• A smaller, more focused website almost always beats a massive site stuffed with low quality information.
• It pays off to pour your effort into a handful of key services rather than trying to vaguely cover everything under the sun.
One of my clients had been paying another agency good money to build their website and then paid them a monthly retainer to manage their SEO.
Despite paying thousands of dollars on their web marketing, they were getting little to no online traction. Something wasn’t right.
They asked me to take a look at the data reports their former agency was providing them. Their website had almost zero traffic and they were receiving zero calls from Google and other online outlets.
It’s unfortunately common for hard-working business owners to lose thousands by trusting their marketing budget to “professionals” who often take advantage of their clients lack of knowledge.
And let’s face it, you don’t know what you don’t know.
This client decided to cancel their contract with the previous agency and Avanti Creative took over in collaboration with Monique Demopoulos of Little Indie Management & Get Real Brands.
When I finally got under the hood, I found the previous agency had created a site with over 120 different web pages. That is an unnecessarily massive website for a local service business.
We created a new website that only had 12 pages, by comparison and focused on quality over quantity. It started with a bit of a rebrand to emphasize our client’s target audience and their most distinct service offerings.
We built a website around those offerings, featuring high-quality photos, a smooth user experience, local SEO signals, and clear, compelling messaging by Monique that not only draws in the appropriate traffic, but directs visitors seamlessly to the contact form.
The result? Profitability within 3-4 months. The business saw a significant increase in calls from Google, its new website, and the social media content we created.
We signed a six month contract and the business recouped the full cost of the marketing campaign and then some by month 4. Marketing went from a cost to a revenue driver in just over 1 quarter.
So, what do we mean when we say the first website was unnecessarily huge?
The previous web design agency was doing something called doorway pages. This is when a designer creates dozens or even hundreds of pages to trick the Google algorithm to feature a service mixed with dozens of local locations.
In practice, this looks like:
Page 1: Tree Stump Removal in Manahawkin
Page 2: Tree Stump Removal in Barnegat
Page 3: Tree Stump Removal in Ocean Acres
Page 4: Tree Stump Removal in Ship Bottom
And so on.
While this sounds smart in theory, Google figured out this strategy years ago and actually penalizes websites for doing it. Consequently, creating doorway pages can quickly get your site flagged as spam or low-effort content, and Google will stop showing you to potential customers.
Even if Google doesn’t flag you, you’ve still created a red-flag experience for viewers. When your customers navigate to your website, the pages will look and feel generic and spammy.
No marketing agency can create 100+ web pages for a local business without using AI and copy-paste templates. You end up creating a website for Google and AI robots instead of your customers.
The Main Takeaway
Quality over quantity, every time, especially when it comes to your website.