Your website is your digital showroom. It should attract people and make them want to convert from visitors to customers.
If your website is not creating the conversions you have expected or if you are not ranking well on search engines, it may be time to reevaluate certain aspects of your site and determine if mistakes are scaring away your customers.
You need not be a professional web designer to create an attractive site. We will discuss some mistakes you might make that could scare away potential clients.
Unbelievably Slow Site Speeds
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your site who become customers. If 100 people visit your site in a day and three people purchase something, you have a three percent conversion rate.
Research shows that website performance, especially site speed, impacts conversion rates. A page that had a 2.4 second load speed had a 1.9 percent conversion rate. A similar page with a 5.7 second load speed had a 0.6 conversion rate. A major retailer found that by improving their Internet speed by one second, they increased their conversion rate by two percent.
An Unpleasant User Experience
Just think about the last time you shopped in a brick-and-mortar store. If the store was well-designed, you felt comfortable shopping. If the aisles were tight, the salespeople were intrusive, and the music was too loud, you wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
The same thing happens with your website. The experience your users have from the second they get there will impact how they engage with you. Some factors to strive to improve include:
- Page navigation
- Design elements
- Intuitive drop-down menus
- Following aesthetically pleasing design principles
A Website That Is Not Mobile Friendly
A mobile friendly website is one that will display properly on handheld devices and on a computer or laptop. It should respond to any device or display.
It would be foolhardy to think your customers are not looking at your site from a mobile phone. Over 50 percent of online traffic comes from mobile devices and via mobile apps. Websites that are optimized for mobile:
- Lead to improved conversion rates
- Offer faster mobile download speeds
- Improve user experience
- Are more flexible and cost-efficient than developing an app
Terrible Copywriting
How do you know if your copywriting is scaring visitors away? Ask yourself, does it include unnecessarily formal words, for example, using ‘purchase’ as opposed to ‘buy?’ Is it full of unnecessary exclamation marks? If your copy sounds like it came out of an infomercial from the 90’s then you are doing something wrong.
Your copy should be in an active voice. You should keep sentences short, but they should be long enough to transmit ideas. Marketing strategy experts agree that wordy copy obscures the message you are trying to get across. If you don’t need an adjective, get rid of it.
Avoid Low Resolution Images
A picture is worth 1,000 words. A low-resolution image is like a person mumbling. You don’t understand what they are saying, and you lose interest quickly. You want to optimize your images so they don’t bog down your website.
Don’t scare away your audience with a poorly designed website. Offer them the best online experience you can. This will lower your bounce rate, establish your online presence, and lead to more conversions.
