Website Mistakes That Are Bad for Business
Now that you’ve spent all this time, creative effort, and maybe even money creating your awesome and engaging content, you had better make sure that all the new attention you’ve gained from your community isn’t going to waste. Imagine that someone sees and engages with one of your unique videos on Facebook, only to click through to your website that is overflowing with design flaws and loading errors! Not a great way to inspire confidence in those potential clients…
Unfortunately, this is the position that many businesses find themselves in – with a website that is driving away potential clients. But never fear, Marketing TEA is here! And today we are going to show you some of the most common website mistakes you might be making – and how to fix them.
- Mistake: Ignoring the Branding & Design
As much as we want to say otherwise, people really DO judge a book by its cover. Having a site with a slapped-together appearance doesn’t communicate professionalism and reliability in your services.
Solution: Make sure that your brand has a front seat in the conversation as you build your site. Colors, fonts, aesthetics. These are the things that a professional website designer like Marketing TEA can help you to put in place. WARNING: remember that a website is a partnership between design and functionality, each compromising with the other. The website user comes first as you create your design!
- Mistake: Ignoring Loading Speed
People are impatient! And we have no attention span. When clients are trying to decide if you would be a good fit for their needs, they’ll be looking to ascertain that information quickly. If your site is slow to load, they might just leave you in the dust. Researchers have found that if a website takes longer than 4 seconds to load, 25% of users will abandon it.
Solution: Test your website to see if this is an issue. Google Analytics offers a free page that will give you a rating for your website. If it’s falling behind, there are ways to help. Reducing your images’ resolution can make information load faster. Plugins and external scripts can also slow things down. If you’re still finding speed to be an issue, we encourage you to get in touch with a web pro (like us) to see what other options you might have to affect your speed!
- Mistake: Ignoring Mobile Optimization
Because you are using social media to reach your potential clients, there’s a good chance your site visitors will be browsing on their phones. In fact, many of the sites we manage at Marketing TEA see at least 50% of their site traffic coming from mobile devices. Having a website improperly formatted for mobile might make someone skip your page entirely.
Solution: Many site builders will automatically format your site for mobile, but this is something you need to check. HTML frameworks allow you to quickly format your site for different screens. Just like with your full site, you want to keep it clean and organized. Use buttons to allow your clients to access navigation menus. Compress images to help them load quickly. And don’t forget to do a test run! Regularly check your site on mobile to ensure it runs speedily and looks beautiful.
- Mistake: Worrying about quantity over quality
There are many reasons to want to fill your site with information, but a focus on churning out post after post can allow simple errors to sneak in, compromising your image of credibility.
Solution: Remember to keep your website content to a minimum. There is such a thing as ‘too much information,’ especially when it becomes disruptive to your design and the user’s experience. When you want to write a lot of information, use blogs! Regularly writing high-quality blog posts has the added advantage of helping your search engine optimization, allowing your page to appear higher on search pages.
- Mistake: Not including reviews or testimonials
According to this study by BrightLocal, 88% of customers will use reviews to determine the trustworthiness of a local business. ‘Nuff said.
Solution: Make sure to dedicate some space on your site for those amazing testimonials you’ve been creating for social media. Think of your website as the hub for your client conversions. A testimonial may be the exact thing needed to close the deal!
Don’t let your website slow your growth! If you keep an eye out for these major factors, you can significantly improve the conversion ability of your website and turn those potential clients into paying clients. Want to learn more? We’d love to take a look at your website with you to see where you can improve.