How to think about your agency’s website

Hello and welcome to today’s webinar. We’ll be talking about your agency’s website. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I am excited to have you here with us today while we talk about something that I know I get asked about a lot, and I’m sure many of you think about a lot and we’ll try to put in context your website and how best to use it in order to generate the kinds of activity that you are looking for. So before we do that, let’s go through a few housekeeping items as people continue to trickle into the lobby here. We’ll start by telling you that the replay is available in the SAGAPro Community on our website.

So if you are not able to, well actually, I guess if you’re not watching this, if you’re watching this live, you can go watch a replay after the fact. If you’re already watching this on replay, you already know that it’s available. So I guess anyway ask your questions throughout the course of this webinar using the q and a function at the bottom of your screen.

I will answer all questions from live participants at the end of the formal presentation. If you are watching this on replay, you can send me an email at chip@smallagencygrowth.com and I’ll be happy to try to answer your question directly as quickly as I can. You can also ask questions in the free Slack community, which is a great place to get feedback, not just from me but from others in the small agency community.

If you are talking about this webinar on social media, I would encourage you to encourage you to use the hashtag agencyleadership to make it easily discoverable. And of course, if you’d like to reference any of the resources that I might mention or find all of the other resources that SAGA produces, just go to smallagencygrowth.com.

So with that, let’s start walking through what we’ll be covering over the course of today’s webinar. We’ll start by talking about briefly how I look at agency websites generally and how I would encourage you to broadly think about it, and then we’ll start getting into the detailed areas of how. You should think about it specifically reasons you, you shouldn’t be spending time on your website as well as reasons that you should.

Who would think that we would start a a webinar talking about your agency’s website by talking about why you shouldn’t even be focused on it? But we will definitely do just that. We’ll also talk about understanding your target audience because as with any kind of communication that is critically important and it is no less important with your website. We’ll talk about how you keep things simple so that you are focused on the right things With your agency’s website, you’re not spending a lot of time on things that don’t have value. We’ll talk about the human element and how you can use the website, a piece of technology to actually humanize your business.

We’ll talk about content marketing and the role that it plays on the website. We’ll talk about calls to action and how you can encourage people to do the things that you want them to do. And then finally, we’ll have a, a brief word about refreshing your website. Again, something that I know a lot of you are probably thinking about, because most of you probably have a website already.

So let’s start with that overall philosophy that I mentioned, and to me, the bottom line is that nobody cares about our websites as much as we do. We are sitting there, we’re probably looking at it on an almost daily basis. And so every little thing that’s outta place or that isn’t perfect, we think about. We also have a tendency to think about our websites as a panacea, as a place where we can go to solve all of our business development problems, or at least make a lot of progress on it.

And the reality is that your website probably plays a much smaller role in business development than you think it does, and we’ll talk more later about why that is. I think the other thing, when we’re thinking about Big Picture, your website that we need to be considering is that it needs to be, it needs to be clear in its messaging.

It needs to clearly set out who you are and what you do, who you serve. It needs to be professional looking. You can’t have something that looks like, you know, your nephew developed it in 1995, but at the same time, we need to be careful that we’re not spending so much time and so much money on our website, that it is disproportionate to the value that it is truly providing us.

And I ran a web development company. It was one of my early agencies, and we spent a lot of time working with clients on their websites. And frankly, I had to spend a lot of time encouraging them not to spend money with me because they were not doing so in a wise fashion. And now in the work that I do with agencies, I know a lot of you have a an inclination to be spending money on your website and spending time on your website.

That may not be as well spent as it could be otherwise. So we’re gonna talk about where you should and should not focus that energy as we go forward today. So let’s start though with, with the reasons you shouldn’t be spending time on your website. And this is all because I want you to make sure that you’re, you’re taking best advantage of the time that you have because most owners of small agencies are intimately involved in any redesign or change of content in their website. It’s not something that is delegated to someone else typically. It is very much in the control of the owner, and so it needs to be thought of in that lens of highest best use of your time because you can’t get any more of your time. It is the most finite resource of any small agency, the owner’s time.

So you need to remember that, first of all, most people are not learning about you from the first time for the first time from your website. In other words, this is not, you’re not out there in all likelihood advertising where people click and they come to your website and it’s their introduction to you.

Typically people are coming to your website because they’ve heard about you from somewhere else. And so they might be coming in order to fill out the contact form and reach you. They might be coming just to see who’s on the team. They might be coming in for all these basic informational reasons. And so you need to make sure that what you’re putting there is reinforcing what they’ve already heard.

Maybe they got referred by somebody else, maybe they got referred by a, a previous client. Maybe they know someone who works for you and they said, Hey, you should talk to them. All of those are reasons why someone might be coming to your website, but they’ll all have been told something about you before they get there.

So, You need to make sure that what you are saying on your website is consistent with what they have likely heard elsewhere, and we’ll talk more about that later when we get into some of the details about how to really dig into your website and its structure and content. You also need to remember that most prospects aren’t spending a lot of time on your website.

They’re not coming in order to, like they might with a product, go review a lot of information and all of the details. So it’s really, it’s necessary that you’re clear in what you’re doing and you’re concise in what you’re doing because they don’t wanna spend a lot of time browsing your website. They wanna spend more time actually talking to you, and you should be encouraging that human interaction.

You need to be really careful with your website that you’re not putting out so much information that you are discouraging people from reaching out. You wanna put enough information that they know if they are likely to be a good fit or not, that encourages them to want to talk to you. But you don’t want to take your, that human element of the conversation out of it by putting so much information that they feel like they can make a decision based solely on what is on the website.

And as I said earlier, you need to remember that you are looking at your website with a, a microscope, with a magnifying glass that no prospect is. The people who are coming to your website, they’re coming for that big picture. They’re not coming in and wordsmithing everything and saying, oh, geez, I can’t believe they said it this way.

So make sure that you are not wasting your time by getting too deep into the weeds on some of those things and, and struggling to make decisions because you’re, you’re overthinking it. So you shouldn’t be cavalier in how you treat your website, but you don’t want to spend more time than is absolutely necessary.

And the other thing I would say to you, the reason why you really shouldn’t be spending time on your website is because there’s a good chance that you’re using it as a substitute for other forms of business development. Where you’re actually talking to real people, and part of this is because it feels good to be doing something for business development.

And so if you’re, if you’re in a place where you’re, you’re projecting certain growth and you’re trying to achieve those numbers, or maybe you’ve lost decline and you’re now trying to replenish that revenue stream, there’s a tendency to look for those easy things to do. And for many in the agency community, They don’t like doing sales.

You may not like doing sales. Maybe you don’t like doing outreach. Maybe you don’t relish the idea of sending out emails on a regular basis to talk to people who are in your network that you maybe haven’t talked to in a while. But those are oftentimes far better uses of your time if you’re looking to grow your revenue than the time that you are spending on your website.

So make sure that to the extent you are working on your website, it’s because it is the highest and best use of your time and not because it is a soothing element that allows you to feel like you’re doing business development, even when you’re not doing the hard work of business development. But now with all that said, there are really good reasons to be spending at least some amount of time on your website as long as you’re doing it wisely.

And so you want to, to think about your website in terms of how you are positioning your agency. And I think many small agencies don’t spend enough time really refining their identity and positioning so that they are clear about who they serve, how they serve them, and what results they produce. And to the extent that you can use the work on your website to, as a forcing mechanism to get you through this process and to really tailor that identity and positioning so that you can communicate it clearly, not just on the website, but everywhere you’re out talking, whether that’s on social media, in email, one-on-one conversations.

You need to be able to use your language in a way that resonates with your ideal prospects, your ideal clients. But also at the same time, communicates to those who are not good fits, that they probably are not good fits. That allows you and your prospects to make the best use of your time and have meaningful conversations that have a higher likelihood of bearing fruit.

So definitely use the website as a tool for getting that messaging down correctly. You can also use your website as a tool for sharing your expertise and knowledge, and I think a lot of small agencies don’t take enough advantage of their website to produce content, whether that’s in the form of a blog or articles or white papers or those kinds of things that allow you to demonstrate that, that you and your team are truly expert in the kind of work that you do.

For me, it’s also a great way to talk through and think through some of the topics that maybe clients are asking about or that I’m trying to, to refine my own views on in the areas in which I work. So take advantage of the content piece of your website in order to convey that expertise to give you something that you can easily share with prospects.

So for example, I today create lots of content on my website that can answer questions that I frequently get. So, Same with these webinars that I produce. I get asked about agency websites a lot. Now, with this webinar, I have a resource that I can easily point people to in addition to what I may be sharing in one-on-one conversations.

And so it serves as an extension of the expertise that I’m offering. And you should be thinking the same way about the content that you are putting on your website and how you might be able to leverage it for multiple purposes and not just to sit there on the website in case someone accidentally comes across it.

You can also use your website as a good tool for providing that supplemental information that reinforces what they’ve already heard. So if you know that prospects are being told that you guys are a great agency that serves a particular industry well and that you have quick turnaround times and you’ve got expertise and connections to get people coverage in major publications. Make sure that your website is reinforcing that message. Make sure that if you say we get people in high profile publications, that your website backs that up and has some of the logos of those publications that you’re getting them into.

Make sure that if people say you have expertise in a particular industry, that your website is reflecting that. So, it’s one of those things where if I go to your website and I’ve been told something, I wanna make sure that there’s not a disconnect between the two. And often that happens in part because a lot of websites as they’re created are very generic and bland.

And so they may look good, they may be pretty from a visual perspective, but from a content perspective, they don’t say much. The number of agencies when you go to their homepage that you look and it says, we’re a full service, whatever kind of agency, what does that mean? It means you’re all things to all people, but that’s not how people are talking about you generally, and you need to make sure that your website is reflecting that.

So to the extent that you’re spending time on your website, make sure that you are having that kind of consistency in the messaging that you are generating. And finally, I think the other thing that people are oftentimes overlooking with their agency websites is the fact that it is a significant piece of the recruitment process for new employees.

So if you are out there and advertising on LinkedIn to try to hire for positions or on Indeed, or you’re just sending emails around to your network, make sure that you’re thinking about what a prospective employee is going to see and how they’re going to feel when they look at your website. Too often agency websites are developed only with the prospective client in mind and not enough in thinking about who might be coming to you as a future employee.

And yet I would say that your website probably has a greater impact on potential hires than it does on potential clients. So make sure that you are spending some of the time that, that you’re looking at your website, looking at it through that particular lens. And so this is a great point in time to be talking about that audience and who you are trying to reach with your website, who is coming to your website.

And as I said, the first thing is to think about that prospects versus talent, that both of them are, are core audiences and you need to have content that speaks to both of them. And you probably want to do it in such a way that you’re able to steer people towards whichever is the right solution for them.

There’s no reason that you can’t have your prospects as the primary audience, but again, keep in mind the potential talent. Because that is incredibly important, and that’s true even if you’re just working with contractors, because contractors will also check out your website to learn more about you. And of course, that informational component is a huge part of what your website is.

People are going there in all likelihood for basic information. That might be contact information. It might be who’s on your team, it might be what kind of services do you offer? And so you need to make sure that you think about what are your prospects looking for? What questions might they be asking and how can you answer them in the information that you’re providing?

You also need to understand your prospects in terms of how do they think about aesthetics, and so part of that is knowing who you’re reaching. If you are reaching old school brick and mortar people who may not be particularly technically savvy, they may not be looking for the same kinds of bells and whistles as if you are marketing to other digital marketers, for example, or something like that.

And so how you present yourself and, and how fancy from a technological perspective or a design perspective, your website is, is going to differ based on what the target audience feels about that kind of look and feel type thing. It’s also expectations that need to be kept in mind, and so if someone is coming to you thinking that you are a low cost provider or a premium provider, make sure that the experience that they’re having on your website is speaking to that, and that’s something that a good designer can help you with when you’re building the site so that you make sure that it is in keeping with the way you’re presenting. If you present as a Ferrari, but sell as a Kia, that’s a problem, right? You wanna make sure that those two are linked together in order to clearly communicate to the potential buyer who you are and what they should expect when they’re talking to you.

You also need to be thinking about the budgets that people have because the way that you shape your website will speak very much to that budget issue, that expectations issue that I talked about. But it’s also one of those things where if you’re not thinking about the budgets that people have, your language may not be correct.

So it’s not just the design elements, it’s also the language that you’re using and making sure that it is speaking to them so that they don’t think that they are not the right target for the kind of work that you do and the people that you serve. And then finally, think about the demographics of the people who are hiring you and not the, not the brands, not the logos.

Because as we’ll talk about in a moment, people hire other people. It’s not brands hiring agencies, it’s people hiring agencies. And so, Think about who you’re reaching. Are they younger or older? Are they of certain cultural backgrounds? Make sure that all of the imagery and the way that you present yourself is speaking to them so that they see themselves in whatever you’re putting up into your website design so that they feel comfortable in the place that they’re in. If you’re primarily targeting Red Sox fans don’t have Yankees stuff all over your website, for example. You want to make sure that you are really speaking to the people in the way that, that they’re looking to be spoken to and that it’s resonating with them.

And so understanding who your prospective buyers are or your prospective hires are is really important in that regard. So we’ve spent a lot of time now talking about sort of do’s and don’ts overall, but the, the key message that I have for you overall that you should be thinking about throughout your website process is how can you keep it more simple?

And this is simple in the process, but it’s also simple in your website itself because there’s no reason in all likelihood for your website to be tens or hundreds of pages. And a lot of agencies put far too much content. Far too dense in their text. Far too many pages. You need to be clear. You need to be direct.

Make sure that you are speaking the language that your prospects are looking for, and that you are clearly articulating who it is that you serve. Your ideal client. Again, and I’m gonna harp on this because it is so important in all of your business development, but particularly on your website, to make sure that you are resonating with that ideal client and turning off those who are not.

From an imagery perspective, don’t go overboard with all of these fancy graphics. That can be confusing, frankly, to a lot of visitors. The simpler, the cleaner, the better. It also makes it easier to keep up to date. One of the things you particularly want to think about is you start to grow, is that you’re going to have more turnover in your team, and so to the extent that you’re using candid photography of your team, if someone leaves, you’re probably going to want to swap out those images. So the simpler you can keep the design, the easier it is to do that, and it is something that you want to be thinking about in terms of the images that you use. And are there ways to use humanizing images for team photos and things like that, sitting around a conference table ideating, those kinds of things that a lot of agency websites have in a way where it doesn’t matter so much if one of those employees moves on and you still have a valuable image that you can take advantage of.

Because I’ve spent a lot of time working with agencies were very concerned about who’s shown how they’re shown and those kinds of things. So make it simple to swap that in and out and don’t make it so deeply ingrained in the design that it becomes a slow and, and potentially costly effort to make changes to that in the future.

The other area where I see a lot of agencies spend or make things too complicated is the overall user experience. Make it simple, make it direct. We don’t need to, to have these fancy designs that show everything that that’s potentially capable of on a website. Make it easy for someone to get the information they need in as few clicks as possible. And finally make it clear what their next step should be.

Make it easy for them to contact you, make it easy for them to understand what that is going to be like when they do so. And, and this is causing me to, this was not on the agenda, but it is, it is an extension of the keep it simple philosophy, but on the, the user experience, on the user interface that you’re creating.

I have a simple test for you. If a grandparent can’t figure out your website, don’t do it. Don’t have one of these websites where there’s no obvious menu. I’ve gone to plenty of agency websites where they, they think they’re being cute and they’ve got all these great illustrations and splash of color and all that on the homepage, and yet you can’t figure out how to click on anything.

You can’t figure out, how do I find your team? How do I contact you? How do I learn more about the services that you provide? A step away from that are the websites where they just, even on the desktop, have a hamburger menu. Yes, I know people know how to use a hamburger menu now. It’s not the novelty that it was a few years ago, so most people are gonna understand, even on a desktop, you click on that, but why?

There’s no reason for doing that. Make it really easy for people to see your menu choices. Click on those menu choices and navigate through your website to get whatever information they need as quickly and easily as possible. Another pet peeve of mine is that long scrolling page that has become popular with many agencies where there’s just a, it’s a single page website, but it goes on and on forever.

I think that that can be really confusing to the average user. Obviously, again, think about your target audience. Think about how they will respond to it. Think about how well they are able to navigate it and figure out if that is something that is a good fit for you and your targets or not. And then finally, I know a lot of agencies like to invent words, phrases, those kinds of things.

Part of it is trying to be special and to say that, you know, we do things differently. It’s fine to say you do things differently, although think about whether you really do or not, because if you’re communicating it, you wanna make sure that it’s accurate. But try not to use terminology that is not consistent with what your prospects will already be using when they come to you.

And this is something that I experienced many years ago with the company that I owned that did media monitoring, and we talked about, we wanted to talk about media intelligence. Instead of media monitoring. And this was 20 some years ago, and it, it was a, a term that was starting to get some traction, but it was not there yet.

And so we put media intelligence on the website and had to spend so much time explaining to prospects what that meant. And so, I would encourage you think really carefully about the language that you’re using. Listen to your prospects when they’re talking to you, your ideal clients. Listen to how they speak.

Make sure that your website copy is echoing the language that they already use, because you don’t want to create a barrier on your website by forcing ’em to say, well, what does that mean? What are they talking about? Is this, is this what I think it is? Use their language and you will be much more successful.

And as we’re we’re thinking about our website, even though it’s a piece of technology, it’s a great way to humanize our agencies because again, people hire other people. They want to know who your agency is. They, they start to get to know you as the owner in all likelihood during the business development process.

But they’re probably interested in other folks. And so if you look at your own site’s statistics, you’ll probably find that your about page is one of the most substantially trafficked. Pieces of the website, you’ll probably find that if you put the individual bios on their own pages, that those will get a lot of traffic as well, because someone will type in Chip Griffin and they’ll be looking for information on your employee named Chip Griffin, and they’ll bring up their bio page because Google tends to rank those kinds of things pretty high.

And so think about those as opportunities. Think about how you can humanize your business by showing who is part of your team by showing them not just on the team pages, but throughout. Have the ability to share the expertise which we’ll talk about more when we talk about content marketing, but this is an opportunity for you to really put that face to the agency and help the people on the other end who are considering hiring you.

You’re giving them that context so that they know who you are and not just that you’re some agency logo that claims certain kinds of expertise. This is a good place to mention that, that if you do not have your individual team members as individual pages on the website, I would encourage you to do so for the very reason that Google is very good about if you have a page named Chip Griffin, finding it when someone types that in to the search engine, and it’s much more likely to bring it up than it is if they are just on a team page amongst 10 other people. So really think about that as an opportunity to potentially generate some additional interest in your agency without a whole lot of extra work. Now I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about, while we’re talking about listing team members, a bad habit that I see a lot of agencies do, which is listing people who are not actually employees of the agency.

Now, in the case where they’re contractors, that’s debatable and, and in some cases it makes sense to still list them. But oftentimes I will see particularly small agencies try to look bigger by listing people on the team page who they may have a casual relationship with. Maybe they’ve never even worked together on a project, but they had a conversation and said, Hey, if we ever had a project where it would make sense to bring you on, would you do it?

Yes. Would you mind if I listed you on our about page? No, of course not. Why not? It’s some free exposure. Don’t do that. If someone is not actually a core part of your team, they should not be on your website because it is leaving the wrong impression with your prospective buyers. And it can be a real problem.

I’ve worked with agencies, for example, who not just on the team side, but otherwise they will list offices or places where they work, where they don’t necessarily actually have anybody, but they’ve maybe got a contractor that they work with there and they’re trying to show a global presence. The problem with that is that I’ve seen clients say, Hey, I see that you are listing a presence in Tokyo.

We’d love to work with your Tokyo office. And then you’re forced to say, well, we don’t really have an office. We’ve got someone we got kind of a relationship with, but are they even the right person for that project or not? You’ve now oversold yourself because you wanted to make your website look more impressive than it was.

So resist that urge. You want to humanize yourself so that it is an accurate projection of who you are as an agency. And frankly, there’s nothing wrong with being small. If you are a small team, shout that from the rooftops. It is a selling point for your agency. If you’re small and try to pretend that you’re big, you’re only gonna cause yourself more problems.

Instead, explain why there’s value in working with a smaller agency who is nimble, flexible, creative, probably frankly, more cost effective. And all of those are selling points for your agency. So lean into that rather than trying to use your website to hide that fact. All of this is part of the effort of trying to get your prospects to know you better, and your website is a step in that process.

Obviously, as I’ve mentioned, it’s a lot of one-on-one conversations that will really get you there, but these individual aspects of the website will also help to reinforce those messages. That’s also why I encourage you not to hide behind stock imagery to the extent that you use stock images, try to make it so that you’re, one of my rules has always been don’t show someone’s face unless they’re actually part of the organization.

So if you want to use illustrations, for example, to show a team meeting, That can be an alternative if you don’t have good images of your team sitting around a table or talking. You can use stock images, but maybe it’s, it’s out of focus or backs of heads or something like that where they’re looking up at a screen.

Something along those lines so that you have ways of engaging with your audience visually, without pretending that a stock image person is a real employee. That’s not really a recipe for success. And then finally, make sure that the content that you’re putting out, and this is in terms of not just the content marketing we’ll talk about later, but the other content on your website, whether that’s Bios or the About page or even the descriptions on the homepage.

Make sure that it, it clearly is demonstrating not just your expertise, but also your personality. If you are a, a straight by the book, this is how we do things, old-fashioned agency. Great. Show it. That’s, you want to speak to the way that you really are. Don’t create a, a website that that shows you know, that you are, you know, carefree, fun, loving, and all that kind of stuff.

If you are that very much by the book person, you wanna make sure that your website is clearly showing who you are, what your expertise is, and what you’re like to work with. And there’s a place for every kind. So if, if you are that fun-loving agency that loves to have the dogs in the office and all that, fine, talk about that and you’ll speak to, to prospects who are interested in that.

If you’re not, that’s fine too. Just speak to that because there are prospects out there who would rather not have the, the dogs jump up on the conference table when they are in a meeting. And I speak from that perspective. So anyway alright, let’s move on to the next slide before I get myself in trouble with all my dog loving friends.

Alright. Content marketing. When we think about the website, it’s not just about the brochure type stuff and explaining what the services are that you provide. It’s also about demonstrating the expertise through your content marketing. And I think that a lot of agencies spend time posting things on particularly LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook.

Maybe you’ve got a podcast and all those kinds of things, but really, your website needs to be the hub for it. You need to remember that O in the PESO model, right? Owned media is very much your friend, your close friend. Your good friend is housing the content on your website. So that is a permanent repository of all of your expertise that you develop over the years.

And the longer you’re around, the more rich, the more robust this becomes. Social media is great, but it’s only an acquaintance and it, it may be that one of the platforms goes away or changes how discoverable the information is. We already know that it’s really hard to find something beyond the, you know, the, the most recent past on these social networks from an organization.

So if you posted something great a year ago, I’m gonna have a really difficult time finding it through the social media platforms themselves. At the same time, if you’ve, if you’ve housed that content on your website, that expertise on your website, then a simple search function there will make it easily discoverable.

And so I would encourage you to really think about your website in terms of how you can be the home for your own expertise. And even if you’re sharing in other places, make sure that it still exists on a place that you own, that you control. And that five years from now will still be just as valuable as it is today.

No matter what changes in the environment may take place. I also think that your content marketing gives you that real opportunity to not just tell people what you’re smart about, but show people what you’re smart about. So instead of saying that we are an expert in Google Analytics, write a blog post, write an article, share an ebook, something that explains why you understand it, how people should be thinking about it and using it in their organizations.

When you’re doing this though, I think the really important thing you need to remember is that when you’re creating content for your website, you need to be thinking about prospects more than peers. And this is a mistake again, that I’ve made a lot over the years. I enjoy speaking with my peers and sharing thought leadership that will help move the industry that I’m in.

The reality is that’s fun. That’s good. There’s value in it. It perhaps helps with recruiting. It doesn’t help with business development because from a business development perspective, you need to remember that your clients are coming to you for your expertise, which by definition means that they are not as expert as you are.

And so you need to put things in terms that they will understand, and you need to select topics that will appeal to them. And if you’re doing that, then your content marketing program will be far more effective and you’ll be spending your time on your website, on its content much more wisely. Of course you’ve got people on your website, they’ve seen this information, they understand more about you.

You’ve humanized yourself effectively. You’ve proven your expertise, but what do they do next? And this is something where you really wanna make sure that that on every single page of your website, it is very clear to your prospects. What’s the next step from here? How can they get in touch? Make it as easy as possible.

Do not put up barriers to them actually having that one-on-one conversation with you. And if you are doing that, if you’re looking at your website and you can’t, within the first two or three seconds, figure out how can I contact Acme agency, then you know that you’ve fallen down on the design, on the layout.

And so make sure that you are really focused on that. On the contact page, whatever way people can get in touch with you, if you’re happy to take phone calls, emails, mail, you know, snail mail, contact forms, whatever it is, list it all there. Make it really easy for people to find and really easy for people to get in touch with you.

Your contact form should be as simple as possible, collect only the bare minimum information that you need in order to actually have a real conversation with that individual. Certainly give people the flexibility on that form to ask a more detailed question, to share some more information, but don’t make it required.

Just you really are looking for that opportunity to make the initial connection with them. And you can always figure out in the first few minutes that it’s not worthwhile and find a way to gracefully move on. But don’t put barriers in place. Make sure that it is really clear to people. How they can talk to you and also make sure that it’s clear to them what they should expect when they do.

If your goal is to sit there and, and give them a free consultation, tell them that. If your goal is to share more about your services, tell them that. Make sure that you are being very direct about what you see as the next step for talking with and working with your agency, because that is incredibly important.

And if someone comes to your website and they’re an ideal client prospect, and they don’t move on to that next step, that’s a failure. So think about your workflow on the website in such a way that you’re putting yourself in the user’s shoes and saying, okay, can they figure out what they should do next?

And do they know what that is? And then finally, before we move on to the q and a section of today’s webinar, I wanna talk about refreshing your website. And one of the things you should do when refreshing your website is look for typos like we have on this slide here, because from time to time we do put things up that have typos in them, and it’s a good opportunity to take a look at your website briefly now and again to find those and weed them out.

But that’s, a limited amount of time. It shouldn’t take a lot of time to do that. And we need to remember that, that tinkering with our website again, it may feel good. And look, I’m guilty of this because I do my own website work these days because I’ve, I’ve been building websites since the, the dawn of the web era and I enjoy doing it.

And so for me, It’s as much hobby as it is professional benefit. But if you’re not in that position, if you are not someone who is inclined to tinker at 11 o’clock at night because it’s fun to do and instead you’re paying someone to do it, you’re investing your team’s time in working on your website, make sure that you are doing so for the right reasons.

If it’s because, geez, our, our pipeline isn’t very robust. I need to fix my website and that’s gonna generate more revenue. The reality is that any work that you, any time that you spend on your website is much less likely to have a return on investment from a business development perspective in the near term than if you’re actually just picking up the phone, sending emails, talking to people who are in your network.

I’m not even talking about cold outreach. I’m talking about just renewing the connections that you have with individuals that you already know or have met in the past. And so if it’s the business development if revenue is a problem, your website probably isn’t the first place that I would stop.

I would also tell you that you are going to get bored with your website far sooner than any prospect. Keep in mind that most prospects look at your website once, maybe twice. They’re not spending a lot of time there. Once they become a client, they’re probably never going there unless somehow they need to give you a phone call and they can’t find your email signature, I guess, because probably it’s in there.

So as a client, they’re probably not going to your website. At all. So if we’re bored with it, we don’t think it’s very interesting. And geez, it’s looked this way for the last two years. Who cares? Ask yourself, does it still accurately convey who you are, what you do, who you serve? If it’s doing those things, it doesn’t matter whether it’s two years, five years, 10 years old.

You need to be asking yourself, is this worth my time? Is it going to make a real difference if I tinker, if I refresh my website right now? And if you. I can’t think of, of anything else that you can do that is a higher, better use of your time, of your agency’s money, then fine. Work on your website. Work on creating or tinkering with your content or your design.

But don’t do it unless you’ve already checked all those other boxes because it is not the most important thing. Particularly if you’ve got that identity and positioning language down pat, you’re not gonna get nearly as much benefit from working with your website as you think you are. So keep it simple.

Use it as a tool for honing that messaging. Make sure that you are reinforcing the messages that people are already hearing from other places. Don’t forget that you have two audiences for your website, both prospective clients as well as prospective new hires, and really, really think critically about the work that you’re doing on it to make sure that you are investing your time and money wisely.

So with that, we will move on over to the question and answer portion of today’s webinar. You can use, as I mentioned earlier, the q and a function at the bottom of the screen if you are watching live, and I’ll take those questions in a moment. If you’re watching this on replay, this will end the recorded portion of today’s webinar.

But if you have questions, you can email me at chip@smallagencygrowth.com. I’ll be happy to try to reply to you as quickly as I can. And of course, as I mentioned, you also can go to the free Slack community and ask not just me, but other experts and agency owners for their feedback, advice, and suggestions as well.

So I’m gonna grab a sip of water and we will dive into the questions here in just a moment.