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Imagine that you own a beautifully designed yacht. It looks
great on the surface of the water, with superb lines, gleaming
decks, a well-appointed galley… but you’re having real
trouble getting out of the harbor and you can’t figure out
why!

You investigate, and you find that beneath the surface your
beautiful boat has a number of slow, silent, leaks. None of them
are big enough to sink you on their own, so there’s no obvious
immediate crisis – just a constant drain on your efficiency and
your speed.

I’ve been reviewing Web traffic reports for over 10 years, and
I believe that this analogy applies very well to almost all
business websites. Very few sites are so terrible or have
something so wrong with them that they’re clearly a disaster.
Yet just about every site has some area where it’s quietly
losing traffic, losing potential business or the chance to
create relationships – or failing to attract visitors in the
first place.

If you’re not regularly reviewing your traffic analysis, you
can’t know for sure if your site is leak proof. In this
article, I’ll show you a few of the most common areas where you
can look for – and fix – those silent leaks.

1. Leaks in your Brand & Positioning

The excellent folks at MarketingExperiments online research
laboratories have shown that clearly articulated and
differentiating value propositions have a critical effect on
Website conversion rates.

(The conversion rate is the measurement of visitors fulfilling
your desired outcomes – which might include calling you, buying
a product at your site, signing up for your newsletter or blog
feed, etc.)

Your value proposition should be front and center on your home
page. It should answer the classic question: „Why should we do
business with you instead of your competition? “

Although this question isn’t a Web strategy issue in itself, it
is one that many people struggle to answer. But the lack of a
compelling opening message can be a major impediment to your
online success.

How to check for this leak: Even if they don’t enter your site
at the home page, most visitors who don’t know you will go
there as the second page they look at to find out more about you
and your business.

If visitors are taking a quick look at your home page and then
immediately leaving, something is wrong. Your copy is failing to
pique their curiosity or to answer their questions: „Can this
company meet my needs?“ and „Should I explore further?“ You
have a leak!

2. Leaks in Visitor Engagement

Popular theory says that you have 10 seconds to engage a visitor
- i.e. convince them to stay on your site before they click away
in search of something more interesting.

While I don’t believe that it’s quite that simple, there are
some definite ways to get rid of visitors fast before they’ve
had a chance to really check you out.

The best of these is probably the infamous splash page – the
entry page to your site that your Web designer persuaded you to
have because it „does cool stuff“. Hopefully there’s a „Skip
Intro“ button somewhere on the page!

In all my reviews of traffic reports I’ve seen a consistent
leak of up to 30% of visitors leaving from this page alone –
before they’ve ever seen who you are or what you provide.

How to check for this leak: Easy – look for the splash page in
your traffic reports and see how many visitors exit at that
point. If it’s more than a small percentage, you have a leak –
take the page out today!

The other major area where you should watch for leaks in visitor
engagement is in what are called „landing pages“. These are
inside pages of your Website which turn out to be the first page
that a visitor sees, usually because you have some well-indexed
content that they’ve found in a search engine.

Here it’s absolutely critical to understand the visitor’s
mindset. Each visitor is at your site looking for something
specific, they may well have found you by accident, so they may
have no idea who you are – and worse, no interest in you.

The first page that they see on your Website must engage them
immediately in accordance with their needs, and it must have
enough context to draw them into other areas, and to want to
find out more about you. It’s not enough to give great
information on this page – they’ll soak that up, and then
leave.

How to check for this leak: Hopefully your traffic reports are
sophisticated enough to show you which keywords bring visitors
to each specific page of your site. This shows you each
visitor’s „mindset“.

If visitors are leaving a page very quickly, then it probably
isn’t satisfying their informational needs, so you should
review the content.

If visitors are reading the page (your traffic reports should
show the time spent at each page) and then leaving, you’ve
given them what they wanted but failed to draw them into the
rest of your site. This can be fixed with more compelling
navigation and calls to action.

Either way, you have a leak!

3. Leaks in Directions & Outcomes

I’m constantly amazed by the number of Web pages that give
great information and content – and then just end abruptly –
perhaps with some navigation tabs if you’re lucky!

Steve Krug in his excellent book „Don’t Make Me Think!“
describes how crucial it is to direct visitors to the next step
that you want them to take. If you don’t do this, and rely on
your visitors to figure this out for themselves, there’s a
strong chance that they’ll make a different choice than the one
you want – or they’ll leave your site altogether, creating
leaks in your potential revenue stream.

Every page of your site needs strong calls to action that stand
out visually and clíck directly to where the visitor can fulfill
the outcome that you want (e.g. „buy now!“, „sign up for our
newsletter / RSS feed“.) Pages can have more than one call to
action, and there’s nothing wrong with repeating them on longer
pages so that they’re always within eyeshot.

About The Author
Philippa Gamse is a Web strategy expert who spends much of her time fixing leaky Websites.
Would you like your „Leaky Boat Website“ Review? Visit
websitesthatwin.com/leaky-boat-report.html
for more information.

(c) Philippa Gamse. All rights reserved. Publication rights
granted so long as article and byline are reprinted intact, with
all links made live.

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