FIVE MISTAKES THAT CAN RUIN YOUR WEBSITE

FIVE MISTAKES THAT CAN RUIN YOUR WEBSITE

Gone are the days when simply having a website was enough to give your business a competitive advantage. Now that practically every brand has an Internet presence, it’s crucial to make sure your website is strategically designed to help you stand out. Whether you design your own site or hire an experienced pro to help you, avoiding these five common errors will help you to create a website that drives new leads and keeps customers coming back.

1. Illegible Design: Make sure your visitors can read your website. Choose a professional-looking, light-colored background and a text color that is dark enough to see clearly against the background. Use easy-to-read fonts – nothing with swoops and swirls.
2. Overwhelming Content: People like to scan when they read websites, so enormous paragraphs are a turn-off. Keep paragraphs to no more than two or three sentences and include headings and subheadings wherever it makes sense.
3. A Confusing Display: New website visitors only spend a few seconds figuring out if you have what they want before moving on. Make sure your navigation bar is easy to find, include no more than six options on that bar, and be sure that the name of each option clearly explains what the visitor will find when he clicks.
4. No Call to Action: Every page of your website should ask the visitor to do something specific: click for more information, watch a video, email you, and so on. Tell your visitors specifically what to do and make it easy for them to do it.
5. Your site is all about you: Don’t be the website version of the obnoxious guy at a party who only talks about himself. Make sure you address your customers’ wants, needs, and pain points and explain how your brand is a great solution. If you show your visitors how they will benefit by choosing your brand over the competition, the chances are much greater that they will do just that.

It’s true that the stakes are higher than ever when designing a website for your business, but the good news is that it’s not hard to make small changes that will yield huge results. If you make even one of the changes listed above, you can dramatically improve your website’s performance. What are you waiting for? Go make some improvements to your site and watch your business grow!