I’m going to keep this post short. The piece of advice we’re going to impart on you today is so simple that even a ‘waffler’ like me should be able to keep it short and sweet! It relates to websites and specifically what makes an effective website that actually generates real enquiries and revenue for your organisation.

Now, whilst we’ve always known the different elements you need to get right to make a website successful, actually explaining this is a different kettle of fish altogether. Clearly there are a number of different factors that make a website effective but a recently launched project has made me realise that there’s one common element that all effective websites have.

The website launch was for VanLeasing.com and it marks the culmination of a 12-month project to completely rebrand and relaunch this business and their online presence.

The website (and mobile app) allows users to search from over 1,000 vans from every manufacturer and model available in the UK today. Once they’ve selected their van, they can get a completely customised online quote in less than 60-seconds. Once they have their quote they can print or save it – or if they really like it - apply online to lease the van in less than 5-minutes.

This website was launched last month and, from pretty much a standing start, it has generated results beyond even our own expectations. At the moment the site only gets around 4,000 monthly visitors but from that generates 450 enquiries – that’s an 11% conversion rate (the industry average is around 2-3%)!

So what’s the secret behind such a high traffic-to-enquiries conversion rate? The answer is insanely simple:

This site actually does something!

In other words, it gives users something back in return for making an enquiry. The site has multiple interactive elements but the 2 most popular actions people take on the site are to get a customised van leasing quote or check online if they are approved for finance. These 2 interactive elements of the site don’t do anything special – they just give a user a simple way to answer the 2 questions they came to the site to get answered:

How much will this cost me?
Am I approved for vehicle leasing?

This isn’t rocket science but it’s amazing how often people get it wrong when launching a new website. How often have you been onto a site and there’s absolutely nothing to do on that site but fill in a boring old contact form? Think about this – when was the last time you filled out a ‘contact us’ form on any website? We asked this question in the office and most of us couldn’t remember a time in the past five years!

It’s all very well having a website that tells your customers all about you, how great you are and why they should work with you, but the harsh reality is that no one cares! Customers only care about what’s in it for them and, quite frankly, a boring old brochure-based site with a simple contact form just won’t cut it.

But never fear; the solution doesn’t need to be as complicated or costly as you might think. Even offering something as simple as allowing customers to book appointments or events online is all you need to turn your lacklustre conversion rates around. There are even creative ways to turn a simple contact form into something much more appealing – you just need to think of them!

So if you’re reviewing your current website or wondering why you’re not getting any enquiries then look at your site and answer this simple question: Does it actually do anything?

If not, maybe it’s time for a new approach.

We’ve seen huge demand from our customers over the past 3-4months for the development of mobile applications and mobile-specific versions of their websites. In fact, “do we need to build a mobile website or app?” has been the most popular question we’ve been asked in the early part of this year.

Clearly how to best capitalise on the mobile market is something on the minds of many business owners. Certainly the coverage of mobile marketing and development has been the hot topic of conversation recently in trade publications, blogs and across social media.

I’m always conscious that when something new comes along in the world of technology and marketing it tends to become the ‘buzz’ topic. With that comes added confusion as all of us ‘marketing and tech experts’ flood you with articles and information on the subject. It’s funny that with the access we get today to so much information and insight from so many different sources, it can actually make it more difficult to find a simple answer to the question you’re asking!

So I don’t want to go off on too many tangents today and answer this really simple question:

If you’re a small-to-medium sized business owner is now the time to build a mobile-specific version of your site, create an app or begin to invest in mobile marketing?

To answer that question I want to share with you a small bit of research we completed last week.

How many users are accessing your site on a mobile device?

Firstly, you can find this bit of information out really simply (and for free) if you have an analytics tracker such as Google Analytics on your site. It will tell you (as a percentage of overall users) how many people are accessing your website via a mobile browser. It will even tell you whether they’re an Android, Windows, RIM or iPhone user.

As an experiment, we looked at all of our client websites to see what the average percentage of mobile users on the site was historically, what it is today and how fast the change in percentage, if any, was.

Well, the results are really interesting and it’s fair to say that visits to our client websites via mobile device are growing at an ever-increasing rate. Take a look:

If you’ve read our blog before then you’ll know that, at Brinn, we believe that your website should at be the centre of any good marketing strategy. Visiting your website is the first action you want someone to take having responded to one of your marketing messages via social media, email, advertising, PR, search, an event or any other marketing channel you’re using. It should also act as the central place for great content that you can then push out across all of these different marketing channels.

So does the uptake of mobile technology change this approach? Definitely not, but it does mean that to stay relevant, we need to make the experience of visiting your website and taking the desired action just as engaging on a mobile website or app as it is on a traditional desktop device.

If your website is well coded and put together in the first place (and doesn’t contain too much Flash), then it should render the same on a mobile screen as it does on a desktop one. That’s great, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean your site will engage users in the same way. Mobile-specific websites need to be clearer, contain less information and allow the user to undertake a specific task quickly.

To illustrate this point, here are a couple of interesting facts about the difference between mobile users and desktop users:

- According to Microsoft 70% of desktop search tasks are completed in one week, while 70% of mobile search tasks are done in one hour. In other words, mobile searchers are ready to take action right now!

- 40% of mobile search is location based, which presents great opportunities if you run a local business. Many businesses are already making great use of apps and mobile sites that target a local user at the time they’re ready to make a purchase.

Basically, mobile users have a different set of needs and expectations than desktop users and building a mobile-specific site or app is a great way of targeting these users and getting their business. Unfortunately, your current desktop optimised website won’t do that. As more people move away from the desktop format as a means to access information via the web, the more your business will need to engage customers properly on a plethora of different formats including mobile and tablet devices. There may be 12% of users accessing websites via a mobile today but the numbers are going up fast!

What we’ve hopefully shown you is that now is the time to begin thinking about how your business can best utilise the mobile platform. We’re not saying you need to assign your whole marketing budget to ‘going mobile’ but be aware of this trend and get involved sooner rather than later.

So I’ve answered the question I set out to and have hopefully excited you about the new opportunities that mobile marketing can bring. Now it’s up to you to begin reading up on the subject further and deciding what your next step should be… or you can just give us a call and we’ll take care if it for you! We’ll leave that decision up to you!

As always, any feedback, comments or further insight are welcomed. Speak to you all soon.