What makes a bad website?
If you have set up your new business website but are not seeing the conversions you were expecting, you may have made a critical content or design blunder in the process.
Here’s why having a good website matters – and the top 10 mistakes to avoid if you do not want to scare away potential customers before they have visited your product page.
The Importance of Having a Good Website
Think of your website as your company’s online business card.
Today, most consumers search for information online before making a purchase, even if they intend to buy it at a brick-and-mortar store.
82% of consumers will take out their smartphone to find more information about a product they are about to buy in-store.
If they Google your product and find a website that looks and feels like it was created in the 1990s (or no website at all), they are going to be less likely to trust you with their money.
What Makes a Bad Website? 10 Mistakes to Avoid
1. You have poor or no content.
Lack of content will frustrate your website visitors. It also makes SEO much harder to do.
It’s like coming to a brick-and-mortar store only to realize it’s half-empty – or stocked with poorly made goods that do not actually represent what your company is about.
Get at least a few professional-looking pages up (About Us, Our Products, and Contact) before you launch your website.
In addition to that, consider investing in regularly publishing high-quality content that helps your visitors solve their problems and makes you a trusted authority on the subject.
2. Your website lacks organization.
People visit websites to find more information about the products they are interested in.
Don’t make them work too hard for that information! Position the most important content front and center.
Make sure your site has:
- Clear navigational titles
- Strong headings
- An easy-to-find search box
If you do not have these elements on your website, your customer may get frustrated and click away to see if your competitor has an easier-to-understand website.
3. Your contact information is MIA.
If a visitor is not familiar with your company, they are going to need assurance that there are real people behind the website.
Thus, h
Make sure your phone number, email address, and physical location (if you have one) are clearly listed on a “Contact Us” page.
Bonus points if you list your contact information near the bottom of other pages as well.
4. You have no calls to action.
It is not enough to have well-organized content on your site.
You want to use that content to move your visitor to the next stage of the buyer’s journey.
That’s where strategically-placed calls-to-action (CTAs) come into play.
You need to explicitly tell your visitors what to do next, whether it is filling out a contact form or sending them to your store.
For example, Hubspot found that anchor text CTAs increased conversions by as much as 121%. Are yours up to par?
5. Your site is painfully slow.
Slow site speed kills conversions.
If a page takes just 2 extra seconds to load, a website’s bounce rate increases by 50%.
When Walmart’s page load time increased from 3 seconds to 4, their conversions dropped rapidly.
6. You have poor navigation.
Poor navigation makes it difficult for search engines to crawl your site.
If your website has poor navigation, you are almost definitely missing out on traffic and conversions that could easily be yours!
7. Your website design is not user-friendly.
While content and organization are essential to a good website, appearances matter too.
If your site looks and feels like it was built in the 1990s, your audience is not likely to trust and buy from you.
8. Your website design is not responsive.
A large segment of your customers is likely looking at your website from a mobile device.
If your website design is not responsive, their experience on your site will be a bad one.
As a result, they will click away to find a site that’s easier to use.
9. Your site is filled with little annoyances.
Have you ever clicked on a site only to find out it had a music player that starts automatically?
What about pop-up ads that just won’t go away?
These and similar annoyances can turn an otherwise good website into a bad one.
10. Your site is not optimized for search engines.
If your site cannot be easily indexed by search engines, it is going to fall under the bad website category.
When Google can’t index your website, it won’t send you any visitors.
So what’s the point of having a website if that’s the case?
How Handmade SEO Can Help
Are you making any of these 10 website mistakes on your site?
Our free Digital Marketing Assessment can help.
It will show you exactly what you should be doing to optimize your website for the best user experience possible.
Did we mention it’s completely free?
