People today do nearly everything online. Need to fix a problem with the software you are using? Find out where the nearest electronics store is? Look for more information about a product or service before purchasing? In all these instances, you go to your connected device and tap your questions away.
For businesses, this modern customer behavior encouraged the growth and importance of having an online presence—especially websites. Did you know that there are now over 1.9 billion websites in the on the world wide web?
To stay relevant and competitive, businesses must be where their customers are—online. According to Clutch’s third annual Small Business Survey, “92% of small businesses predict that they will have a website by the end of 2018.” This highlights the fact that small businesses know the value of a website.
Creating a website is no walk in the park and maintaining it even more so. If you already have a website, are you sure it is meeting your business goals? If you don’t have one yet, how do you make the most out of your web design investment? Here are things your website should not do (or must stop doing ASAP) so you and your customers can finally benefit from it.
Table of Contents
1. Hiding or lacking contact information
Most of the time, customers go to your website looking for answers. Whether for product information, customer support, or sales, these scenarios will lead your customers to your contact page. If it’s missing or lacking details, you risk pushing your customers to your competition. Not everyone has the patience especially when there are a lot of options to choose from.
Our tip: Always have a contact page that your customers can easily find. Better yet, put it on the footer or sidebar. This allows your customers to immediately contact you the moment they decide to purchase—wherever they are on the website.
2. Taking more than 5 seconds to load
There is a rule in web design and among marketers called the “blink test.” That is, you have 3-5 seconds to convince customers to stay in your website and hopefully convert them into leads. Kissmetrics revealed that 47% of customers expect a page to load in two seconds, with 40% abandoning the website if it exceeds three.
Our tip: Run A/B and quality assurance tests every time you launch a new website feature. Make sure the images and illustrations that you use do not exceed the recommended size and resolution. Develop best practices so your team can follow through.
3. Providing no “guest” option at checkout
If you run an e-commerce store, even for just one product or thousands, any amount of sale is great for business, right? The problem with most businesses is they force customers to sign up or else they can’t continue with the purchase. This is one of the reasons why customers abandon carts and all potential sales go down the drain.
Our tip: Put guest options at checkout. Just let your customers make the purchase first before you convince them to sign up. If you really want to get their information for future marketing campaigns, pick the right moment. Why not ask them after they made a purchase? You can also give them a reason to drop their email such as to track their orders. Be suave. Not desperate.
4. Allowing broken links and error pages
The good thing about having a website is, your customers can stumble upon your business from any channel and place on the internet. But the more you are out there, the easier it is to lose track of all backlinks to your website. Then, you run the risk of customers following a broken link or arriving at an error page.
Our tip: Monitor links and make it a regular practice. Another good idea is to create an engaging 404 page to redirect your customers to other contents in your website. Look at this list for inspiration.
5. Having bad website navigation
One of the competitive advantages of having a website is directly attracting and engaging your customers. To make an impression, you must make sure that your customers’ web experience is flawless. One that values their time and effort.
Your website is an unfamiliar place to your customers. The best way to lead your customers toward success is guiding them to it. In fact, according to KoMarketing, “50% of visitors will use the navigation menu to orient themselves, after reaching a website from a referral.”
Our tip: Always make sure your website is structured. It’s not only good for ranking your page but also beneficial to your customers. Make browsing your website seamless and convenient. A visible and clear website navigation page ensures your customer of their location on your website. In case they get lost, they can just search for what they’re looking for using a search bar.
6. Missing social buttons
People love to share. Positive or negative experience, anything is posted online. This why social media is an important element of your website. Did you know that over any type of advertising, Nielsen revealed that 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family.
Our tip: From your homepage and blog posts to newsletters and videos, make sure that your customers can share your content with their peers. Make your social media sharing tools visible. You can also let your customers get to know your business better by putting up social media buttons that link to your other online platforms.
7. Outdated content
Content marketing is one of the effective inbound marketing strategies you can do today. But it’s tricky. Once you start, it’s imperative to keep your content updated. It’s a turn off when you visit a website with latest posts being a year or so later, right? It gives the impression that the business is no longer active.
Our tip: Establish a content strategy. You don’t have to chuck out content daily. A new post every two weeks or a month work fine. Quantity is more important than quality. You create content to help not only your business grow but also your customers. So, it’s better to publish well-researched content than sub-standard ones. Your customer will know.
A website dedicated to your business is valuable and powerful. When done right, it increases your customer reach as well as your bottom line. Like any other business endeavor, you need to make sure that your website is working for you, not against you.
Note: I wrote this content as an employee of a marketing agency for a now defunct web design company.
