11 Reasons Your Website Doesn’t Sell

 

A well-designed website organically grows a company’s business and reinforces branding.

A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that users stay on a website for an average of 10 to 20 seconds. Visitors hang around longer only if they find something worthwhile during those initial glances. For a business, every second counts.

Several factors may strip a website of value. Here are 11 problems that affect a site’s presentation alongside fixes to immediately apply to help drive greater user engagement and better traffic.

 

Why Is the Conversion Rate of Your Business Website Low?

 

1. Low-quality visuals.

Many have written about the power of visuals in communication. A 1986 study by the University of Minnesota’s Management Information Systems Research Center with 3M support found presentations using visual aids 43 percent more convincing. A website’s potential can be held back by the inclusion of low-quality visuals.

Marketing expert Govind Agarwal recommends having high-quality photos to grab viewers’ attention, increase social shares and even boost overall SEO if pictures are tagged appropriately. Labnol.org offers a list of places for finding free professional images.

2. Lack of reviews or testimonials.

If its website does not have testimonials, a business is missing out on an easy and effective marketing tool. Customers are discriminating. Merely telling them of the strength of the product or service is not enough anymore. Testimonials can help create trust in a company’s offerings and quell concerns customers might have about making a purchase. Derek Gehl, CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, has shared a guide to using testimonials and choosing ones that suit an audience.

3. Lacking color savvy.

Another factor that might cause weak sales on a company site is its color scheme. Much research is being done on visual information that’s hue-related. Many entrepreneurs probably already understand the importance of branding. A powerful brand sets the company apart from the competition and makes the business instantly recognizable to consumers. But it can lose credibility with users if its website is adorned with an unimpressive color scheme.

For a crash course on color theory, reference Smashing Magazine’s in-depth guide. Determine what the company’s brand should convey to customers and be sure the website has an appropriate color scheme to match.

4. Outdated information.

Scroll down to the bottom of a web page to where a copyright date is listed. Is it still recent? According to Small Business Trends, a website appearance that looks out of date is an instant turnoff to customers.

Clients want to see that a company has put in an effort to stay current. This includes regularly adding new content and refreshing existing copy.

5. Hard to find.

The best website in the world is useless if no one can find it. An entrepreneur need not know much about search engine optimization to develop pages that are easily discoverable by search engines and consumers. Gwen Moran has recommended a strong domain name, carefully optimized page titles to accurately reflect the content inside and using keywords effectively.

6. Not being mobile friendly.

A business website may resemble a work of art when opened on a desktop computer, but if it does not display well or function on a mobile device, the company will lose out on a growing segment of the online audience. Shopify, a leading e-commerce platform, looked at data from more than 100,000 websites that use its platform and found that slightly more than 50 percent of shopping is being done via mobile. To ensure that a website is mobile responsive, check these actionable tips.

7. Difficulty in finding contact information.

Ever needed assistance in a store just when all the sales associates seem to have disappeared? In retail, that should never be the case. Online, it shouldn’t be either. If a customer has a question or needs help, the site’s contact information should be easy to find. Being available on demand, such as via live chat, can also help a business better engage customers, reduce costs and boost sales.

8. Misdirected focus

Customers want their experience on a business website to be focused on them. This means including sections that answer their questions and address their needs. An easy fix is including a frequently-asked-questions, or FAQ, page. The Content Marketing Institute recommends highlighting top questions, with timely answers and making the archive searchable. When possible, simplify the user experience by making answers accessible within one click. Customers want fast, helpful information.

9. Requiring sign-ups first

Forcing users to sign up on a company site before they can access can deter engagement. It puts an artificial hurdle between customers and the company’s products. According to user-experience blog UX Movement, aggressive sign-up forms make readers hesitant to divulge personal information for fear of receiving spam. In many cases, consumers assume the value they’ll receive won’t be worth the price they pay in sharing an email address. Make each visit count and do not corner users into doing anything they’re not comfortable doing.

10. Audio or video the autoplays

One way to surely annoy a site’s visitors is to set audio and video on pages to autoplay. In an editorial, Troy Dreier, senior associate editor of StreamingMedia.com, wrote, “Sites are overusing autoplay, and it reflects badly on the whole online video industry.” Unfortunately, publishers, desperate for revenue, are still happy to deliver autoplay ads. To minimize disruptions to the reader experience, limit a clip to five seconds or less or offer a pause or stop button if it runs longer.

11. Painfully slow load times

Digital audiences are impatient. Even if a website is filled with incredibly captivating media, it may experience high bounce rates if pages take too long to load for readers. Visitors highly value their time, so build a fast website that caters to their needs at lightning speed. Compressing images and large files is an easy way to guarantee quicker load times. Use a tool like Smush.it to shrink files and optimize a site’s performance.

If you would like the TRW Consult team to just do your marketing for you, click here.

10 Reasons to Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

 

It is so important to reach your customer base when you own a website, and in the digital age that means making sure people on mobile devices can find and browse your site. It also means making sure they can remain as happy as possible during that experience.

Smartphones and other mobile devices are more popular than ever before (and they are not going anywhere anytime soon), so optimizing your website for mobile isn’t just a trend or a side option, like it might have been in years past.

Today, making your website mobile-friendly is an absolute must. If you do the research, the experts will all tell you the same thing, and they’re right. Mobile is where your customers are – so it’s also where you should be.

On that note, we’ve compiled a list of the top reasons to make your website mobile-friendly. So, without further ado:

Here are 10 reasons why your website should be mobile-friendly

1. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites over those that are not mobile-friendly in mobile search results. In April 2015, the Google algorithm change that occurred tweaked the way that Google displays mobile search results. Websites that are optimized for mobile rank better than those who don’t – plain and simple.
2. People everywhere use mobile devices to do everything from simple information gathering to purchasing big ticket items and much, much more. The reason? It’s fast and easy. Consumers in every industry want to connect and get what they’re looking for quickly. If you’re not optimized for mobile, you can’t offer your customers that type of experience.
3. It helps you build credibility with your customers, your clients, and influencers in your industry. Whether you’re selling B2B or B2C, with a mobile-friendly website, anyone who tries to visit your site on a mobile device will have a proper experience, and that will encourage them to see you as a credible resource for information, products and services.
4. It’s becoming a standard best practice. A great many websites are mobile-friendly (usually the most reliable websites, I might add), with more and more coming online every day. Responsive web design has made mobile optimization more straight forward and accessible to everyone, and that means users have begun to expect this level of functionality to come standard when browsing on their mobile devices. 
5. You can reach more customers, faster. Google rewards websites that are mobile-friendly with higher ranking in mobile search results (see No. 1 on this list). So, simply by the virtue of having a mobile-friendly website, your site will be seen and visited by more people. Making your website mobile-friendly automatically opens your customer base up to anyone performing a mobile search. And even better – customers won’t have to hunt for your site or type in the exact URL to find it – they can just perform a search to find you quickly and easily.
6. You’ll make your customers much happier. When a customer or a potential customer accesses your site to find information or look for something you sell, you want the experience to be nothing short of great. Because many people use mobile devices to access the web, only a mobile-friendly website can promise to offer that experience. Happy customers will return to your site and tell others about how great it is. Unhappy customers will do the opposite.
7. Because Google wants you to do it. Webmasters know when Google recommends you do something, you should really try to do it. This is the case with making websites mobile-friendly. Google has explained why mobile is so important in their own words, and the number one reason they cite is everyone has smartphones, and they’re constantly using them to search.
8. Your website will look great and function well on any device, provided you use responsive web design to build or redesign your site. Why take chances when it comes to mobile optimization? With responsive design, your website will actually respond to the mobile device a person is using to access your site, and it will render to look and function well, no matter what.
9. It benefits your reputation. Not just online, but offline as well. People will take note of a website they have a great experience with – and they will also take note of a website they have a bad experience with. Reputation is everything, and most businesses can’t afford to give people a bad experience – digital or otherwise.
10. Your business will be seen as modern and relevant. You might offer some of the most useful, valuable, and unique products or services on the market, but if your website’s mobile experience is poor or non-existent, your company will be seen as a digital dinosaur – encouraging people to seek help elsewhere. On the other hand, mobile-friendly websites are seen as contemporary, cutting-edge and legit – they are how you get your foot in the door with anyone that has a smartphone.

Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly are quickly becoming defunct within our fast-evolving digital landscape. As time goes by, more and more websites will emerge that are mobile-friendly, pushing those that are not even farther down the search results page and away from customers.

If you want your website to perform well and support your business, you need to make it mobile-friendly.

It can only help you move forward to achieve the growth and success that you’re meant for.

Would you like the TRW Consult team to just do your marketing for you? Click here.

 

 

Culled from Web Movement