more of it into bigger and better enquiries.
HITPOINT 1: Polish up the first impressions of your brand and website experience. Before we look at anything else, there is little point sending anyone to a bad website. It is not only useless, it is destructive for your brand perception and business. How old is your website? If it has been five years or more since any major changes you should review it and see if the overall style, tone and message truly reflect the business you are now or aim to become in the next five years. Remember, it’s about pitching the business you expect to be in the future and not what you are or you were.
I cannot begin to tell you how, in my line of work, I see literally hundreds of websites that fall drastically short of this, look old, tired, dated, amateurish or flat out don’t even work properly on current browsers and devices. If this is your website, you need to consider the scale of change required and properly invest in it: • Does the DESIGN look tired and dated? If yes, it needs a design refresh to the front-end as a minimum. At the same time, you really must consider your company branding. If your logo is showing its age, update it. Evolution is often better than revolution but please make sure you do change and keep up with the times in some capacity. • Is the CONTENT outdated or does it lack clout? If yes, you need to write new content and consider new images of your business. (Photography and video is much cheaper than it used to be and a hugely valuable investment). • Is the TECHNICAL build of the site failing? If there are security issues, it takes a long time to load, it doesn’t look very good on mobile devices or things are simply broken then you need to look at a much bigger upgrade. Unfortunately, this usually means a brand new site and not a sticking plaster (bad idea). Google will punish you severely in search results for any one of those issues; you may not even rank at all, they’re that important now.
HITPOINT 2: Fix the main problems with usability, bounce rate and your core vitals You can send hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of visitors to a site but, if it falls down on the user experience, they will come to nothing. The elements in Hitpoint 1 will address the overall look and feel of the site but the experience a user receives has a major impact on several things: 1) how long they stay on the site – you have seconds to keep them before they leave or ‘bounce’, 2) whether they decide you are a business they want to engage with and 3) whether they actually do anything to contact you or buy something from your site. Each of those points flows in order, each is a point to lose that potential customer.
If you haven’t already, do the following: You’ll notice these are all Google tools for the reason they are free and because Google’s expectations matter for 95% of search traffic: • Set up Google Analytics and find out how much traffic you’re getting and what the Bounce Rate percentage is. If it’s over 50% you likely have a serious problem with the first impressions of the site. Bounce Rate means a visitor left the site from the same page they arrived and didn’t look at anything else. If they came in via the contact page, which you can find out on Analytics, then that is not really a concern as they were probably searching for your contact details. • Run Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool and look at Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console. These will tell you how fast (or slow) your website is for users on desktop and mobile and any major technical problems that exist. Amber scores are ‘okay’ but you really want to aim for green scores. If they’re in the red, you have technical problems with the build of your site that are making it take far too long to load and become interactive to the user. This is the equivalent of subsidence and is an absolute death-knell for websites if left unfixed, especially where users are on mobile devices – you likely won’t even appear in search results. • Run Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool to see if your website is responsive for mobile devices. This tests to see if pages adjust for smaller screen sizes and content layouts adapt in a way that is suitable for mobile users. If you fail this test it is also a disaster for mobile search traffic and a massive contributor to Bounce Rate. HITPOINT 3: Reconsider your current content and set up a content plan This is much simpler than the previous two points. Re-read all content on your website and decide whether it creates the right impression or adds anything. Focus on a tabloid newspaper approach to content structure: Strong, relevant headlines, summary introductions, content that is punchy, to the point and isn’t too laborious to read. Once you have got the main content to where it needs to be, think of what is missing that people may search for to find you. My top tips for things that add the most value: FAQ (Frequently Asked industry Question) pages, sector and service specific case studies, blog articles around common things people experience or solutions they look for to solve particular problems. As a guide, if you have a business with 10 products used in 10 different ways by 10 different customer types, you need 100 pages of content about each permutation. Every one is a route to your business via search e.g. Google.
HITPOINT 4: Get more visitor traffic going there, organic and paid if you can afford it When your website is rocking and rolling in every way it can be, you need people to find it and go there. You can do this three ways: 1) Direct – tell them about it, 2) Organic – They find you via searching online or links from other pages and content outside of your site e.g. social media and 3) Paid – You create ads or content and sponsor it so it appears in front of people who might like to buy from you. My best advice to anyone here is to first speak to a company like TFA about ‘SEO’ or ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ as it is worth its weight in gold for driving traffic.
HITPOINT 5: Drive engagement conversions any way you can Finally, and somewhat obviously I would say, there is no point to anything above if someone interested in your business then struggles to contact you or buy from you. At the very minimum, you want a good contact page with multiple means to contact you and NOT just a painful form. These days it is common to offer quick links to phone (tap the number), email, Whatsapp, Messenger and live chat boxes. If you are going to offer live chat, however, make sure it is either manned or you have it set up to serve as a quick enquiry form when you are offline.
That concludes the first of my Hitlist series. If you take the time out to investigate and remedy the above elements then it will make a BIG, noticeable difference to your business and what your website brings to the table.
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Preparing your business for sale
You’ve worked hard for years, decades or maybe even generations, at building your business, caring for your employees and valuing your customers loyalty. The day-to-day operations are running smoothly, and you’ve put time and thought into your long-term strategy, but have you thought about your succession plans? In other words, do you have an exit strategy?
It is inevitable that one day you will need (and want) to step away from the business you’ve built, but many business owners do not put the same time and effort into planning for their exit as they do for day-today operations and growth strategy. Maybe this is because it’s easier to prioritise shortterm projects, hard to imagine not being a part of the business’ future, or simply thinking that exiting a business is easy.
What exit options do I have available?
Passing on your business to family members
Employee succession planning • Management Buy-Out • Employee Ownership Trust
Business sale
Turning the key, shutting the door and walking away
Tax implications on these options can vary dramatically. Preparing your business for sale will put strain on you and your business during the sales process. Investing time before the process begins will help you during the process, maximise your exit price and give your staff and customers the thought they deserve when you’re negotiating and securing their future. Don’t underestimate the amount of time planning takes. It is time intensive.
Business sale process?
Pre-Sale planning Finding and Choosing a Buyer (under NDAs) Negotiations Heads of Terms Due Diligence Exchange & Complete Earn-Out Period Where to start? Before you enter into the sales process, work out what you need from the sale. Without this figure, it will make negotiations extremely tough for you. It will also give you a benchmark against the current value of your business, to identify whether any changes need to be made in advance of entering the sales process. There are different methods for calculating the value of a business, which can be dependent on the type of business or sector you are in. For example, in the IFA and accountancy sectors, the valuation is based on a multiple of their fee income/ turnover, but profitability will still play a part in determining the multiple.
Valuation methods:
Cashflow Forecasting
EBITDA multiple (with normalisations)
Asset basis
Turnover multiple
Getting your finances in order It is important to have an accurate and upto-date picture of your business’ financial information. Think about how you currently monitor your financial performance and if perspective buyers will be able to understand and interpret your current reporting methods. It is good practice to whittle your financial performance metrics down into a handful of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are recorded and analysed monthly. Getting away from spreadsheet management is also a wise move, so the data is populated digitally with a clear audit trail.
Start this now, so...
You can see where you are today, compared to your exit goal number
You have a record of your KPIs over a period of time
You can take action to maximise your value at the time of your sale
How instrumental are you to your business? Whether you’re looking for a full exit as soon as possible or planning to stay in the business for an earn-out period, your buyer will be looking to identify how crucial you are to the day-to-day operations and the number of strong relationships you hold with your customers. Considerations
Do you have a strong/weak management team?
Are your processes documented?
Are you in any long-term contracts or agreements?
Build your team of experts When it comes to planning for what is likely to be the biggest deal of your career, it makes sense to pick your team of experts carefully. A good advisor will pay for themselves in the experience and advice they bring to the party. Particular attention should be paid to selecting your legal and accountancy team, as throughout the process there will be many legal documents which will need preparing, interpreting and reviewing, as well as advising on courses of action where applicable.
A good firm of accountants will provide experience in a number of areas throughout all stages of the sales process; from the valuation of your business, presenting key information in due diligence, tax planning and help to ensure you get the best deal possible. They may also be able to introduce you to good brokers and sometimes even perspective buyers.
Final tips What are your plans after your sale? Are you planning or thinking of staying within the business for a period of time, or do you want to be walking off into the sunset? It’s worth considering that certain buyers and types of sale will expect an earn-out period where you will continue to work within the business or as a consultant for an agreed period.
If you have read this and it has got you thinking about your exit plans, we at Ad Valorem would be pleased to discuss them with you to explore your options and start the planning process early.
Contact us using the details below to arrange an informal discussion. (e) enquiries@advaloremgroup.uk (w) advaloremgroup.uk (t) 01908 219100
