Why the heck is your website not selling more? It could be your eyes...

If you’re anything like most online marketers or website owners, you’ve probably tried every tweak, trick and technique you can think of to get your website to sell more.

Maybe you’ve even had a few successes and actually improved your conversion rates a bit.

Yet deep down inside, you’re positive that your site is capable of so much more.  You just know that with the right changes and improvements you could be converting a ton more visitors into buyers.

But the problem is…  You’ve hit a brick wall and just can’t figure out what to change or tweak.

Perhaps it’s time you tried a new pair of eyes!

Think about it…  You’ve probably looked at your website a thousand times.  You simply have too much knowledge about your products, your company, what you do and what you offer, to effectively see your website through a first time visitors eyes.

That’s where an impartial and independent evaluation of your website can give you a valuable, fresh perspective.

In many professions, getting an outside, second opinion is a common practice.

So how can you get an outside opinion about your website?

You have several options for finding that “new pair of eyes”.

You can ask your friends and family to take a look at your website.  They may notice a few details you’ve missed, like typos or other simple errors.  The main problem with family or friends is that they are often reluctant to tell you what they really think simply because they don’t want to offend you or hurt your feelings.

You can post a message to an online forum or discussion group asking for feedback on your website. There are even categories in some popular forums specifically designed to request feedback for your site. 

This is often a better option than family or friends, because you tend to get a broader cross-section of opinions and the forum members are less likely to sugar coat the feedback they give you.

But, there is one major draw back to either method of requesting feedback…  The input you get about your website from family, friends and even forum posters will simply be based on opinions or “feelings”, not on expert, tested and proven techniques or advanced sales psychology.

Basically… They may not know what the heck they are talking about!

Another method for getting outside feedback is to conduct a survey of your existing website traffic.  This is often one of the best options to get constructive feedback on how to improve your website. 

I frequently help my coaching and consulting clients conduct surveys of their website visitors as part of their conversion rate improvement programs. Your final option is to find a company or consultant offering professional website evaluations or critique services.  The benefit here is that in most cases a professional will give you a much more comprehensive evaluation of your website than you will get from friends, family or your website visitors.

However, the main problem with the “professional” route is that almost all of the companies offering this type of service are web design companies.  So the “evaluation” you get is usually just a disguised sales pitch for a full website redesign.

(Not to mention the fact that most web design firms don’t have the first clue on how to convert website traffic into buying customers…)

But if you screen website evaluation providers carefully you can find a few that will give you some outstanding recommendations.

Here are a few questions to ask anyone you hire to evaluate your site.

What is your background? (You want them to say they are marketers, not graphic or web designers, they need to understand sales psychology.)

Are your recommendations based on actual split test results?  (Often the recommendations you will receive are based on theory or “one size fits all” best practices.  Not on the results of actual testing, on actual websites.)

What kind of results have you produced for previous clients?  (You want them to show you case studies or testimonials from clients who have achieved measurable results.)

How much time and money will it take to implement the recommendations? Is this just a sales pitch for some ten thousand dollar website redesign?  (You want to make sure that the recommendations are going to be easy and affordable for you to implement.)

Done properly an outside, independent evaluation by a professional website evaluator or conversion rate improvement expert can significantly boost your websites sales.  (As long as you take the time to make sure you’ve found a good one.)

So if you’re out of ideas for improving your site…  Go out and get a fresh pair of eyes!