It is the little things on websites that keep visitors happy or drive them crazy with frustration and ultimately drive them away. Have you asked yourself lately whether your visitors are happy? Sure, they filled out your forms and clicked on your buttons, but did they do this with a scowl or a smile?
This is not a list for Website Developers – it is for people who use the Internet to showcase their businesses, and can’t understand why they’re not getting the Conversion Rates they should. Think about visitors to your website like guests you are welcoming home – would you try to sell them insurance as you invite them in?
|
|
| |
| What’s Wrong with your Website? |
|
| |
| 1. |
You have a Landing Page that tries to be too fancy:
When someone arrives at your website, he doesn’t have the time to appreciate all your tricky artwork or cool quotes – he wants to know what your business does and why he should bother going past the Home Page at all. Some websites start off with large images, hidden links, and no information – disastrous. Keep your landing page direct, crisp, and informative. |
| |
|
| |
| 2. |
You play soothing music:
Most people hate websites that play music, and spend the first few seconds desperately looking for a mute button. Music just adds to the sensory overload we are all subjected to, and taste in music is an intensely personal thing. Turn it off now. Oh, and by the way, densely textured backgrounds are the same kind of assault, only visual instead of auditory. |
| |
|
| |
| 3. |
You have an ‘All or Nothing’ Call to Action:
Is there a way for visitors to take some action short of Buying Now? Does each page of your website allow visitors to take some action like subscribing to your Newsletter or Blog, or following you on Facebook or Twitter? If the only action a visitor can take is to open his wallet (even if only figuratively), he is likely to wander off. |
| |
|
| |
| 4. |
You ask people to negotiate complicated Captcha boxes:
You know what I’m talking about – those awful wavy letters and numbers that make you feel seasick just to look at them. Perfectly intelligent human beings have been known to repeatedly fail at reproducing them correctly – and what does that say about a test meant to establish that you’re human and not a machine? |
| |
|
| |
| 5. |
You tease visitors by offering only a few words followed by the phrase ‘Learn More’:
When no box on your e-commerce website has complete sentences, and visitors have to click on the dreaded words ‘Learn More’ all the time, they get mad. The chances are that they don’t have the patience to click through every time without knowing what’s awaiting them on the next page – what’s the point of ‘Learning More’? Dell Computers learnt the importance of this when they changed this phrase to 3 simple words ‘Help Me Choose’ in each product category, and watched their business increase by hundreds of thousands of dollars. |
| |
|
| |
| 6. |
You ask for complicated Passwords:
Unless your visitor is signing up to learn the nuclear launch codes, he does not want to have to create a Password that requires letters and numerals in upper and lower case just to get your newsletter every fortnight. If his Password is so complex that he has to write it down, it defeats the purpose of security, doesn’t it? |
| |
|
| |
| 7. |
Buying your product or booking a service is too hard:
The simplest way to check this is to log on to your website, pretend to be a customer, and try to buy a widget from your own company. Does it take 11 clicks to buy a peeler or book a hotel room? That’s too many. You need to display prices, sizes and features clearly so that guests don’t have to hunt for the information, and then grab them while their impression of you is still good. |
| |
|
| |
| 8. |
Your website doesn’t open on all browsers:
You might still be stuck with the same computer settings you had in 1993, but lots of people have moved on and are using the newer browsers – Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Apple Safari. You need to make sure that your website opens on every browser, or the first impression visitors are going to have of you is that your company’s image is broken and it hasn’t been fixed yet. While you’re fixing this, make sure your website can be viewed on a tablet or smartphone too. |
| |
|
| |
| 9. |
Your website is just too cluttered:
This is the era when many websites are full of fades, drop shadows, and reflections. Although these elements in moderation may sometimes make for great design, most often they just complicate the page. The most effective websites are simple and use a relatively large amount of white space – to rest the eye and let the messages speak clearly without being overtaken by visual elements. |
| |
|
| |
| 10. |
You don’t link to Social Media or to a Blog:
Sometimes a Facebook page or a Twitter account just lets people know that your company is alive and has real people working in it – it lets you bring a human element into marketing that the more traditional routes did not allow. So go on, reach out to the community out there and you’ll be amazed at what people really think of your company! |
| |
|
| |
| All of these problems are small and easily fixed. Go and look at your website today and see if you need to clean up your act! |
|
