If you’ve ever wondered why you’re not getting the level of enquires you wanted, conversions you dreamed of or general business success from your website then here’s 10 hard hitting pointers as to why.
1. It’s ugly and old.
Granted beauty is in the eye of the beholder but has the design of your website fallen out of the ugly tree, hit every branch on the way down and then been beaten with an ugly stick? You have 3 seconds to make a first impression on a visitor and it’s the overall design/colours/style they see first. People are harsh judges and you wont get a second chance.
2. Your site colours cause blindness.
We’ve seen sites where we needed medical attention for temporary blindness caused by the severity of the colours used. For example; bright pink might be your favourite colour but the majority of the word disagrees so use it sparingly. Also light text on dark backgrounds strains the eyes.
3. It’s a mess.
A mess can mean a number of things such as multiple font types and multiple font sizes, things in different places, images all over the place, multiple colours applied to different texts, random patches of bold, italics, underlined all over the place. You might have a wonderful design but if the content is a mess then that’s the weakest link and it will be a ‘Goodbye’ from the visitor.
4. Pointless splash pages.
Do you remember luminous socks? Yeah, they went out of fashion about the same time as splash pages. A splash page is that sort of ‘pre’ page you sometimes get which is sort of a teaser to the main site. It’s often a flash animation that you have to wait to load. Waste of time folks, most people have scampered before it’s even loaded.
5. It’s busy busy busy.
6 Columns of text, 20 choices to make, moving boxes here, flashing boxes there every inch of the landing page is screaming for your visitors attention at the same time…. you get the idea don’t you…it’s a fail!
6. The copy is drivel and way too long.
When entertaining at home would you tell your guests your life story before they’ve even got through the door and gotten comfortable with the surroundings? The same is said for your website. Don’t bore your visitors with paragraphs of information before they can get acquainted. Give them enough to get them interested, and then the option to read more. Some will want to read more and some wont so cater for both types of visitor. Use a copywriter to write text that will engage with your visitors and just the right amount.
7. You’re making your visitors think.
Is the way you channel the visitors to the right information difficult & cumbersome for them? Are the most important things right in front of them (and this is the important things to your potential customers not to you, most don’t care what you think is important)? Can people find their way around easily enough? Do they know where they are at all times? Are you holding their hands or are they fumbling around? Don’t make them have to think.
8. Contact Details.
Your visitors may not know who you are, there’s a lot of scammers out there are people are quick to judge and be cautious. Don’t give them a reason to flee by withholding your contact details, especially your address. Simply having just a contact form or email address is a major fail on a website. There should be a landline number (not just a mobile), your full trading address and if you’re a Ltd company your registered office address as well.
9. Don’t ask – Don’t get.
Are you asking your visitors to buy, to contact you, or do ’something’? This is called a ‘call to action’ if you’re net asking (or telling even) people to do something then they aren’t going to do it and might become ambivalent and go elsewhere.
10. You’re not listening.
You don’t listen to what your customers do and don’t like and you don’t act upon this valuable feedback. Maybe you aren’t listening to the advice given by those around you? We all handle criticism differently but take it all on board, embrace it and do something with it as it could mean the difference between failure or success.
So there you go. Do you think your website is as perfect as it can be? Room for improvement? Does it need a little TLC? Do get in touch with us if you’d like our honest opinion on your website and you’d value what we’d say, be it good or bad.
We love to hear your comments so please do leave them below.
Posted on June 27th, 2011
Great advice, but I have a question regarding number 8… does this same advice apply for someone working from home, obviously its a private address and some may not feel comfortable placing that on the internet for all to see.
2 things I’d say. First is it’s far more common for people to work from home these days. In fact i’d say it’s common place so the expecation that you’d work in an office is no longer really there. Secondly why not see it as a filter. If someone is goign to judge you becasue you work from a home office what does it potentailly say about how the job might go and working with them? I think not having an address says far more in a bad way than having a home address. And to be honest it’s potentially only revealed as a home address if someone bothers to stalk by using google streeet view.
Thanks for the reply Gary.
I think perhaps it maybe stems from a wish to seperate a persons private life from work that gets in the way of the desire to add the whole address. Placing the full address on there is of course the correct thing to do… I believe it makes the company/individual look more professional.
Very good point about street view too.