078: Is Your Website Silently Holding You Back?

In this episode, Jules White explores the subtle yet powerful ways your website could be blocking your sales without you even realising. Whether you’re a local business or selling online, your website should be a powerful sales tool—not a static brochure.

Jules shares how small tweaks to your site’s messaging, structure, and speed can dramatically improve your conversions and ease the pressure on social media. She also talks about how your website can help solve business problems like admin and customer service, so you can spend more time doing the work you love.

Key Takeaways:

• Website as a Sales Tool: Why your website should guide visitors toward taking the next step—not leave them confused or bouncing.
• Small Tweaks, Big Impact: Strategic changes to your homepage, call-to-actions, or mobile layout can make a huge difference.
• Page Priorities: Where to start when improving your site (hint: focus on pages closest to the sale).
• Mobile Matters: Why mobile responsiveness, fast loading times and clear layouts are essential for local visibility and user experience.
• Rethinking Social Media Reliance: Why your own website content matters more than endless social media posts.

Related Episodes Mentioned:

• Episode 13 – SEO Basics - Your Essential Guide to Getting Found On Google
• Episode 28 –Exploring Social Media Minimalism: Building a Business Without the Scroll
• Episode 29 – Solving Business Problems With A Website & SEO Strategy: Is Your Website Pulling Its Weight?
• Episode 48 - Essential Elements of a High-Converting Homepage

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Try Google PageSpeed Insights to check how fast your website loads on mobile and desktop
• Use TinyPNG to compress large image files before uploading to your site

🎉 Join The Website Growth Club – Now Open for Founding Members!
Ready to stop guessing what your site needs and start seeing real results? Join The Website Growth Club to get access to bite-sized lessons, monthly website training, expert guidance, and a supportive community—all designed to help you turn your website into your best sales tool.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview
• 0:42 Identifying Website Issues
• 2:42 Improving Website Clarity and Functionality
• 3:54 Leveraging Your Website for Business Efficiency
• 5:01 Hidden Ways Your Website May Be Holding You Back
• 8:59 Optimising Website Performance
• 11:50 Balancing Social Media and Website Content
• 17:35 Actionable Steps for Website Improvement
• 19:53 Introducing The Website Growth Club
• 21:36 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Introduction and Overview

Hi, happy Friday. Hope you're well. So today I want to talk about something that might be silently holding your business back. Your website.

Your website. If you've got your products and your services, they're all sorted.

You are. You are making sales, but your website isn't.

Identifying Website Issues

If you're spending hours on social media, you've maybe got some traffic coming through from socials to through to your website, but you're just finding that those website sales are slow and you're wondering what's going wrong, then this episode could be for you.

So what if your website is silently holding you back in ways that you hadn't realised? What if your website could be more than like just a static brochure?

What about if you thought about your website slightly differently, and rather than just thinking of it as a, brochure that just kind of sits there, you've built it and then it, it's just there not really doing anything for your business.

What if it could be something that was actually bringing in sales every day and helping you to get your customers further along that buyer's journey?

Representing your business really well and something that you're proud of, something that you are, you love sending people to something that you actually feel is an asset for your business.

It is possible for that to happen with your website, and I want to talk it today about a few ways that you can make that happen and things that you might not have realised could be stopping this from happening for you.

So if you want to try and get your website working for you, making it a sales tool, something that is bringing in sales every day into your business without you having to spend hours on social and do all of the things that you have to do to get sales coming in at the moment.

And if you could just make a few small tweaks that could make a real difference this is one of those things that often I'll meet people and when they, when I tell them what I do, they say, oh, don't look at my website.

It's awful. Or, oh yeah, I know I need you, but it's kind of just gets pushed to the back burner and it doesn't really become a priority.

Whereas actually if you just spend some time on that, you are actually building an asset that you own. It's something that no algorithm can take that away from you.

It's something that you are then building something tangible that that can actually be working for your business.

Improving Website Clarity and Functionality

So I've seen lots of websites that will show up on Google, but they miss out on sales because their homepage is set up in a way that's really confusing.

It's just too much information. They're trying to get everything across in that hero section on their homepage, and just people bounce away because it's too much.

We are all overwhelmed within. Information nowadays. So making sure that our website is clear and does the job that it's supposed to is critical really in terms of actually having a website that will work for your business and do things for you really.

So one question I would say is, does your website content answer what that visitor needs, right at that moment.

So thinking about when people are coming into your website pages, what are they looking for? What information do they need from that page to help them to take that next step with you?

Whether that next step is signing up for your email list or joining your program, buying a product, booking an appointment with you, whatever it is you want them to do.

And sometimes that's not even clear. You've not thought about that yourself in terms of what you actually want them to do from that page.

The majority of people that are coming at into that page will be at this stage in their buyer's journey, and this is what I want them to do.

And sometimes just taking a step back and thinking about that can be a really good place to start.

Leveraging Your Website for Business Efficiency

Also don't forget that your website can solve other business problems as well.

And I talked about this back in episode 29. We talk about the, the things that your website can do besides actually being there as a brochure and as, as a way for people to find out more about you.

There are lots of things that it can do. I was having this conversation with a friend, last week where we were talking about a service provider who was fully booked and whether they actually needed a website and the things that it could help them with is not necessarily getting more client bookings, but it could massively help them with their admin.

So helping to them to have clients book appointments there, helping with frequently asked questions, those customer service type issues that we have, that if your website can be helping with that, then that allows you then to do the thing that you love, do the client work, sell the products, do the things that you, that you enjoy doing and that you started your business to do in the first place.

And let your website handle the admin part of it for you. So it's definitely worth thinking about that as well.

It's not just about what your website is representing for your business, it's also about what can it do? What can it do to help your business, not just make sales, but also make everything easier in your business as well.

Hidden Ways Your Website May Be Holding You Back

So let's talk about the hidden ways then that our websites can be holding us back. one thing I would say is when you think about your website, don't just think about how it looks.

Think about whether your messaging is clear. Think about whether a new visitor would be sure exactly what you offer.

Is it really obvious in plain language that anybody could look at and understand what you do, how you're going to make their life better, and what they need to do to get it within three seconds of landing on your website.

And if you don't, then that's one of the first things to do.

Thinking about how can I do that? How can I make this clearer and maybe. If you are too close to it yourself and you you're not sure whether it's clear or you know it's not, but you're not sure how to fix it, then work with somebody to help them help you with that.

That's the kind of thing I do with my clients. It's actually helping to get your messaging clear or ask chat GBT to help you to give you some guidance, give you some starter points.

Sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you just need another human to look at it to actually give you some ideas.

Ask. Other people ask your friends or maybe not your friends. Ask people who, maybe if you're sat in a coffee shop, open your website up.

Ask some the person sat next, you know, on the next table, would you understand what I do? And if they, if they don't, then okay.

Then try and explain it in a way that is that that would allow people to understand what you do and thinking about those benefits of what you do.

So not the features necessarily. Yes, it needs to be clear what you do and how you help people, but it's benefits of that.

How are you going to make their life better? Basically? What, what, what's in it for them really?

Is there a clear next step or are people bouncing off your website because they don't know what to do?

So is it obvious? What action you want them to take. And ideally it is just one action.

Sometimes this can be a bit different. On your homepage, you might have what we call a transactional call to action, which is where you're asking them to book an appointment to.

Make a purchase to buy something, you know, those kind of things. Or maybe we have a transitional call to action, which is where you're asking them to join your email list or find out more, or read a blog post.

So there's that. That's kind of the, the two types of call to action that you can have.

Ideally, if we can just have one, then great. The more you confuse people, the more additional options that you add in, the more choices you give them, the less likely that they are to then take that action that you want them to.

Thinking about your pages on your website, start with your most important pages. So think about your homepage.

Probably your about page is another important page on your website even that it needs to be, that needs to be helping.

It needs to be serving a purpose within your business more than just an about me sort of thing.

It needs to be showing why you are the trusted guide that is going to help the customer, who's the hero of your story, of their story, rather, it's going to help them to actually get to that result that they want and get to that point where you're going to help them make their life better.

Thinking about each page, and start with those most important pages first. So I would always say start with the ones that are closest to the sale.

It might be product category pages, some, or if you're an online store and you need to think about where to start.

Think about how you can make those clearer. And what what people need to do, make it very easy to understand what to do to actually buy the thing that you are selling and adding in things like three steps.

I've talked about this in previous episodes as well, about the three steps to your success.

I think I talked about this when I we on the episode about the essential things your homepage needs. So I will link to that.

I can't remember the number, but I'll link to that in the show notes as well. But thinking about that, thinking about how can you make it really, really obvious and clear to people how easy it is to buy from you.

Overcome any objections and to help them sort of see themselves in that future version of them that is getting the benefits and living the life that they want from what you're selling to them, basically.

Rather than people come onto your website and they just bounce away because they don't understand what to do, they don't understand what you do, they don't understand how, what's in it for them.

Making sure that's clear.

Optimising Website Performance

Making sure your your site isn't slow to load or clunky or mobile, especially for local businesses. If clients are looking for your business, customers are looking for your business locally, they are.

I mean, most of the time people are going to be on mobiles regardless of whether they're at home or whether they are out and about, but especially for those local businesses.

Make sure that your website works really well on, on mobile. Make sure your images aren't too big, that it takes forever for it to load.

Make sure that the font size isn't too small. Make sure everything's not crammed together.

So if you're using your phone and you're touching your buttons with your finger. Make sure there's enough space around them.

Make sure it real. It is really easy to do that. Make sure that your font sizes say that they are big enough, but not too big as well.

That's the other thing is we don't want people to be having to scroll loads and loads to actually then. Be able to get to the point that they need to.

So thinking about that, thinking about that above the scroll, above the fold part of your website, that bit at the top, that loads when you first come onto your website, getting that, information in there that you need, that's going to help to get the trust across as well.

And just making sure that that bit is, is really set up well. Thinking about. if you want to sort of look at, at your page speed, you can go to Google page Speed Insights, and this will give you an idea of how your website is performing on desktop and mobile.

It's worth running the check the check three times, because sometimes you'll check it once and then you won't get, you won't get a reliable score.

There are other things you can check. There's one called Pingdom and speed test.net. No, that's, hold on. No, that's one for checking your broadband speed. but Google page speed insights will give you an idea of what's happening.

It will tell you whether you are massively slow or mobile. If you are, then you can scroll down.

Lots of it will look like technical jargon, but you might see in there something like reduce file sizes of images and those kind of things.

Ideally, you want your image sizes on your website to be under a hundred kilobytes. I quite often will look at websites and they, they'll have images on there which are over a megabyte, which is a thousand kilobytes.

And that's the kind of thing that if you've got those problems on your website is something you can go in and you can fix that yourself.

You can use an image compressor like tiny PNG, and you can upload those files. Up to your website again and replace that.

And that can make a big difference. It's just that thing of if it takes a long time to load on mobile, Google understands that.

And so everything being equal, if you've got two sites that Google's thinking about, which one of these am I going to put in position one, if one of them loads fast and the other one doesn't, everything else being equal, they're going to show, show the one that loads fast.

And also people get fed up. People get fed up of waiting. If you are, if, if you start loading a site and it looks like it's not loading.

They're going to go back to Google again because they're people don't have a long attention span, really.

So are you, putting loads of effort into your social media?

Balancing Social Media and Website Content

And then not doing anything with your website. This is probably one of the most common things that I see when I talk to people.

It's something that often happens. I'll look at their website and it's very thin content.

They're not really talking about the problems they solve. They're not really talking about their core topics.

They're not really talking about the important things that they want to be known for really. And then I'll go over to their social media and that's what they're doing there.

They're talking about it over and over again. They've got amazing content there. Everything is looking good there, and they're not doing that on the thing that they own.

And it's, it's so common. It really is. And I think it feeds into this thing that we are told that we have to use social media.

That there is no, option other than using social media in our business. So it kind of gets drummed into us of, oh yes, I need to make sure that that is really selling me, but you don't then necessarily get the return that you are looking for.

And you're not necessarily then connecting with people when they're actually searching for solutions to their problems or the thing that you actually sell.

So that's where my whole ethos around social media and my whole, you know, banging on about create your own content first.

Work on things that you own first. That's where that comes from.

I've got lots of episodes talking about social media. Episode 28. is exploring social media minimalism and how to, build a business without social media.

And it's one of those things that I feel in my heart, I know this is my calling, that I need to be helping people more with this.

I did a networking event yesterday and The first breakout room, we were talking about what is our secret mission in our business, and I feel like that is my secret mission.

My secret mission is to help women to build a business with zero reliance on social media. And even saying that myself, I, I kind of feel like, oh, is it possible, you know, because.

I feel it. I feel that thing of, oh, okay, maybe if I did just post to social media, that's going to be the thing that's going to make me a millionaire.

And realistically, it's not. It's not. And I know that there are other ways.

And even with the podcast, the fact that I'm almost at 5,000 downloads without promoting it on social media or paying for ads.

I'm so proud of that. Because it is then showing that it's possible.

It's showing that there is another way, and it's not that I'm saying you shouldn't use social media. I think definitely it can be a great tool for your business, and I think it's important to have a presence there.

But the thing that annoys me and the thing that sort of like I really want to stand against is that we're told that you can't build a business without it.

So that you have no, you have no choice. And I really don't believe that.

I don't like. The, like the, the purpose behind social media.

I don't like the fact that it encourages us to feel worse about ourselves. You know, the whole thing with the algorithm is it is designed to keep us there, keep us feeling like we are in a adequate, keep us feeling like we are not good enough.

And generally that does often happen. So much comparisonitis, so much hate there as well.

That actually I want to. I help people to have a choice to whether they use it or not.

So that's actually a complete ramble rather than what I was actually going to talk about this morning. But there we go.

I've said it out loud. That's my mission to help businesses, to grow their business with zero reliance on social media.

Maybe that's the thing. The reliance part of it is, is the thing that makes it less scary, because you can still use social media without being completely reliant on it really.

Anyway, think if we're talking about the things that our website is doing that we are not happy with, or if we are thinking about the ways that our website could be silently holding us back, if you think about a shop, so if you walk into a beautiful little shop and there's no signage, nobody greets you and you don't know what they sell.

And that's quite often what a lot of websites feel like. If you think of your website, it is your shop.

Ultimately. If you are making sales through your website, which you should be, then it's your shop.

So you wouldn't open a shop and then completely neglect it. Never make any tweaks.

Never move the shelves around basically. You wouldn't do that.

So I think thinking of your website as your online shop, and maybe the thing that you're selling is booking appointments, or maybe the thing that you're selling is people joining your email list, but you're still selling something through your website.

So it's really important to spend some time on that. the fix is, and this is a good part is that you probably don't need a whole new website.

It's very, very rare that I say to people that they need a whole new website. Usually a few tweaks and a few simple tweaks can make a big difference.

And this is one of the things that since I've been, since I've launched The Website Growth Club, and since I've been thinking about the ways that I can break things down and make them easier.

I think actually just focusing on that, focusing on what are those small tweaks that I can make that could make a big, big difference.

And doing lots of the website audit episodes that I've done for the podcast has really helped to show me that, 'cause I'm saying it's the same things over and over again on different websites.

It's pretty much the same things of, is your messaging clear? Do people know what you do?

Are you selling them the benefits what you're selling your product or your service. Do people know what to do next?

Those kind of things are the things that I see time and time again. Really.

So you're probably, your website probably isn't completely broken it, it isn't a complete write off. It isn't something that you should be ashamed of.

It isn't something that you should feel like there's no option and no hope to make it better, other than just paying loads of money to get a new website.

You're probably just missing that strategy to actually help it and get it working for your business really.

I often see it as well where people will think about having a website redesign, so they'll change the branding and they'll get it redesigned or move, platforms or do something that they think actually, yeah, that's, that's what I need to fix my website.

And often it isn't true. Often it's the strategy and it's the plan that you need behind it and the structure to actually then get your website working for your business really.

Actionable Steps for Website Improvement

So I've got a few things you can check for quick wins.

The clarity check is the first one. So can somebody instantly tell when they come onto your website, what you do, who it's for, how you're going to make their life better and what they need to do to get it?

And if that's not instantly clear, focus on that. Really make sure that every page, and particularly pages where you are getting traffic or you're sending people to.

So the things like your homepage, as I say, the ones that are closest to the sale as well. Think about those first.

Is that clear on those pages? Within those pages, there's a one clear call to action.

So is it, is it helping people to actually take the action you want? Is it a call to action that actually encourages them to do it?

So like shop our bestsellers rather than. Shop now or learn more does actually that button, does it help them to take the action that you want them to?

Are you using directional cues on your button? Little chevrons or an arrow pointing in the direction that you want them to actually go?

So it it, if you can do that, that's a little conversion tweak that can make a difference. Does it load quickly on your phone?

Does it look good on your phone? Is it mobile responsive?

Does it work well for people on their phone? So that's three checks that you can do straight away to see if your website is actually working.

So it's all about those strategic tweaks that can just guide people to take the action that you want them to.

If you listen to episode 13 of the podcast, that is all about some SEO basics. So there are other things in there that you can then check just to see if you've got those basics in place, and just to make sure that that is also working for you.

Remember, if you, if you don't know, if it's confusing, if you don't know, if your messaging is clear, get somebody else to check it for you.

Whether that is a friend or a family member or a business buddy. Accountability buddy.

Somebody like me who can check that for you and actually just give you some advice on ways you could make it clearer and have you thought about it this way and have you thought about it that way?

So just having so a, an expert opinion or somebody else's opinion can make quite a big difference as well.

And what to do if you don't know what are the right words to use. So you don't have to be a copywriter, you just need to be clear.

It needs to be helpful. It needs to be focused on your customer, and it needs to be something that is in really plain language, more plain language than you even think, really.

So just making sure that it's really, really clear.

Introducing The Website Growth Club

Within The Website Growth Club, which is my membership, I guide you through. A clear success path.

So that is my Pathway To Website Success, which is my framework, and the Growth Club is something that we are just launching with a founding me member launch at the moment.

So the, the idea is that it's a supportive community where you can get bite-sized lessons that will actually help you to move your website forward and to take action and to just to tweak your website over time so that you can encourage getting more traffic, more conversions, a better representation of your business through your website as well.

Without that guesswork, without the overwhelm, with support there to help you with it.

Everything I do is about bite-sized SEO and website improvement. So it is designed to be bite-size.

Each month you get a new lesson delivered. Then you have some time to implement that.

We have accountability calls, regular co-working calls, and time to ask questions so you can ask me questions, and then we'll have a live session where you can come along and ask, questions live. And then a week to catch up as well.

And then next month we will then have the next step in your pathway to website success. The next lessons delivered and we go from there.

But the most important thing is it's something that is helping you to move forward, helping you to take action and have that community and that support from me.

You're getting access to my brain so I can help you to understand it, and it will evolve depending on who joins. And depending on what you need, and depending on where you're stuck, the content will evolve.

I have my framework The Website Success Pathway. So I can guide you along those steps.

But if you need something particular for me, then I can create some content around that.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

So I want to give you an action step to do today. So choose one page of your website, maybe your homepage, maybe a sales page, and just think what is the action that you want people to take?

And is it clear? Is that immediately obvious what you want them to do. And if it isn't, then make some tweaks that can help with that.

And if this episode has hit home with you and you're ready to stop guessing. To stop ignoring your website and start actually taking some action.

Then come and join us inside The Website Growth Club. It's open now for founding members and I would love to welcome you there.

So I hope you have a lovely weekend. I will be swimming.

It's getting warmer. The spring's here, the blossoms out.

It's a beautiful time of year. So I hope you have a lovely weekend and I'll see you soon.

Bye.