6 Costly Mistakes On Your Website And How to Fix Them
Websites take a ton of time and money to build and design. You want your website to not only look beautiful, but function well and convert your audience into paying customers.
The question, “why should someone choose you?” should be easily answered in your website copy and images. Because you only have a few seconds to capture a reader’s attention, you really want to get the most bang for your buck.
So if you have a website that hasn’t been leading to sales for your business, continue reading to see if you’re making any of these web design mistakes.
Not Having a Cohesive Brand
If you’re not a web designer by trade, you probably through your website together using a preselected template and a few YouTube tutorials. I know that’s what I did with my first website!
Maybe you put a little more thought into how you wanted your website to look and created a vision board on Pinterest with ideas from a few different websites you love. That’s a start!
I’ve come across many websites that are bare bones or scattered and confusing to navigate. Some pages have a Christmas theme going on, and others are filled with pictures of oceans and sunsets.
While I get that not every business has money to invest in high-quality brand photography or a graphic designer to make you fun logos and elements it’s important to have a cohesive feel to your entire website.
Have you ever seen those Chick-Fil-A commercials where they interview someone sitting on a red couch in a white room. You instantly know that’s a Chick-Fil-A commercial.
You go to their website or mobile app and it has the same look and feel. White with pops of red to draw your eyes to what’s important. And a few pictures of cows sprinkled here and there to make you giggle.
Chick-Fil-A has their website branding on-point with clear calls to action and the right amount of white space.
When selecting the layout, colors, and fonts for your website remember the message you are trying to convey and be consistent throughout. Don’t distract people with too many fonts or colors. Simple is almost always better.
Ask yourself these questions:
Who am I talking to?
What are the core values of my business?
What am I trying to promote or sell?
When designing my own website, I chose the colors green and blue because I wanted a calming color palette that I was able to connect with photos of nature. Whatever branding you choose, make sure it is clear to your customer what website they are on and make yourself stand out (but not in a bad way).
Unclear Calls to Action
This is one of the struggles I see most often on my clients’ websites. They are afraid to come off too salesy, pushy, or direct. But guess what? That’s exactly what people need when going to a website.
People don’t want to scroll and scroll and scroll into a never-ending abyss. They need direction on what action they should be taking.
Do you want them to purchase your product? Read your blog? Book a call? Great! Tell them that with a big, bold button that is clear and easy to read. Heck, you can even add an arrow graphic or picture of yourself pointing right to it.
I love how Paige Brunton’s Course Sales Page has buttons that take up nearly half the screen. She’s not shy about those calls to action and you shouldn’t be either!
Extra long buttons bring attention to the CTAs Paige Brunton wants us to notice.
Put a call to action on nearly every section of your website. You don’t want someone to hit a deadend and not know where to go next because chances are they will hit that X in the top right corner and go about their day without a second thought.
Again, this requires some strategic planning on your part as you think through the journey you want your audience to take. You want them to get to know about you and your offerings by visiting your website but you don’t want them to feel lost or confused.
Boring About Me Section
It’s so hard to write about yourself. I totally agree. Yes, you want your audience to be able to get to know you through your About page, but you should be doing more than listing off your credentials and resume.
Instead, think of ways you can connect with your readers. Why should they work with you over other people in your industry? Why should they trust you? What value are you offering? How will you solve their problems?
Another thing I see far too often when it comes to the About copy is people trying to be too cutesy with their writing. It’s okay to sprinkle in some fun facts about you like who your favorite football team is or your least favorite food but try to keep it to a minimum.
Again, the goal is to convert people to customers so don’t distract them with pictures of your house, your family, your kids, or your dog. But DO have a picture of yourself. People connect with people so unveiling the face behind your brand is always a great strategy.
Too Wordy on Your Service Page
Have you ever been to someone’s website and you leave because after scrolling for eternity you still have no idea what it is they’re even offering? Yeah, that’s not good.
I know many virtual assistants offering every service under the sun but what are your top 3? Narrow it down so you don’t confuse potential clients.
And while it’s nice to brag about your products or services, keep it simple. Don’t use fancy jargon that your average customer may not know. Don’t go into a long diatribe about the products origins, founders, and backstory.
Tell the reader a sentence or two about why this product changed your life and how it could change theirs, too. It’s okay to be salesy on this page but it’s better if you can show the value of your products versus writing it out in paragraph form.
This is a great place to include testimonials, screenshots of analytics, mockups of your products. The whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” definitely applies here.
Take a look at my Service page. I currently have offers that fall into three different categories: Podcasting, Web Design, and Blog/Pinterest Management. The services are summarized in a short a sweet 1-2 sentences. When clicking on one of these buttons, you’re taking to each of the service items respective pages where you are again given only 2-3 options for packages.
Keep descriptions to a sentence or two and use buttons to direct traffic to other pages or sections.
I use drop down menus and a Frequently Asked Questions section to go into more details about what a client can expect when they work with me. Using these strategies is a great way to keep your audience focused with minimal bulky on screen text but they are still able to get their questions answered.
Using dropdowns on your Service page is a great way to keep your things visually appealing and text to a minimum.
There’s a lot of debate around whether or not you should put your prices on your website. I’m all for it personally, because I know as a consumer, I am less likely to take the extra effort to contact someone to ask about their rates.
If their rates are higher than what I can afford I end up feeling embarrassed or ashamed. If they are lower than what I thought they would be, I feel like I’ve either stumbled upon the deal of the century or like I am signing up to work with someone who has no clue what they’re doing. Neither option is good for business.
Save you and your customers time by putting your prices on your website so you can attract exactly who wants to and can afford to work with you.
Too Much or Too Little White Space
This can be a tricky one to find the right balance, but once you see a website with the perfect amount of white space, you know.
White space is another strategic element in web design used to help improve readability by 20% by breaking up large sections of text. No one wants to go to a website a feel like their reading a novel.
Rather, using white space effectively can allow you to guide your reader to what you want them to focus on most on the page.
Think the “add to cart” button. This button is usually on a line of it’s own, in a color that stands out, and typically on a neutral background. That’s because you want your customers to click that button and having it in the middle of a cluster of images or worse, in the middle of the paragraph would be incredibly confusing.
Another area to consider adding white space is to the margins of your pages. Many standard web design templates bring the text and images all the way to the edges. Hopefully, your site looks the same on different size browsers and computer screens but to ensure this is the case, consider adding 1-2 inches of white space on either side of your content.
The SemGeeks blog, claims that “Conversion tests show that between 520 and 550 pixels of reading space is the sweet spot.” Keep this in mind when writing your content and use bullet points and short paragraphs to keep people reading.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, too much white space can make your website look cheap or incomplete. Viewers will think, “well, where is everything?”
When in doubt, look at your analytics. Are people bouncing off of one particular page in a few seconds or less? Are viewers clicking on your CTAs or scrolling right on by?
If you have the time, heatmaps are a great way to see what is working well on your website and what might need some tweaking.
Making Someone Jump Through Hoops to Reach You
Two essential things to mention here:
Have CTAs on every page and nearly every section.
Don’t make people answer a million questions before they can get in contact with you.
I know we talked a lot about CTAs already but this goes for those contact buttons, too. Want people to send you an email? Make that email address a direct link they can click and open up a new message form.
Want people to fill out the form on your contact page? Include buttons that link directly to that page throughout all of your other pages.
And, please, don’t make people answer a billion questions about what service they’re looking for. Those questions are really best answered in an email exchange or video call.
While it’s good to be able to prepare for a call by having potential clients answer a questionnaire, you don’t want to scare them away. If you make the process of booking you difficult, people will find someone else who has a more simple process.
Keep questions on your contact form to a minimum. Name, email address, phone number if you prefer calling people, and a short message or drop down menu to choose from. That’s it.
In Conclusion
As you can see, a lot goes into the design of a website. It is more than throwing together visually appealing colors, fonts, and pictures. Great web design involves strategy and forethought which is why working with an experienced web designer can greatly impact the success of your business.
Whether you have a nearly complete website, one you threw together in an hour, or you’re starting from scratch, I’d love to chat to see how I can help you get a website that converts to customers. Book a call with me here or send me a message using my contact form.
As a bonus, when you book any of my web design packages, you’ll get access to exclusive content planning worksheets that help you narrow down your ideal customer avatar (ICA) and write content for your Home page, About Page, and Service page.