Okay, so now your company has a website, but it is not drawing in customers. Don’t get angry, and don’t panic.
Take a look at your website, and put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer of your product or service.
1. No Obvious Calls to Action
According to a recent survey, 70% of small business-to-business small businesses do not have a call to action (CTA).
A CTA is something that causes your reader to take action. The last thing you want is for someone to go to your website, read it, and move on, without taking action. Remember that if someone goes to your website, it is because they specifically searched for what your company offers or sells.
This CTA can include:
- Calling for a quote
- Requesting an estimate
- Purchasing an item
- Subscribing to an email newsletter
- Viewing a product demo
Regardless of what your CTA is, clarity is key. If you see a button that says “Call for Quote,” “Request Estimate,” or “Purchase Product” then the CTA is direct and obvious to the reader.
These words make it very clear what you want and implant the words into the customers minds; thus, making it more likely they will follow through.
Make habit of using multiple CTA’s and changing up to see which perform the best.
2. Outdated or Non-Existent Content
Is your content new? When was the last time you put up new information?
If the content on your website is old, or worse, there is not any content, then you are turning customers away.
Why? Because when customers don’t see new content, they begin to wonder if your business still exists. They wonder if the webpage is still up, but the business is no longer operating.
And guess what happens? They don’t take any action. They move on.
In addition, search engines love fresh content.
Every time you update your content, the search engine comes back around and discovers new content. When this happens, your content moves higher up on search engine results.
3. Unclear Audience
Some people aim their website to everyone; however, in actuality, your content should be aimed directly at your customers. They should feel as if you are standing right in front of them carrying on a conversation.
To do this, you have to know your niche audience. What do they do? What kinds of things do they like? What is their income? age? interests?
Knowing these facts about your target audience will help you design a website aimed directly at them.
For example, if your target audience is retirement age you may not design a website with loud fluorescent oranges and greens. Similarly, if your target audience consists of teens who listen to heavy metal music, a website with muted earth tones would most likely not draw them in.
4. Un-Professional (childish) Design
Does your website look like it was designed by a professional?
Sometimes, to save money, business owners ask a relative who does amateur web design to design their website. The problem is that the website appears amateur.
Remember, your website represents you and your business; thus, the image that it should bring to mind is one of professionalism, integrity, intelligence, and calm.
A professionally designed website can help create the image that you want your customers to have of your business because a professional website can use color, images, and videos in ways to capture your audience.
On the flip side, websites that have too much visual stimulation will distract your customer. This includes glaring colors, varying fonts, too much text, too many photos…basically, a distraction is too much of anything.
Eliminate the distractions, and keep your customers focused on your calls to action.
If your website doesn’t scream that you are a professional and know your stuff, consider having it created by a professional.
5. Slow Load Time
Download time is the amount of time that it takes for the pages of your website to download. In general, if it takes more than 15 seconds for your site to download, your readers will move on to the next website.
This is especially important if your website is one that customers will access in the evening when they are off work.
Some people do not have time to search the web for personal reasons during the work day. Instead, they must do any searching and purchasing after work when there may be more people on the web; thus, slowing the download time.
This time-of-day factor is important to remember with your website.
6. Not Mobile-Friendly
Of the estimated 30 billion annual mobile searches, about 12 billion are local searches (Search Engine Land). This means that your website has to be easily readable from a cell phone.
Too often, websites may look fine when viewed from a desktop or laptop computer; however, when this same website it viewed from a cell phone, the user experience is entirely different.
Graphics that appear on a computer don’t appear on a cell phone. Or text that looks more than adequate on a computer appear so jumbled that the reader can not easily read it.
So, make sure that your website looks good from the user perspective on both a computer and a cell phone.
7. Inconsistent Branding
In order to build trust in your company as a professional business, it is important to keep all branding (both on- and off-site) consistent. This means having messages, pictures, logos, symbols, fonts, colors, and so on that are consistent and will allow potential customers to relate the various images and messages to your company’s brand.
In other words, your potential customers may be receiving information about your company from different sources (website, social media, logos), but there will be a consistency in the values and visuals that will represent your company in a positive manner.
Brand recognition and perception will help build your business, and ultimately leads to more sales for your company.
Conclusion
This is just the beginning of the potential problems you may have with your website, but these issues are the most visible and the easiest to correct. Follow these tips and you will be on your way to building a successful website that will attract the users your company desires.
A website is an ongoing process that must be maintained, so stay tuned as we keep you updated on more tips for building and maintaining an effective website, as well as a successful web presence for your company through social media and other tools.
We’d love to hear from or to discuss your web design and development needs – give us a shout.