Day 98: Why Most Self Storage Websites Lose Customers (And What to Fix First)

All right, folks. Welcome to day 98 of the Storage 100 series. I am Joe Downs with the Storage Moguls. Folks, your website is either your best salesperson or your worst enemy. And today I'm going to show you the mistakes most storage websites make and how to fix them. And if you're looking for a community with even more marketing and tech insights, join the Storage Moguls community at storage moguls.ai. That's storage moguls.ai. It's an AI-powered community with multimodal learning across every storage vertical. You can start for free and advance at your own pace. All right, today we are talking about why most storage websites lose customers and how to fix it. You might think I'm crazy, but let me tell you about a facility that spent $10,000 on a beautiful website with modern design and professional photos, and it looked amazing, but it had a problem. It didn't convert. They got 500 visitors per month and only 10 called. 2% conversion rate. That's absolutely terrible. They launched a new website with a simpler design and a clear call to action. The conversion rate jumped to 8%. Same traffic, 4 times the lead— leads, excuse me. Why? Because now there's a clear call to action. The number one website mistake is not having a clear call to action. Most websites show photos, list features, talk about the facility, but they don't tell visitors what to do next. The call now button needs to be everywhere— header, footer, middle of every page. Phone number in the header, clickable on mobile, one tap to call. Don't make them search for it. Repeat the CTA— CTA is call to action— every section. Call now to reserve your unit. Click here to see availability. Make it obvious. Visitors have short attention spans. Tell them exactly what to do or they will leave. Better yet, make the CTA a button they can click and rent a unit right there on your website or mobile app. Storage websites have too much context in general. Nobody reads paragraphs. Use bullet points, short sentences. Make it easy to scan. Focus on benefits, not features. Don't say climate-controlled units. Say your stuff stays protected from heat and cold. Don't say 24/7 access. Say something like access your belongings anytime, day or night. Benefits answer what's in it for me. Features just describe what you have. Visitors skim websites. Make your benefits scannable in 10 seconds or less. 80% of storage searches happen on mobile. If your website doesn't work on phones, you lose 80% of leads. Buttons must be large and tappable. Tiny buttons are impossible to click on phones. Phone numbers must be click to call. One tap and it dials. Don't make them copy and paste. Forms must work on small screens. Reservation forms with 20 fields on a small screen? Nobody's filling that out on a phone. Test your website on your phone too, right now. If it's hard to use, it's losing money, guaranteed. Slow websites lose leads too. Visitors leave your page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. They're on mobile, they're impatient, not gonna work. Compress the images. Huge photo files slow everything down. Use compressed JPEGs or WebP format. Remove unnecessary plugins. Every plugin adds load time. Only keep what's essential. Test your speed at pagespeed.google.com. pagespeed.google.com. Google tells you exactly what's slowing you down. Fast websites convert, slow websites lose money. It's up to you, but I'd fix your speed. Hiding pricing is another conversion killer. Call for pricing makes visitors suspicious. What are you hiding? Are you expensive? Show pricing up front, at least starting rates. 10 by 10 units starting at $100 a month. Exact pricing builds trust. Visitors know what to expect before they call. Competitors show pricing. If you don't, visitors call them instead, or worse, push their mobile buttons to rent from them without calling you. Yes, some facilities have dynamic pricing. That's fine. Show starting at X dollars a month pricing. Give them a ballpark. Transparency wins here. Secrecy loses. And here's what should be on your homepage. Big headline at the top. Secure storage in fill in the city. Tell visitors they're in the right place. Phone number in the header. Clickable on mobile. Repeated everywhere. The Reserve Now button. Big, obvious, above the proverbial fold. Unit sizes and pricing. Show 5x5, $50 a month. 10x10, $100 a month. 10x20, $180 a month. Clear and simple. Photos of your facility, exterior, interior, units. Show professionalism. That's it. Don't overthink this. Simple converts better than complex. Reservation forms should be short, like really short. Ask for name, phone, email. That's it. Don't ask for unit size, move-in date, payment info. Too many fields equals abandoned forms. Your goal, get them on the phone, not complete the entire rental online. Once they call, you can upsell, answer questions, close the deal. We already covered that. Short form— short forms convert 3 times better than long forms. Every extra field loses 10% of leads. Make it easy. 3 fields. That's it. That's all you need. If your mobile rental process is simple and easy, then go that route, but follow the above rules. If you aren't set up for that yet, follow the above and drive the leads to call you ASAP until you get set up for mobile rental. Bottom line, most storage websites are too complex. Clear call to action. You need a mobile-friendly design, fast load speed. That's it. Those 3 things matter more than your fancy design. Simple websites convert better than fancy ones. Don't overthink this. Test your website on, on your phone. If it's hard to use, you now know you're losing leads, so fix it. That's costing you leads every single day. All right, please hit the like, subscribe, and share buttons all at once right now, or one at a time, so your network knows you understand website optimization now. So when you're operating facilities, they will see you as someone who maximizes every dollar and probably want to invest with you. Now, Next up, tomorrow, day 99, Facebook ads for self-storage, what actually works. And remember, a bad website doesn't just look unprofessional, it actually drives customers to your competitors. So fix the basics and watch your phone ring more. For more website audit checklists, recommended vendors, and an entire community of aspiring storage owners all the way up to actual storage moguls, you should probably consider joining our community, Storage Moguls. Join for free, storagemuggles.ai. All right. All right. Oh, where am I? Oh, only 8 episodes left. 8. I can't believe this. On the one hand, I'm so excited to be nearing the end of this. On the other hand, I'm insanely stupid because I'm starting the Boat and RV 100 right after it. So what are you going to do? You're going to keep watching. I'm going to keep recording. Boat and RV 100 coming up, completely different asset class. A lot of crossover though. Very cool, very fun. And I'm going to go in the same depth of analysis you've come to expect here. So remember, folks, self-storage is what brought you here. This is one of my sayings to everybody in our community, our students, everybody. But it's also— or what makes storage so exciting, I should say, is all the other verticals like boat and RV storage coming up next. And it frankly transforms you from someone who's just interested in self-storage to someone who's— by the time you're done with us and our community, you're going to be a storage mogul. And your friends will be talking about you in a good way and holding you in high regard. It's pretty cool. All right. Tomorrow we continue your journey on becoming a storage mogul. See you then.