95% of Small Business Web Sites are Unfit for Making Sales

That leaves 5% of sites that are equipped to make sales effectively

Amazing! I will freely admit that this was not intended to be a formal study and the method lacked full scientific rigor but nonetheless the numbers are so scary that I felt the need to write them up.

The Hypothesis

I have always worked on the assumption that most small businesses aren't handling the web well as a method of self-promotion and sales. I assumed that around 40% would be fairly effective and the remaining 60% average to poor.

The Method

I grabbed my local Yellow Pages book and looked at every business in the first half that had a paid display advert and were advertising their web site address.

I defined the effectiveness of a web site based on it's ability to engage me with the business and see them as a trusted source of that product or service. Sure I don't want to buy a fence or rent a washing machine but a good web site should engage and interest me nonetheless.

The Results

40	businesses that paid for larger Yellow Pages adverts and advertised a www web site	100.0%
4	either had no web page or an "under construction" message despite advertising the web site	10.0%
6	sites were so poor I would never do business with them	15.0%
28	sites were unable to convince me to want to buy from them	70.0%
1	site might have got my business but it was borderline - a competitor could still have won me easily	2.5%
1	site was really well done, neat, impressive and asking for my business	2.5%

Let me show you this in pictures

I deliberately represented the results as people because behind each of these businesses are people - people who have set out to make sales. I think seeing the numbers visually makes it very clear the the weight of numbers is on the ineffective side of the line.

Interestingly the one really good site was built by a high-budget specialist marketing agency as part of a full media spread. The borderline site looked like it may have been built at home (by the owner or maybe a family member). The other sites were mostly built by web designers.

This shows that money spent does not entirely define the results but the cheaper providers may not be looking at sales strategy at all.

Extra Results

10 (25%) of the web sites made it either hard or impossible for me to find their email address. I called 2 companies and one put me to the voice mail of a the marketing person who didn't return the call and the other went to a virtual secretary who couldn't help me with any information.

I sent an email to see if there would be any answers. I admit the email was simplistic and would cause many sales people to quake in indignation:

Good Morning !*FIRST_NAME*!

If you would like to improve the results of your web site or other sales processes then please visit http://www.brmwebconsulting.com/

I had 4 (10%) bounces: 1 mailbox full, 1 invalid address and 2 that I couldn't decipher the reason through the IT gibberish.

This all leads me to 2 conclusions:

Conclusion 1

Small businesses are prepared to pay for big adverts in the Yellow Pages (which ain't cheap) and have at least some belief in the web as being important to their businesses but in practice the sites they build and keep for years are probably doing more harm than good.

If a web site is a salesman it is the equivalent of hiring and keeping a salesman who is bad at helping customers to buy. You wouldn't do that would you?

Conclusion 2

The businesses are generally paying for these web sites to be built for them. Consumer affairs says, selling a product that isn't fit for the purpose that it was sold for is considered poor conduct. If a car salesman sells a car that won't start then he is forced to fix or refund that car. If he does it repeatedly he is branded a "shonk".

Don't let me look like I am entirely blaming web site builders however as most of them know nothing about sales at all and simply do what the customers ask and insert the words and pictures they are given. Job done. They are technical people with skills in I.T. and Coding or Graphic Arts. What sales advice they give is generic. They offer this vague advice simply because they know it makes getting the sales easier and because customers generally only want a solution that seems simple cheap and low impact on their day.

Of course the customer is left with a web site (car) that only sells (starts) now and then. The customers don't really complain and the sellers get to continue doing more of the same. No call, no foul I guess.

Possible Solutions

What if business owners were to train themselves in understanding what their sales processes should be doing for them, and they for their sales process?

What if I.T. people and Graphic Artists were to partner with sales professionals like Strategists and Copywriters so that from the start they could offer every client personalised strategy and good selling content?

Surely that would be good for all. The web site may cost a little more to build but it will make more money than any extra cost. Just as spending $5,000 on a car that starts every time makes far more sense than $2,5000 on a car that might start on Sunday when you want to go the beach.