Every business needs a website. It’s your most effective marketing tool, and with the majority of business done online these days, you would probably struggle without one. It’s not as simple as just throwing something together, however. Without due care, your website may put off potential customers, instead of attracting new ones. Here’s how.
1. You haven’t been very smart. With the number of people using smartphones and tablets to search the internet, your website needs to display properly on screens both large and small. Be sure to go beyond your laptop screen to make sure your website functions normally across a range of devices. There are web tools online to make this possible. Without optimization, pages will load very slowly, or in the worst case scenario, not load at all if the smart device isn’t equipped to deal with it.
2. Your site is the epitome of boring. If your site is generic to look at and uninspiring to use, your visitors are going to disappear at the click of a button. This is your opportunity to sell yourself, so make your site stand out, with eye-popping colours and an attractive presentation. Hiring the service of website designers is a must if you don’t have the ability or the time to spend on making your site look and feel good.
3. Your site makes the visitor spill their tea. No, we don’t mean they spill their tea with excitement! They drop their drink because your website has made them jump out of their skin. We are talking about annoying and loud sounds, from videos auto-playing to advertising tunes. The same applies to the jingle playing your live chat ‘May I Help You’ box when it pops up. No, you can’t help them, because they have left your site to visit A&E at the local hospital. Either that, or they can’t endure your noisy website any longer.
4. Your pop-ups are a plague. Whether it’s affiliate advertising or pop-ups for your own brand, you are going to annoy people if they have to endure pop-ups on every page they visit. ‘Subscribe here’ and ‘Buy now’ pop-ups are perfectly acceptable, but if they cover the whole page and obscure the text, your visitors are going to pop off when your website ads pop up.
5. People aren’t just ignoring you. Why aren’t people buying from you? It’s probably because they can’t get in touch with you. You need your phone number and email address highlighted somewhere on your site, and a contact form is also useful. You should also use ‘live chat’ but without the annoying jingle we mentioned. The more contact options you have the better, for yourself and the customer. Oh, and you should also have an FAQ page, as this might answer your customer’s queries if you can’t be reached immediately.
Bottom line
Look at other websites and consider their good and bad points. Using your experience, shape your website into something that is going to make your customers stick around for longer, and hopefully buy your product or use your service. It will take time, but your business will suffer if your website has some of the issues we listed above.