If your business is reasonably successful, you’ve likely realized by now that your website has a direct effect on that success — hopefully a positive effect.
But very few business owners know just how massive this impact can and should be. Many businesses struggle to make their website a useful tool that helps to grow the business and build credibility, especially if it’s underperforming. If that’s the case, it may be doing just the opposite.
We’re taught not to judge books by their covers but we do anyway. And, websites are objects of extreme judgment. Why? Because there are so many of them and it’s a simple matter of choice. Any search is going to return a multitude of matching sites. If we don’t see something we like, it’s very easy to move on to the next one. An abundance of options certainly lowers the level of tolerance for the bad ones.
Pro tip: This one’s simple… invest in professional design. If you’re going to have a website representing your business, make sure that it is moving the needle in the right direction.
Hey, at least you made it past the first hurdle. That’s something. But you’re not in the clear yet. Any hurdle a user has to clear on your site — whether it’s design or navigation-related — can be detrimental or fatal to your chances of converting them into a lead for your business.
Sure, your website should be better, but we see lots of websites that look good on the surface. The problem is, they aren’t converting visitors into leads or customers. It reminds us that if a website slips up at any point, users have made it pretty evident that they have no tolerance. Good design should be a consideration throughout the entire site, not just the surface.
Pro tip: Avoid unnecessary navigation, nested content, confusing tables, links that pull users away from the site into documents like PDFs, and make sure that the site is well-structured from beginning to end.
Remember, there are few second chances on the internet. Bad design, outdated user interfaces, and a confusing user experience will kill your credibility. If it’s been a few years since your site was updated, it’s probably time to take action.
It makes little business sense to have a poorly designed website that is working against your business, right? It may be better to have nothing at all — seriously. There is a light. It may not be the massive undertaking you envision just to get your website to a reasonable level of acceptance, and to a place that your website is engaging visitors and creating leads. Just taking that first step can help.
There may be lots of reasons your website should be better but none more overlooked than this. Luckily, it’s is an easy one to fix. Sometimes it may be due to network speed — something you can’t control. It’s often the result of files on your site that are too large, like images that haven’t been optimized.
While it’s tempting to have lots of high-resolution images on your site, it can greatly impact your website’s performance, hence effectiveness. It not only affects keeping users on your site, but it also has a detrimental impact on your SEO. Google has a free tool to check the speed of your site.
Here’s another related statistic. Slow-loading websites cost businesses nearly $3 billion (that’s a B) in lost sales each year. Bottom line here: If your website is sluggish, you’re missing out on the chance to create leads and customers online, period.
That is an amazing statistic — that your business credibility is closely linked to the aesthetic value of your website! But let’s face it, your website provides the only window into the way a company operates without someone walking through the door and talking to someone. Because of that, it should emanate credibility in every way possible.
Want to see what bad might look like? Take a look at some of these bad website designs.
Pro tip: Invest in a modern, updated design that shows that your company cares about its digital footprint (because customers take this to mean you care about them). This includes content, performance, user experience, and engagement. Good design relies on a seamless integration of informative content into the fabric of the site. And, make sure the content reinforces the design.
Users want to know what your website wants from them and what you want them to do — that’s basic human psychology and in web design terms it’s called a Call-To-Action or CTA. It doesn’t mean they’ll do it, but that’s a different matter. Your online presence is (or can be) a credibility boosting investment that informs users of your products or services, and hopefully converts them into leads or customers.
Make sure that when a visitor lands on your website that you know where you want to take them and that it is clear what you want them to do; even if it’s just today’s blue plate special, signing up for a mailing list or reading something about pricing. Don’t leave them to wander without some call-to-action.
As of 2018, 52% of all traffic on the internet came from a mobile device and has increased year over year since 2014, surely to be nearing 65% in 2020. If you’re not ready now, you are missing the opportunity to substantially increase traffic to your site. In 2018 half of all e-commerce revenue was generated from a mobile device, and much more in 2020.
Nearly 80% of all users say they will not engage content that doesn’t display well on their device — that means things like having to pinch to zoom, text running off-page, bad navigation, slow pages, and many other design-related factors.
Last, according to a Google study, over 60% of users are not likely to return to your website on a mobile device if they have trouble accessing it, and 40% will visit a competitor’s site instead.
If the trend here isn’t clear, mobile is everything and if your website is not ready, then neither is your business.
This post could go on for days. We don’t make this stuff up. Through analytics, studies, surveys and just good old observation, there is enough data to bury us all in reasons why good design is important, and mobile readiness is critical. The big lesson here is that your website is a magnet for consumers to judge you, and they will. It may not be completely fair, but when has business ever been fair?
A poorly-designed website can destroy your credibility with potential customers, leads, prospects, and even people who have patronized your business in the past. The positive note is that it’s a pretty easy fix.
Your website should be better, and it’s not that difficult. It can be a lead-generating machine and a brand amplifier that you couldn’t otherwise afford through more traditional marketing and advertising. The important factor is that it must be done right. Website first impressions matter, and you should make the most of yours.
For a free consultation, you can call us at Delegal Digital or 912.236.6003. We would be delighted to answer your questions and help any way that we can.
To support some of the claims above, here are references to the studies or articles that dig deeper into the data.
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