Do Not Start Running Online Ads on Facebook or Google Until Your Website Has These 3 Things
You have a website. You have a service or product.
Time to start running ads on Facebook and Google right?
Wrong.
The first thing people want to do (even before they have a complete or “good” website) is to start online paid advertising.
I get it. I understand why as a business owner you would want to get your ad out there and start generating traffic and leads.
Launching a paid ad campaign on Facebook or Google has never been easier. Targeting your audience is simple by basically targeting people’s interests, ages, or location.
But here’s why you may NOT be ready to start throwing your money at Facebook or Google right now.
Your website sucks
If you owned a restaurant without a sign, matching tableware, dated decor, and an ugly menu design, would you go out of your way to tell everyone you know to come and visit?
No. You would want to make sure your restaurant was looking its best before promoting it to the world.
This goes the same for your website.
I can’t stress enough that the last thing you want to do is pay money for traffic that will end up in bad first impressions.
When you pay for traffic you want to make sure your website is doing everything it can convert your traffic into leads; into people who will sign up to your email list, or call you, or email you.
You don’t to have spent $500 at the end of a week for thousands of visitors who not only did NOT end up converting into leads, but even worse, were turned off by your business.
Now, when you decide to redesign your website, or revamp your brand, when those thousands of people see your site domain again, they’ll be sure to avoid clicking your website because of the bad taste it left in their mouth from the first time they landed on it.
YOU MUST AVOID THIS.
So, what 3 things should your website have before running ads on Facebook or Google?
1. A clean and easy user experience for visitors.
It should be extremely easy, if not intuitive for people to find what it is they are looking for.
Get rid of the heavy animations, bright and busy colour schemes, and onslaught of text. Keep it clean, minimal, and to the point.
Whatever reason you think people would end up on your website for, show them the solution right away. Or at least your homepage should tell them you have that solution and how they can get it quickly and easily.
2. One, direct, call to action.
A “call to action” or “CTA” is when you tell someone visiting your website to do something. It can be:
Sign Up Today
Schedule a Phone Call
Get a FREE Quote
Subscribe to Our List
Download this FREE Guide
Obviously these are generic call to actions just to give an example of what a Call to Action is.
You want your call to action to be persuasive, direct, clear, and easy to find.
Also, just stick to one call to action.
Offering more than one call to action on your website does NOT increase the chances of someone signing up or calling you. This has been proven.
If a friend comes over to my house and I ask him if he wants anything from the kitchen, most likely, that friend will say “no it’s ok. I’m good”.
However, if I ask my friend if he wants something specific like All Dressed Chips or freshly made Pillsbury cookies, there’s more of a chance he will say yes.
When you are specific about what you are offering, and it’s right in front of them they are more likely to say YES than if you were to ask “do you want anything?”.
Keep this in mind when creating your Call to Action and putting it on your website.
One, simple, direct, obvious, call to action.
Thank about what it is you want people to do on your website, and dedicated your call to action to that, and just emphasize that same thing all over the place.
Don’t confuse people with multiple different call to actions like:
“Subscribe to my Podcast!”
“Download our FREE PDF Guide!”
“Schedule a Consultation Now!”
Choose one thing, and roll with it. You will see better results this way and a higher lead conversion rate over time.
3. Good, informative, and useful content
So your website has been redesigned. It’s clean and a breeze to navigate through.
You’ve figured out your Call to Action and made it really stick out on your homepage. It’s clear what you want people to do when visiting your website.
Now, do you have anything else on your website for people to read, absorb, love, and share?
Most likely, a person may try skimming through your website’s pages to see if you know what you’re talking about and to find out more information on who you are and what you do.
You need to have content for a few reasons:
Help visitors with whatever problem you think your targeted audience would have
Show people that you have a lot of knowledge in your field and are the right person to be coming to for help
Prove to Google and other search engines that you are an authority in your industry and that your website is a great resource for people searching terms related to your field
Having great content give you something to share on social media, something for other people to come back for and share themselves, and something to show up (hopefully) on the first page of Google and other search engines (Bing still exists right?).
Without content, it is hard to exist in the eyes of Google, and you’re not really giving much of a reason to prospective customers to stick around your website, or come back to it, let alone buy from you and become a repeat client.
Now you are ready to start running some online ads.
So let’s go over the three things your website must have before throwing away money on Facebook and Google Ads:
A website with a clean and easy design and user experience
A single clear and direct call to action
Good, information, REAL content.
If you can write a checkmark next to each of the above you are now ready to start running an online paid ad campaign on Facebook and Google.