Prevent website churn + top tier prospecting opportunity

If you want to know how to prevent website churn for your digital agency and (at the same time) cash in with a new top tier website prospecting opportunity, then welcome – it’s your lucky day.

One task, double whammy

Next time one of your small business clients complains about poor website performance, you first need to consider that the problem might be more extensive than just their website. As a priority, to prevent website churn risk and drive performance, carry out a ‘NAP check. Because accurate and consistent ‘name, address, phone and category’ citations for your clients, spanning different online platforms for their business, is a key ‘trust’ indicator and driver of website performance.

Next, it’s essential to check if your small business clients have ‘multiple live websites’ promoting the same business or closely related products or services.

Because if they do, then (1) Oh dear! and (2) Yipee!

Eh?

1. ‘Oh dear!’ because multiple live sites can have serious negative ranking implications for your small business clients, and
2. ‘Yipee!’ because this presents your agency’s sales team with a top tier website prospecting opportunity – as I’ll go on to highlight.

Multiple live sites adds-up to poor website performance, feeding website churn

If you want to prevent website churn for your digital agency, check if your SMB clients have just one live website. Because using one live site to promote all their closely related products and services (including all branches/locations they want to target) will drive a healthy return on investment. Whereas, if your clients have multiple live sites, this will almost inevitably lead to complaints of ‘my website’s not working’.

The trouble is, duplicate or near-duplicate online content is not only confusing for website visitors, but it’s confusing for search engines like Google too. If your clients have multiple live sites promoting the same or similar products or services, then the risk is, their pages will be ‘competing with each other’ in the SERPs. And this isn’t helping anybody. 

What’s more, your clients could be missing out on the opportunity to drive a higher spend per customer and healthier profit margins for their business by using one website to cross-sell/upsell all their products and services.

Multiple live sites have negative ranking implications

Because multiple sites are confusing for Google, it has negative ranking implications for your SMB clients. For example:

1. To avoid returning the ‘wrong’ website page in response to a relevant search query, Google may return a local competitor’s page instead.
2. Google will almost inevitably award ‘domain authority’ to your clients oldest/longest established domain. This means older website pages are more likely to be returned in the SERPs to answer queries. So of course, newer sites are unlikely to perform.
3. Google may even deem your client’s new, beautifully written and designed, expertly SEO-d and mobile-optimised site ‘an imposter’. And award pages negative ranking power.

Plus, multiple live websites can confuse website visitors, adding up to a poor user experience. Moreover, a missed opportunity to convert visitors into paying customers.

What common mistakes or misconceptions lead to multiple live websites?

Why not set out to educate your SMB clients on the negative ranking implications of multiple live sites and best practices for 2021? With a view to driving performance and minimising future website churn risk.

Common mistakes or misconceptions that you should address include:

1. Forgotten old live websites.
2. Oblivious of the negative ranking implications for their new site if they fail to redirect old website traffic.
3. Lost administrator access for old websites.
   • Hopefully a domains specialist from your agency can step in and help here
4. Believing promoting different branches or ‘wings’ of their business on different URLs will drive more leads.
   • Top Tip: a single site with dedicated product/service pages presents a far greater opportunity – which we’ll come onto
5. SAB clients (Service Area Businesses) like tradespeople may think that multiple locations or service areas should have their own sites.
   • Another Top Tip: a single site with optimised ‘local landing pages‘ will get them found more easily
6. Multiple sites will be seen by more people and deliver more leads
   • Final Top Tip: it’s likely to have the opposite effect, with negative ranking implications

How to check if your client has multiple live sites to prevent website churn

It’s simple. Do the Google.

Carry out a search on Google for each of the following, and check the SERPs:

1. Your client’s ‘Business name’ (+ primary location / other locations served)
2. Their contact ‘telephone number(s)’ (varying the number spacing)
3. Their ‘bricks and mortar trading address(es)’ (if multiple branches)
4. ‘Blocks of copy’ on their pages 

You might be surprised at what you find. In my experience, it’s not unusual to discover that a single small business has two, three or even more live websites – promoting the same or closely related products or services.

What should you do if you discover a client has multiple live sites?

To prevent website churn risk and drive performance, you need to:

1. Check your client’s website analytics. So you can help determine what primary domain (or website URL) they should use moving forward. It’s normally the one currently generating the most traffic/engagement. There’s a high chance Google is awarding ‘domain authority’ (ie: directing the most traffic) to the oldest, most established website URL but always check the data. 
2. Set out to redirect your client’s website traffic to a single website URL to drive performance and prevent website churn risk.
3. Check existing online citations for your client’s business and make sure they have the same information and point to the correct website URL.

Prevent website churn – Double your clients leads and drive 64% more organic traffic

‘One great website’ has the potential to double your SMB clients leads and drive 64% more organic traffic. In turn, this bodes well for your agency’s customer satisfaction and retention rates moving forward. But no need to take my word for any of this. In fact, it was Google that spelt out the enormous opportunity back in January 2019:

“For the past several years, many SEOs have been saying “less is more”. Meaning, having fewer sites and fewer pages with higher quality content often leads to better SEO results. Google says that works for them and they have been working on consolidating their sites. In one case study Google took six old websites and consolidated the content. They made “one great website” and it led to them doubling the site’s call-to-action click-through rate and increased organic traffic by 64%.”    

(Search Engine Land, 10 January 2019)

Top tier website prospecting opportunity for your digital agency

So, now you’re armed with the knowledge that ‘one great website’ has the potential to drive ‘double the return on investment’ (versus multiple sites).

Then why not use this opportunity not just to redirect existing clients traffic to a single URL – but offer to build them “one great website” instead?

From a prospecting opportunity, why not find and target those businesses that have multiple websites – and offer to build them “one great site” instead? You can quote Google’s own words (actual findings) to close the deal:

“Double your website call-to-action click-through-rate and increase organic traffic by 64%.”

There you go – One task, double whammy. How to prevent website churn risk for your digital agency and (at the same time) cash in with a top tier website prospecting opportunity. #yourewelcome

PS. Did I mention my cut is 10%? (DREAM BIG)