Why is my website not generating sales? This is a question most website owners ask themselves at one point or another. There are many ways in which your website may not be functioning properly. I’m not talking about technically faulty sites with functionality not working and pages not being found. I’m referring to your website not doing what it is actually meant to be doing for your business. For example, is your website supposed to be your main source of leads? Do you want customers to buy products/services from your site – Ie is it a store? Do people read about what you do on your website and then book your services? The list of what a website is meant to be doing for a business is endless – unfortunately, so are the problems.

Why is my website not generating sales?

1. Your website has navigation based on the names you have given to your product ranges. All too many times a customer can go onto a site and find menu options called things like “Poliminato” “Gratina” “Millitar” etc. I’ve just made those up, but you know what I mean – household, kitchen and furniture stores are often guilty of this. The problem is users have no clue about the names of your ranges (nor do they care) so how do you expect them to know what to buy? Do you really think they will wade through all your ranges to see what’s there? Not a chance.
2. Similarly, do you have menu items such as “products”, “services”, “solutions” all on the same menu? What is the user meant to click on to find out what services you offer? Are you expecting them to know the difference between products, services, solutions? Do you just hope they’ll click around? Do you have no clue whether to call your offerings products, services or solutions, so you use all three? Again you are losing customers.
3. Do you simply not get it, and are getting frustrated and angry about why people don’t buy your product/service? Do you feel you don’t have a problem, and the problem is everyone else’s? “Those idiots! Why are they buying from them when they should be buying from me!!”
4. Is your site and what you offer all over the place?
5. Are you fooling yourself that things are working because you get social media ‘likes’, yet the ‘likes’ don’t somehow translate into sales?
6. Do you have half baked descriptions of items you sell? Missing information, inconsistent information, crucial info, such as sizing, missing from some products but not others?
7. Do you have an ineffective ecommerce solution, that does nothing to install confidence in customers that your site is safe to buy from, and that your products are genuine?
8. Does your website look like it was built in the 90’s, but you think “who cares!”?
9. Are things like returns, terms, privacy, refunds, delivery, etc hidden somewhere on your site (or missing altogether) in the hope that customers just won’t bother about that stuff?
10. What is your customer service like? Do you get back to people in 5 days with a sulky reply?
11. Do you have autoresponders set up? Do you even know what they are?

More often than not, website owners are not even aware of the problem. Sales are just not happening and they don’t know why.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, then you need to identify the problem(s) and get it fixed, fast.

If you’ve been asking yourself the question, ‘why is my website not generating sales’, and not come up with an answer yet, feel free to drop us a line to see if we can help. If you’re business is struggling you may also want to check out our Why do so many startup businesses fail? article.