You just invested thousands of dollars into building a brand new website. You went through your website checklist to make sure it’s up to standards. It’s mobile responsive, loads fast, and looks good. Job done, right? Now you’ll get millions of users flowing through your site and your conversions will go from 0 to 100 real quick (Drake reference). Well unlike Drake’s success rate, your website still isn’t satisfying you. Is your website working for you, or against you? Different elements of web design/development can work against businesses and hinder their success. Here are 8 things you should watch out for when optimizing for conversions on your site:
1. You are not fully targeting your audience
The most important aspect in making sure your website converts is making sure you’re reaching your audience. If your website sells shoes, you have to make sure you’re serving content for people that are looking for shoes. Don’t write blogs about new Ebola outbreaks, even if you know it will generate traffic because it’s a trending topic. Your main concern shouldn’t be to acquire a large number of users to your website, you need to attract potential shoe-buyers. Keep in mind, 1000 users from which only 10 convert isn’t as important as 200 users out of which 9 convert. Find your niche and focus on delivering content specific to it.
2. You are lazy
Going back to Drake, do you think he’d be able to spread his audience into 6.8 million followers on Instagram if he only made a song once a year? Being consistent is an important part of making sure your audience is engaging with your business. Write blog posts every week as opposed to whenever you feel like it to make sure you are pushing new content for your users as well as for Google to take a look at and rank you better. Don’t be lazy, write insightful content that will solve your user’s problems and answer their questions for them.
3. You don’t have any strong call to actions
Call to Actions (CTA’s) are your website’s way of transforming users into conversions. Whether it’s a form submission or adding an item to the cart, you have to make sure you’re guiding your user through your conversion funnel. CTA’s should always stand out to your audience without making them feel too in-your-face. The user should want to click through your CTA and your CTA should attract the user.
4. You’re too spammy
This one is pretty straight forward. Make sure your ads aren’t overpowering your content and that the focal point of the user is your content and your CTA’s, as opposed to the ads themselves. If you are going to have ads, make sure they are targeted at your audience in order to give the user a feeling that the website is helping find their needs as opposed to just overloading them with pointless junk.
5. Your content isn’t engaging
You have 0-8 seconds to make a compelling headline and landing page. After 8 seconds, the majority of visitors leave. Make sure you grab your user’s attention from the start. Keep it short and sweet, yet informative. Don’t overload with information, but also, don’t leave the users without information. Structure your content in a way that is easy to read. Don’t forget to have CTA’s on every single page if you want your users to convert.
6. No social presence
You have to think about your social platforms as direct ambassadors of your brand. Social media is where people go to seek the opinions and reviews of real people. People are so driven by social media these days that even Google has implemented their algorithm to take into account your brand’s social engagement. My advice, be honest on your social media. Don’t hide negative comments, and don’t buy fake followers to boost your brand’s audience. It needs to be organic.
7. Complicated contact forms
We’ve all been there. We land on a page of a website and see this form with over 15 fields and instantly navigate away from the website. Why? Because we are lazy. We aren’t compelled to give you or that website all that information because at the time we feel like we’re getting nothing in return. Keep the forms simple. Look for something that is absolutely necessary to be able to convert as well as help the needs of the user filling your form out. Offer something for free upon completion of a form, as people are driven by the idea of free. Don’t let your forms be the reason why your traffic falls off during the checkout process or when they just want additional information about your services.
8. You are missing consistent branding
This ties in with your social presence, however it requires a couple of other steps as well. Make sure you’re consistent throughout every channel of your business. Be professional so people can take you seriously. You could have a little more fun with social because that’s where people see the other side of your brand, but stay consistent. Make sure when people check your Twitter, and land on your website, they feel like they are connected. If you have a cover photo of a cute cat on Facebook and your website features dog food, it will confuse people, regardless of how cute that cat is. EVEN if it’s this cute:
Do you feel like you’re not getting your ROI? Ignite your conversion with Spark’s help or spark up the conversation by leaving a comment below.