Is visibility the real problem? 👓

Hello Reader,

Before I get started, here are a some housekeeping notes:

1. My good friend and colleague Jamar Diggs and I are back for our annual December gabfest and you're invited. This is always a blast and this year our theme is loosely predictions and trends. Sign up for free for this Dec 6 live event.​
2. I mentioned this in a PS last week but I wanted to reiterate that I'm considering hosting an affordable live workshop on how to plan changes to your website without tanking your visibility in the search engine. The idea is that it could be useful whether you're DIYing or working with a pro. It'll draw on my recent experience migrating my website to a new platform so I have current data to share. Express your interest here and I'll make some decisions in the next week or so. ​
3. Next week's email will be brief, as my Friday after US Thanksgiving open rate is always terrible since it's not about sales and such, but I hope it's still handy!

Okay, on to the subject at hand...

Visibility! That's the top reason people reach out to me—they believe they need to be more visible and that's the missing piece of the equation if business is slow or leads aren't consistent.

And sometimes that is the case—visibility can be a simple problem to solve when it really is just a "we need to get ourselves in front of more potential buyers" problem. You can improve your search engine visibility, run ads, connect with your community, and do all kinds of other tactical actions to get those numbers up and reach more people.

However, it often isn't that simple, the visibility problem is a bit of a problem itself.

We all tend to be kind of not great at self-diagnosing our business or marketing challenges. We can often get in the general ballpark, but the granular stuff is what trips us up.

So, when people come to me saying, "I need to get more people on my website," I ask questions, the first one being, "Is this really a visibility issue?"

And sometimes it is—if someone's website is essentially invisible, that's an obvious visibility problem. This is fairly common with more straightforward service businesses like law firms that provide an "I need it now" type of service (employment, personal injury, etc).

More often than not, however, it's a bit more complicated. Here are the three big things I see most often when people are dancing around a self-identified visibility problem.

1. Conversion Problems. "Conversion" is a marketing term I've never loved, because it really doesn't properly capture the process, but it's the term we have, so we'll go with it here. There are often a couple of simple fixes to this issue when folks have people coming into their marketing ecosystem but they're not doing anything.

The first is that we want to make it crystal clear that you are available and are taking on new clients. I see this quite frequently with consultants and creative types who are awesome at talking about what they do but often aren't the most consistent when it comes to actually saying, "Hey I can help you with this, click this button and get started." (Maybe don't use that as your specific call to action...)

Additionally, small language tweaks, including reminding people in your content marketing funnels that you're a professional who works with clients, you're not just providing education, can make a huge difference here.

2. Messaging Problems. Messaging is tightly intertwined with conversion optimization, but it's useful to separate it because there's an audience component here as well. Again, this pops up a lot with consultants and creatives, but no industry is immune here, and I see it a lot with newer businesses or business that have made significant pivots.

You may very well have great visibility, but it's not visible to the right people, or if it is, the message doesn't land. Make sure you're speaking to the right audience—in their language.

3. Product-Market Fit Problems. This is the juiciest problem of them all that crosses industries—truly I've seen it in every industry I've worked with. You can have great visibility, amazing messaging, but if your offer doesn't sync up, it's a tough sell.

The good news is that it's super fixable. I encourage folks in this situation to evaluate their offers and ask some questions:

• Does the price match my message?
• Does the pricing of all my services make sense?
• Is there clear differentiation in my offers?
• Do the offers feel vague or unclear?

Gone are the days when most folks can just say "contact me for a quote!" and put together an offer on the fly—consumers are savvy and busy and overwhelmed and need more information than this, even if it's as simple an example.

Now, with all that said, visibility still can be a player in all of these problems, but for folks who've been successful and are established, it's rarely the number one problem. People know you, they have some familiarity. This is why it's such a mistake to put any one marketing tactic, such as SEO, in a silo.

We've got to look at these marketing challenges from a 360º view.

(And to take my own medicine, this is all stuff I help with—get started in 2025 by filling out this form.)

Talk soon,

Sarah

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