Everyone wants an impeccably designed website but maybe yours hasn’t quite been up to snuff. You spent a considerable amount of time designing it and including what you thought were helpful features, but your visitation numbers are still low and you’re not getting the types of conversions you had hoped for.
Fortunately, the problem probably isn’t your company or product.
More likely than not, the problem is that your website design is scaring your customers away. Fortunately, there are things you can do to fix it.
If your website fits any of the following descriptions, it’s likely that your site is doing your business more harm than good.
1) Your website is too graphic-dense
For novice designers, it’s easy to get a little too “graphic happy.” More is better, right? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case and on websites like this one for LingCars.com, the graphics make the entire website impossible to navigate and downright discombobulating to look at.
Instead of going overboard with graphics or grabbing any do-it-yourself template, invest some time and energy into ensuring your website features minimal graphics and an easy to navigate format. As a general rule, if a graphic, button, color or illustration isn’t serving a specific and easily definable purpose, it shouldn’t be there. When it comes to website design, less is more.
2) Your website is boring
On the other side of that coin, though, it’s important to keep your website from being boring. Text-only pages with minimal colors, no backgrounds and no interesting grabbing text formatting (subheaders, headers, bolding, lists, etc.) are a sure cause for back-clicks. While you don’t want your site to be overwhelming, you also have to consider how many sites are on the web today (an estimated 1 billion, to be exact) and how many of them are run by companies that are very similar to yours. With this in mind, it’s obvious that a boring, text-heavy site is not going to earn you conversions, businesses or customer interaction. To give your site some personal flair and help it stand out in the crowd, invest some money into a personalized logo and determine a color scheme for your site. Incorporate images into your posts and pick a unique yet easy to use layout to provide interest to your customers while also keeping the site easy to navigate.
3) The site is dated
An outdated site spells certain death for your views and traffic counts. If you haven’t updated your blog since 2009 or you’re still advertising a sale that took place 6 months ago, visitors will immediately feel like you don’t care and that you’re not engaged. And then, they’ll go find a website that offers the current, up-to-date information.
Multiple studies have shown that maintaining an active web presence is one of the best ways to increase traffic and, as such, it’s wise to update your site a few times a week. Post new blogs, use the site as a platform to advertise new deals, inventory or products and keep your customers up-to-date about what’s going on behind the scenes.
4) Any form of access requires an email address
While building your mailing list is important, it’s not generally the best ideal to require that users submit their email before they can access any of your site’s information. While this tactic (known as “squeeze pages”) works for media giants like Pinterest, it’s not a great idea for small companies. The reason for this is that there are dozens if not hundreds of sites just like yours that will happily offer similar information without first requiring an email address. Customers that are in the early stages of the buying process may not want to give you their email address just yet and, if you demand it, they may well leave you and go find one of your competitors.
In light of this, it’s very wise to leave a good portion of your website available to the general public without the requirement of an email address. If you so choose, you can make certain portions of your website, such as advanced content, available only to your email subscribers, but you need to provide your customers with ample value to earn their trust before you ask them to give you something in return.
If your site meets the above criteria, it’s likely that you’re going to have to re-design your layout before you’ll begin to see increasing traffic numbers and conversions. Fortunately, most website design fixes come down to keeping it simple, making it easy to navigate, making it personal and making it valuable for your customers. When a company can master these things within its website design, great traffic counts will eventually follow.
If you have further questions about your website layout, look no further than Bigfoot Media. Bigfoot Media is here for all of your digital marketing needs and would love to help your business create a game-winning strategy. Call us today for a FREE consultation or shoot us a quick email to learn more.
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