Even if your website looks great you may be suffering from Crap Websitis (The Craps), a painful affliction that many business owners have learnt to live with because they didn’t know who they could turn to or who they could trust to help find a cure.

Some common symptoms of Crap Websitis (The Craps) include:

Sluggish traffic growth

Symptoms:

One of the easiest ways to spot The Craps is through the numbers of visitors to your website. If you do not know how many visitors you have you have then this is the first problem to address – go to Google Analytics set up a free account and paste the code they give you onto your website.

Once you have analytics running, you can see where your traffic is coming from and whether it is growing. Ideally your website would be showing regular growth from campaigns, new content and search engine traffic. If your site plateaus at a low level it is most likely that you have The Craps.

Treatment:

1. Read Why You Need A Website Monitoring Tool
2. Read How to Drive Traffic to a new website
3. Read How to Get Repeat Visitors
4. Create or adjust your strategy for search engine marketing, new content and social media. If you would like coaching contact me.

Low numbers of sales or sales leads

Symptoms:

People come to your website but they don’t buy, sign up for your newsletter or contact you. You may also see that a large percentage of your visitors “bounce” in your analytics program which means that they arrive at your website and don’t click on anything before they leave again.

Treatment:

1. Take a fresh look at your website. Look at your content, calls to action and incentives. Would you be inspired to communicate with your company? See where you can add value, good content and calls to action that are of interest to your target audience. Read The Secret to Getting Repeat Visitors and review your content strategy (or create one from scratch).
2. Analyse where your traffic is coming from. If you have a high bounce rate it may be because the traffic you are generating is not qualified traffic, or that your ads or headings may not represent your website.

Website causes owner to cringe

Symptoms:

You had an idea of what you wanted and it wasn’t what you got! Whether it is the content, the design or the functionality of your website making you cringe, you are probably suffering from The Craps. This sometimes comes with a sense of confusion or uncertainty as to how to make your website better without large costs and even feelings of annoyance and even bitterness towards the people who created your website.

Treatment:

1. Take a deep breath! Getting what you want is just a case of doing more research and finding the right service providers for the right budget. Ask other business people who they used and what they paid, get recommendations and ask and ask and ask.
2. If you feel really stuck email Serena for a website analysis session or a list of recommended freelancers who can help with your website.

Can’t find your website in search engines like Google

Symptoms:

You have done everything you can to make your website the shizz, but it is still hard to find in the search engines unless they specifically type in your business name. Your visitor numbers are only growing through your direct efforts and campaigns and not because people are coming through on the organic listings in Google and Yahoo.

Treatment:

1. Read Why you need kick-ass SEO (even if you don’t know what SEO is)
2. Read What your new website needs for SEO
3. Review your web content and SEO strategy and if you want coaching contact Melinda

Website Paralysis

Symptoms:

Thinking about your website makes you feel a little funny in the tummy, it is all too hard and you don’t know what to do next! All the jargon and abbreviations sound like a foreign language and you are wondering if the web really is for you, or if you can avoid it altogether for promoting your business.

Treatment:

Contact me for a website coaching session and set up a partnership for handholding through the process until you have a website you love and the confidence to move forward on your own.

These are some of the most common symptoms and treatments for The Craps. If you find that you have been suffering with some or all of these symptoms, try the treatments and if you need more information or help contact us for some website or SEO coaching.

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Spread the word and help us cure Web Crapsitis, once and for all.

Happy Hunting!

Serena “Social” Star

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Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net