There is so much competition online, that you can’t afford to have website visitors think you suck.
Because this impacts your bottom line.
And from what I’ve seen, specifically relating to small businesses, are websites that have been put together fast, often by the business owner who lacks the expertise, and then they don’t understand why they’re not getting any traffic. Or that their website is not helping to get more customers.
The following are the most common reasons your website is performing badly:
#1: Your website looks crap on mobile devices
In 2014, people started visiting Internet sites via their mobile phones more than they did via desktops.
Image Credit: Smart Insights
For that reason, Google announced in 2015 that it was introducing a mobile friendly algorithm, and if your website visitors do a search via mobile, and your website is not mobile friendly, you’re going to miss out on traffic because Google will not bring your site to its search pages.
When you consider that most people going online are doing it from mobile devices, it makes sense to make sure your website is mobile friendly. Check if it is with Google’s mobile friendly test.
#2: Your website takes too long to load
Kissmetrics reports that 47% of people expect a website to load within two seconds. If it doesn’t, they are likely to leave, and this directly impacts your bottom line. Even a one second delay in load time can result in a conversion reduction of 7%.
Check the speed of your website.
What slows a website down? The most common reasons are:
- Images that are uploaded but not compressed.
- Too much flash, like animations, movies, games, and so on.
- Technical code that is too bulky.
- Embedding videos or slideshows onto your website.
Image Credit: EBizUniverse
Sluggish websites not only frustrate visitors and make them leave, but also impacts your search rank because search engines use bounce rate (how long someone stays on your site) as one of the ways to determine how good your website is.
#3: The about page is stupid
When someone lands on your homepage, more than half of them check out your About page.
The problem with that is, that most times the about page doesn’t give them what they’re looking for because it’s full of stupid information.
Your about page has great influence on conversions, because it’s the page visitors use to determine whether they should trust you or not. And since the Internet is not a face-to-face medium, building trust is vital. If your about page is stupid, it won’t do anything to foster trust with your visitor.
Where most website owners go wrong with this page, is that they make it all about themselves, when it should be all about your visitors.
What do they want to know?
A start-up date of the company may be nice to include, but not the entire company history. Who cares? Add testimonials, culture of the company, who works there, their passions, etc. Make the about page personal and human.
Your about page should tell a story about who you are and what you stand for.
An example of a great about page:
#4: There’s no blog
Business to business marketers that use blogging, get 67% more leads than websites who don’t blog.
That’s reason enough, right? But wait, there’s more…
Websites who blog are ranked higher in search pages, so when you use blogging as a marketing strategy, the amount of website visitors increase. In addition, most online methods of marketing require content; something to send people to. And the content from blogs feeds email marketing lists, social media posts, and so one. Still, there’s more…
Image Credit: CoSchedule
Adding a blog builds trust and credibility with your audience, because the content on your blog tells a story about who you are. When you produce quality, value add information, people trust your brand more. Which results in higher conversions.
But, setting up an effective blog requires skill, time and persistence. If you want to do it properly, read what Neil Patel, Digital Marketing guru says about making a blog.
#5: Your website can’t be found
Hardly anyone I know actually lands on a website by typing in the URL. Of course, you could be doing offline marketing and giving out your website address, but this is not going to produce massive amounts of website visitors.
If people can’t find your website on search engines with the phrases they use to look for the kind of solutions your business provides, well, they’ll just go to your competitors.
So what you want to do, is to make sure you use on-page SEO on your website, so that:
- Search engines can find your website and add it to their index (if you’re not in their index, they can’t match your site to searches, which means you won’t get traffic from search results).
- Search engines can send the right people – your target audience – to your site. You don’t just want traffic; you want targeted traffic; the kind of people who will eventually buy from you.
On-page SEO elements
Image Credit: Amonous
#6: You don’t respond to queries from your website
You’ll be surprised at how many websites contain contact forms, but the company doesn’t respond to people who complete them.
I’ve even requested information from some sites that have added a pop-up “chat to us” form, and I’ve heard nothing back from them.
The most likely reasons for neglecting to respond to people are:
- When an email address is added to the contact form software that doesn’t get checked, so emails from website visitors may arrive and just sit there without being opened.
- There is no process in place for what happens when a visitor submits a query. For instance, the website owner may have added a team member’s email address to the contact form software, but didn’t let the person know and when they get an email notifying them that the web contact form was completed, they ignore it.
- The contact form was not tested after it was installed on the website, and doesn’t work properly.
There are so many reasons that the process may not work, so it’s best you check what happens when someone completes the form.
What’s your website contact form process?
Image Credit: DZone
#7: Website visitors don’t know what your site’s about
Your website has on average, a mere eight seconds to prove to a visitor that it’s worthy of their attention.
Before we proceed, have a look at a screenshot of a badly designed website:
What’s this website about? How can it help me? Why should I stay here?
Image Credit: BusinessCommunicationTools
There is so much wrong with this website, that a whole blog post could be devoted to it, but let’s just focus on one key element: it doesn’t tell me fast, what it’s about, and how it can help me.
So why should I stay?
The header of a website plays a huge part here, as well as the design, because these are the two influencing factors that will keep me on your site. For a few more seconds anyway, that is.
Make sure your header explains exactly what you offer, or how you can help me. Here’s an example of a website that does that perfectly:
Within seconds of landing on this page, I know what this website can do for me
In conclusion
A business website is vital for online growth, but the majority of small businesses are getting it all wrong, which results in a low amount of visitors and therefore, a lack of profit. The most common reasons are:
- Website is not mobile friendly
- Takes too long to load
- The about page doesn’t contain the right information
- No blog on the website.
- The website doesn’t feature in search results
- Visitors are ignored when they contact the company
- The site is not designed well, and doesn’t immediately tell visitors how it can benefit them