Original content. Colors. Whitespace. Graphics.

These are all elements that work together to make your website interesting to potential customers and answer their questions. Unfortunately, you can’t just throw together a website with your business colors, throw a few graphics on the pages and call it a day. There is so much research available that proves that the appearance of your website has everything to do with conversions.  Conversions create money.  Money is a resource that can help you grow your business to the level you’ve always wanted it to get to.  So does your website stand up to the test?Ask yourself these few questions to find out!

Do you have hard-to-read content?

When visitors come to your website, one of the characteristics they value most is readability. Keep in mind that not everyone that visits your site will know all of the technical terms surrounding your industry.  Don’t speak too technical, in fact, your content should usually be simple enough that a middle/high school student can read with ease.

You also need to focus on your fonts and font colors you’re using.  If you’re creating eye strain by not using the right contrast, your potential customers will leave before they even get to your contact page.

Is your page overtaken with ads?

Ads are becoming increasingly annoying to Internet users. Your potential customers don’t want to spend time on sites that have a lot of ads, and for most businesses, it’s best not to have them at all.

Visitors are more likely to stay on your page if they don’t have to skim through ads to see the content they are looking for.

Does your page take more than 3 seconds to load?

Any page that takes longer than three seconds to load loses nearly half of its traffic. This means that if your site is slow, you could lose half of your potential customers – and send them right back to the search results where they’ll find one of your competitors and use them instead.

There are plenty of ways to increase the speed of your site, but until you know what is exactly is causing your issue, you could be running in circles wasting time.  It could be just an image on your site, it could be an uncompressed file that needs to be compressed, or it could be an included library that’s either not set up correctly or not working as expected.

Do you have too many calls to action?

Though it is extremely important to have calls to action on your site, too many can be overwhelming for your visitors. If visitors feel like they are bombarded with buttons asking for their information, they may be confused about which to choose – or worse, annoyed by the overly-salesy feel.  This, in our opinion, is the worst thing you can possibly do.  There should be a strategy for everything that’s on a website, and there especially needs to be an even more important strategy for your call to actions.

Does your web design look like it’s from the stone age?

As the world becomes increasingly technologically advanced, Internet users have certain expectations of company websites – especially ones that they are considering hiring for a service.

If your site content is heavily outdated, does not scale to mobile devices, or is overly retro and simply unattractive you WILL NOT get the business over someone who proves that they care about their online presence.  From dealing with amount of businesses we’ve dealt with in the past, it’s safe to say that we observed that the businesses who actually put time into perfecting their website look and performance seem to care more about their business success, products, services, and customers more than someone who does not put in the extra effort or spend the extra time or money.

Are you’re visitors finding what they’re looking for?

You must remember, your clients are there for your services, and if they want to get to know you they will give you a call or seek out your “about” page.  Your website is not to glorify yourself or your business and all of it’s awards.  It is meant to make it as easy as possible for your potential clients to find the information they’re looking for. That’s it.  If they are able to find what they need, they will convert.

Is your website too busy?

If your website has an overwhelming number of colors and graphics, it may appear busy and confusing to your visitors. In many cases, they’ll leave in search of a site that’s cleaner and easier to navigate.  Sure, it might look good and all, but too much information too quick results in information overload and can quickly convince someone to leave your site instead of try to find the info they’re looking for.

This can be a somewhat subjective quality, but it’s always a good idea to have people outside of your company test your site. If they find it confusing or difficult to find information, it may be time to rethink your design.

Do you use overly dramatized stock photos?

Images can help to illustrate your business and what it can do for customers, but if they’re obviously staged, you aren’t doing your site any favors. Instead, consider hiring a photographer to take high quality images of your office, products, or past projects.

Are your pages difficult to navigate?

Think of the last time your visited a website and couldn’t find what you were looking for. It is extremely easy to become frustrated when you visit a website for one thing and can’t seem to find it. This is why ease of navigation is so important.

In order to ensure easy navigation, be sure to have a navigation bar that stands out from the rest of your page. Use logical organization for the difficult types of pages on your site, and have several people test it before launching it on your site.  If you take the time to do the proper planning before just throwing text on a page, you will reap the benefits.

Do you make customers determine their next steps on their own?

Not every site visitor is immediately ready to convert – but for the ones who are, it should be obvious how they can do so.

If you are serious about selling your services, you will have a call-to-action on every page of your website. These can be as simple as buttons with text like “call now,” “visit us today”, or “tell me more.” All of these phrases encourage your visitors to make the next move in committing to your service.

 

Does your site have any of these issues?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you definitely have some things you can improve on your site.  If you need any help, most of these can be easily fixed.  Just because you can edit your site doesn’t mean that you’re the professional and it’s your job to do it.  If you want those extra customers, you need to get these things done professionally so you can focus on creating much more revenue for yourself.  Contact us today at morthub.com and we can help you.

Posted in Online Strategy, Web Design