5 ways your website is eating your profit

Today's episode is all about the ways your website is eating into your profit. So here on Process to Profitability, we are all about making sure your business is actually making money. I don't wanna hear about more $2 million businesses that aren't able to pay their bills month to month because they're spending so much of that revenue just to earn what they earn.

[00:00:30] What we want in our business is not to hit a certain dollar amount because it's the new, cool thing. What we want is to really be profitable and make enough to support the way we want to live. For you, that might mean a 2 million dollar business. It might mean a $50,000 business, but whatever business you run, you want to make sure that it's profitable.

[00:00:55] And a big piece of that is your website because it is the main way that you are going to market your services to others and sell to them so that you can bring in new clients.

Don't confuse people who visit your website by offering every service you could possibly do

[00:01:08] Samantha Mabe: The number one way your website is eating into your profitability is by confusing people when they are interested in working with you. If somebody comes to your website and they aren't sure what it is that you offer, or it seems like you offer everything and a bag of chips, they're not going to trust you to be the expert at what you do and they're going to look elsewhere.

[00:01:37] Here's what I mean. I have gone to websites who have photography, website design, brand design, graphic design, VA services, all listed on their homepage as services they offer, and I'm not sure I would trust them to do any of those things because they haven't honed in on the one thing that they're an expert at. I wouldn't know what to hire them for.

[00:02:01] What I want you to do on your website is have one main transformation that you offer, and then have any offers as far as services, courses, or products, reflect that transformation.

[00:02:20] On my website, I very clearly state that I help people have a website that gets them more clients in their business, and I have two services that do that. I have the Website Design VIP Day and a Sales Page Design VIP Day. It's really easy for people to know which one of those they need at this stage in their business, based on what they currently have, what they're looking to invest and what they are planning for the upcoming quarter, six months and year.

[00:02:53] But what I don't do is give them an entire list of other things that I could also offer. That way they know I do website design that is designed to get you more clients, and these are the two ways that I do that. And then you can choose which is best and how you wanna work with me.

Make it easy for people to checkout and pay you

[00:03:14] Samantha Mabe: The second thing that's hurting your profitability is making it really complicated for you to get paid and get clients.

[00:03:25] Now, if you have a high ticket service, you are probably not processing payments right on your website. You probably have people have a sales call or fill out an application before you decide to work with each other, and that's totally fine. But what you don't want to do is complicate that process.

[00:03:46] So if you have a low ticket offer, let them check out right on the website, let them put in their credit card information, pay and have it.

[00:03:56] If you do have a higher ticket service that needs more of a sales process, give them the first step to that directly on your website. Give them a link to book a sales call, or the link to fill out the application right on your website, embedded on your sales page, and that way they can do it without having to go somewhere else. And then you can have an automatic email sent to guide them as far as next steps.

[00:04:30] And every step along the way should be just that simple. Make it super easy for people to pay you money so that they don't get lost in the process and just drop off.

Your website hosting and plugins may be costing you money

[00:04:42] Samantha Mabe: The number three way your website is eating into your profitability is because it's too expensive to run and maintain.

[00:04:50] Any website is going to cost you money, and a good website is going to cost more than something you DIYed on a free platform. It doesn't matter what platform you're on, you've got to pay for your domain. You've got to pay for hosting. You're probably paying for an email, but you don't have to pay more than is necessary for those things.

[00:05:15] When I have my clients sign up for Squarespace, they pay about $20 a year for their domain and about $230 a year for their Squarespace hosting, and that's all they need. The reason that I have them do, uh, the $230 instead of a cheaper plan on Squarespace is because it gives us more customizations. So that is a good investment. We can do more with the design. You get more out of it.

[00:05:49] But if you are on a platform like WordPress and you're paying for a ton of different plugins that you might not even be using or you might not need, then your website is costing more than it needs to.

[00:06:04] Or you might have decided to design your website on a course platform like Kajabi or Thinkific. And because that is designed to be a course platform and not a website platform, you're paying a lot of money to have a website there when you might not be taking advantage of the rest of its functionality.

[00:06:27] So take some time to evaluate what you are paying for your website every year and every month. And then see if you can reduce that amount by making smart, strategic decisions about where your website's going to be hosted and what functionality you need to get the most out of it.

Broken links hurt your profitability

[00:06:55] Samantha Mabe: The number four way your website is hurting your profitability might surprise you, and that's if you have broken links on your site. Now you might be thinking, what do broken links have to do with how much money I make in my business? But it actually can impact your business a lot. Here's why, because broken links hurt you in two ways.

[00:07:21] First, if somebody comes to your website and they click on a button, or they click on a link and it doesn't work, it takes them to a 404 page that says, this page doesn't exist. Or, oops, you landed in the wrong spot. Then they might get frustrated. They're not going to take the time to figure out where they actually need to be. So you're losing money that way because people are not getting to where they need to go in order to continue their journey towards working with you.

[00:07:50] The number two way it hurts you is a little sneakier, but it is with your search engine. Google is really smart and it crawls your site to make sure that everything works and makes sense. So if Google crawls your website and it sees you've got these links, but they don't work, it's going to bump you down in the search engine ranking. If it sees that people are coming to your site and clicking on links and then they're leaving because they're broken, it's going to bump you down in that ranking.

[00:08:30] So you want to make sure that your links on your site, whether they're internal to the next page in the process, or they're external to another blog post, or a place you've been featured are working so that it makes it a better user experience for somebody coming to your site to learn about your business. It benefits you and your search engine ranking results because Google recognizes that you have a site that works and that people value.

The importance of mobile design when it comes to profitability in your business

[00:09:05] Samantha Mabe: The last thing that's hurting your profitability is one that I have had conversations with so many people about, because we are now in the age where people are really recognizing that mobile design is just as important as desktop design.

[00:09:25] Almost half of your website visitors are going to be seeing your website on their phones, and it's probably the first place that they're going to be seeing your website, if they're coming from Instagram or another social platform. Or maybe they saw an email pop up and they click on the link from their phone.

[00:09:45] If you do not have a mobile design that looks good, is designed to convert people, you are going to lose that traffic, and those are people who probably will not come back. So if your website looks great on desktop, that's awesome. But if it doesn't look just as good on mobile, if it's not just as easy to see everything and get all the information you need and go to those next steps, you're going to lose people.

[00:10:18] And this is another case where Google is smart and they look at the mobile design of your site. And if it is not up to their standards as far as legibility and making sense for people's user experience, then they will bump you down in the results and that can really lose you a lot of potential clients and a lot of potential income.

[00:10:47] What I want you to take away from this episode is that your website can have a big impact on the profitability of your business because it is where people are going to be learning about your services. It's where they're going to be taking that next step towards working with you, and you want to make sure that it is doing its job in the best way possible without costing you any more than it should.

[00:11:12] So what I want you to do today is take a look at your website, make sure that it's very clear what you do, make sure that it's easy for people to get in touch with you or take that next step towards paying you double check how much it's costing you on a yearly. Check for any broken links and then look at it on your phone to make sure the mobile design is up to par.

Apply now for a VIP Day to convert three clients in three weeks

[00:11:41] Samantha Mabe: If you need help with this, if you are thinking, my website is definitely costing me money, and my business could definitely grow more and find more clients, if I had a better website, then apply to work with me for a VIP Day. I love helping people make sure that all of these pieces are strategically planned out and working so that they can find three new clients in their business within three weeks of launching their new websites.