Your website is one of your business’s biggest investments and probably one of your main sources of sales. Little elements of your site, though, can sometimes get in the way of great customer experiences and prolonged website visits. People lead busy lives filled with many distractions, so it takes very little to make someone bounce from your website. According to research from Time.com, 55% of visitors stay less than 15 seconds on a website. Yikes!
Go through your website and make sure you aren’t making any of these common mistakes. If you are, here’s some quick and easy suggestions for correcting them.
1. Re-organize your homepage.
Approach your homepage like you’re meeting someone for the first time. Would you run up to a stranger and shove product in their face? Or would you greet them, make some small talk and begin to explain what you offer? A website is the same way. Just throwing product pictures and listings at someone with no build-up can lead to missed opportunities to set your brand’s tone and capture visitor imaginations.
How does your brand make people feel? Write down words for the feelings that you want people to experience and make that happen on the homepage with your introductory sections. Don’t sandwich more than one thought into a section and make sure headers and images appear in each section. Focus more on subheadings and less on long blocks of text.
2. Avoid photo faux pas.
Photos MAKE your website. Above all else, it’s the images that will keep visitors on your page or lose their attention. One of the most common photo blunders is using photos with a bunch of different backgrounds that aren’t cohesive or are distracting. Think about your Instagram page and how you strive for consistency with it’s look. Your website product photos should stay equally branded and the background of each photo should make sense.
Another photo mistake to look out for is overusing stock photos. Although they can fill a gap when you need them to, you don’t want your site to go overboard with stock pics that cause the personality of the brand to become generic and boring.
3. Be careful with pop-ups that drive customers away.
We all want to build a voluminous email list, but be strategic about when you make the request. Too soon and you could drive frustrated prospects away. Remember to always make your request captivating. Do you offer an incentive? Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and remember to ask, “What’s in it for me?” Also, make sure your exit button to click out of a pop-up is easy to find. If it’s too difficult you won’t force a sign-up, you’ll force a bounce off of your page and frustrate the customer at the same time.
4. Remove text that’s too hard to read.
This is something I see on a lot of self-built websites. Here’s my challenge: ask one of your oldest friends or relatives to review your site. Ask them if they have trouble reading anything. I promise you you’ll get an honest and accurate response. Don’t be so caught up in the “look” of the page that you miss something obvious, like including too much light text on dark backgrounds. Also, make sure when you put text over photos that the contrast is significant and the entire word or sentence can be seen.
Ask for feedback if there are any fonts that visitors have trouble reading. I can’t tell you how many sites I review that include a decorative font in their paragraphs. It’s nearly impossible to make it through reading these text blocks. PLEASE I beg of you, don’t use decorative fonts in your paragraph texts.
5. Shorten and re-write your sales copy.
You don’t need to make your website sound like a TV infomercial, but you should make sure the copy (text) that appears on your website is clear, short, and doesn’t confuse your audience. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to give your visitors ALLLL the reasons why they need your creations, but that can be overwhelming. Instead, focus on the top three things that set your business apart. And remember to sell the sizzle, not the steak! What does that look like in terms of persuasive copy?
- Use short, action-driven sentences.
- Cut out any sentences written in a passive voice.
- Use expressive words that paint a picture of the experience of owning your product.
- Give snapshots of the benefits, the uniqueness, the creation process.
Think of your text like a highlight reel rather than a business biography. When in doubt, take some words out. The more words you use, the more likely someone is to bounce off your page.
And here are 5 more small details to fix on your website:
- Upload a favicon. Yes, there are websites that still forget this step.
- Make your contact button easy to find.
- Don’t forget an About page that tells your amazing creation story! Sometimes this is the deciding factor in making a purchase. Compelling, real, and honest wins every time. Hint: behind the scenes photos of you making your product are crucial.
- Test your website on different devices. Check it on an Android, iPhone, tablet, and desktop. There’s no predicting what wonky website stuff happens between devices.
- If you promote a product on social media, don’t make people hunt for it on your website. Make it a featured item on your home page or link directly to that product on your Instagram page or Facebook account.
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