Sometimes your business feels stuck. We get it, we’ve been there.
Keep in mind, not every business problem shows up as a broken website.
In fact, many businesses reach a point where nothing looks obviously wrong:
The website works, enquiries come in, and the basics are covered, but progress still feels slow or unclear.
You might have read our earlier posts about website redesigns or why some websites don’t work and thought “that’s not my issue, the website seems fine”.
And yet, something still feels off.
Why the website often becomes the default thing to fix
When something in a business isn’t quite working, the website is often the first thing people look at.
It’s visible, tangible, and relatively easy to change.
Updating a website feels like progress, even when the underlying issue might actually sit elsewhere.
And while that instinct isn’t wrong (and it is always good to do a website audit anyway)… it’s just incomplete.
The “nothing is broken, but nothing is working” phase
This is a common place for owners to end up when their business feels stuck.
Does this sound like you?
As you know, business is so much about levers.
What levers can you push and pull to get the results that you need?
So, in this case, the website isn’t failing, but it also isn’t the lever that will unlock the next stage.
What usually needs attention before anything digital
When a business feels stuck, the problem is often upstream from the website.
What do we mean by that? The website is doing its job, but there may be other issues clouding optimisation.
These might be things like:
Why it’s hard to know who to talk to
This is usually the point where things get frustrating.
Most specialists look at the business through the lens of what they sell, whether it’s design, SEO, ads, branding.
Advice often comes packaged with a solution before the problem is properly understood.
That can make it difficult to work out where to start, or even what kind of help would be useful.
What a useful first conversation looks like
The answer is in the title! It’s a conversation, not simply a service offering.
Useful early discussions should drill down on how the business actually operates, where things feel stuck or inefficient, what’s working well and shouldn’t be touched and what outcomes matter right now.
From there, it becomes much clearer whether the next step is a website change, a systems adjustment, or something else entirely.
Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is gold. Especially from someone who knows business, but isn’t involved directly in yours.
It can feel overwhelming to try and explain your business, and why your business feels stuck, to someone else (especially when you have a million other things to do), however, that’s why consultants are key.
They force business owners to verbalise what they do, how they do it and why, to someone outside of their inner circle. Often even this practice alone can open their eyes to what’s missing or ill-defined.
When a website is the right thing to work on
None of this is to say that websites don’t matter.
Let’s recap our previous article on this. A website is often the right thing to work on when:
The key difference is knowing why you’re changing it, and not just default to changing it when things seem stuck.
Let’s recap our previous article on this. A website is often the right thing to work on when:
Changing the website without understanding the problem often just moves the confusion around.
Not knowing where to start when problems arise doesn’t mean something is wrong, it usually just means the next step isn’t obvious yet.
Taking the time to understand the situation properly often saves far more time and money than jumping straight into solutions.