Having a website that accurately represents you and your business can do wonders for your online presence.
Considering 75% of people judge a company’s credibility based on their website, it’s plain to see why every business needs a strong website that, does its job to its full potential – even if your website is not the “front door” of your business.
The amount of potential revenue a poorly designed website can lose is huge, so, it’s important to figure out what exactly is causing you to lose those customers.
Below, are a few common mistakes that we’ve seen across many websites that hinder conversions.
1. Your Website Is Not Tailored To Your Ideal Customer
Knowing your target audience inside & out is paramount to online success!
Your website design & content should be completely tailored to your target audience.
Many websites fail to do this.
Our philosophy is; a website that doesn’t speak to its audience is dead weight to your business.
We’ve seen a lot of websites designed without a specific audience in mind; trying to sell to anyone & everyone!
The expression ‘you can’t please everyone’ comes to mind. Trying to achieve this is next to impossible, and will completely hinder your conversions.
In a few cases, slightly tweaking your website’s content is enough to remedy this.
However, in most cases, it’s worth sitting down with your web designer/developer to accurately define your ideal customer together & create a design strategy that is both suited to your business and tailored to your ideal audience.
2. Bad First Impressions
It takes 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website.
Yes, people really are that judgmental!
Your visitors instantaneously start forming an opinion on key things such as the perceived credibility of your business, even before they’ve read a single line of your content.
So no pressure, but first impressions really are important!
But how can you even tell if you have bad first impressions?
Bounce Rates
Well, say hello to “bounce rates”! If you’ve not heard this term before, it’s the percentage of users that enter your website and then leave within a few seconds.
So, if you have a high bounce rate, something is not right and it’s a key indicator that you need to make some changes.
94% of bad first impressions are design-related, so ensuring that you have strong branding and, an eye-catching design is key.
Exciting visual elements are a good way to start and, can help catch your site visitors attention!
Loading Times
Another big non-design related factor to consider is loading times.
No one likes waiting for a slow-loading website. So, if you’re website is too slow, it can cause people to go elsewhere.
In this instance, it’s best to talk to your designer/developer about speeding your site up!
3. Call To Actions
In case you’ve not heard of this before, call to actions (CTAs) are links that direct your visitor towards your conversion goal.
“Get In Touch”, “Learn More” & “Subscribe” buttons are all examples of CTAs that encourage people to interact.
When used and placed correctly, CTAs can improve conversion rates phenomenally.
If your website is lacking CTAs or, they are hard for your visitors to see, you could be missing out on a lot of potential conversions.
CTAs should be bold, clear & strategically placed throughout your site!
But, don’t go too crazy & put them everywhere! This could have the opposite effect and, cause your visitors to lose interest in your website altogether!
4. Your Form Is Too Complicated
Everyone loves filling out a good form.
Said no one ever.
Society is becoming more and more information conscious. So asking for irrelevant information in your forms is a no-go!
As a general rule of thumb, ask for the information you require, not information you’d like!
Not only will this make it less time consuming for your visitors but, it also helps streamline their experience.
Keeping your forms in 1 single column is advisable and, if you have a large number of fields then, splitting them over multiple pages prevents visitors from getting intimidated.
The design of your form can be a big contributing factor when it comes to increasing your conversion rate but, we’ll leave that topic for another blog.
5. Unconvincing Written Content
Your written content (aka copy) can make or break your website.
Even with the most stunning website in the world, if the copy is off the whole website is off.
Copy can be a complex thing to get right but, it’s important to keep it on point and up to date!
It has to be immersive, streamlined and, targeted to your ideal customer to keep them engaged!
When done correctly, your website copy can go a very long way in maximising your conversions.
So it’s always worth spending your time on your websites copy and ensuring it’s in tip-top condition!
6. Poor Mobile Website
50.6% of all internet traffic is mobile.
So with that in mind, it’s no surprise that if your website is not mobile responsive, you’re missing out on a big chunk of traffic.
And if that didn’t convince you, according to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site if they had trouble accessing it AND 40% of them will visit a competitor’s site instead.
The solution is simple, make sure your website performs well on mobile devices or even better, all devices.
7. Your Website Is Too Distracting!
This might sound odd coming from a designer, but, it is possible to over-design your website!
I’m talking about websites that have animations left, right, and centre with, crazy visual effects every 2 seconds and a super unique menu that nobody knows how to use because it was designed in the year 2090.
Don’t get me wrong, these are great when used in context.
But, it can also be extremely distracting to visitors which leads to an overall poor experience.
You never want your website to outshine your business!
It might sound counterintuitive to tone down the design but, in doing this, you allow your service/products to speak for themselves which, can ultimately, boost your conversions.
Summary
As you can see, conversions are affected by a plethora of factors.
If you feel like your website is losing you business, then it’s worth sitting down with a professional web designer/developer to figure out how you can tighten that “conversion seal”.
As Ralf Speth, the CEO of Jaguar said: “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design”.
If you need help with your website, get in touch.