Your website is the face of your business. If used well, your site brings many potential clients via search engines and other sources, and once they get there your site ideally draws them into your sales and marketing funnel. But if your site is not well designed and effectively constructed, most of these visitors will leave before they get the chance to give you their contact information. This could translate into hundreds of lost opportunities every day.
When my clients tell me they don’t think their websites are bringing in as many clients as it should, I always urge them to look at their site with a critical eye. If anything about your site isn’t working, it’s important to identify the problem and make a change. To help in your assessment, here are some of the most common website mistakes small-business owners make.
1. Out-of-date design. Take a look at the websites of some major companies you admire, and make note of things like their design, layout, and navigation. Without directly copying those sites, think about how to bring your own site up to their design standards. You may not have the website budget that these companies have, but there are things you can do to make your site more visually pleasing. And when it looks like you’ve put a lot of thought into creating a sharp and professional site design, your potential clients will be more likely to work with you. Your image is important.
2. Off-putting design elements. There are a few site design elements that too many small-business owners think make their sites look flashy, but which actually just annoy people. Pop-up windows, music and videos that play automatically, animated menus, and long intro screens are just a few elements that most web users could live without.
3. No About or Contact page. Your potential clients want to work with someone they can trust. When they visit your website, they want to know you are an actual person (or group of people) with a real, physical address and live contact information. They want to be able to pick up the phone and call you if need be. You don’t have to put all this information on every page, but at least have a link to a Contact or About page visible throughout the site.Personally, I LIKE contact information on every page. My thoughts are that if you want to reach out to me, I want to make it as easy as possible for you to do it.
4. Not sharing results. It’s very easy to buy a generic website template and put up a basic description of your business and services, but these websites aren’t going to get people excited to work with you. Your website should share the results your clients will get from working with you.
5. No purpose. When people get to your website, what do you want them to do? Do you want them to order something? Do you want them to take your irresistible offer and share their contact information? Whatever you want them to do, don’t be shy about it. State explicitly what action they should take.
