A business’ website is crucial to maintain, but with it so many things can go wrong. Poor load speeds, clunky design, and painfully absent features are just a few obstacles to stay on the lookout for when looking at updating your website. Here are five potential hurdles to keep in mind.
- Your page speed is slower than a wet week
It has been a massive focus from Google search team with their Page speed algorithm updates rolled out mid 2018. Page speed comes down to variety of reasons, both server side and how your website has been developed. Overtime several factors often human error can cause these issues to compound. To find out what is causing your site’s slow load speeds we recommend Google’s page speed insights tool. We found on one client’s site, they had uploaded a new homepage image. They noticed a massive drop in enquires and it turns out the image was over 10mb and they didn’t optimise it for web causing the site’s speed to grind to halt every time a user loaded the site losing customers and revenue!
Web hosting is often overlooked and usually one of the first decisions made when starting a business. The domain name is secured with enthusiasm months before and with it the cheapest hosting options out there. Cheap hosting goes with shared overloaded under allocated servers leading to compounding issues down the track. What they’ve saved in cheap hosting they end up spending having to move the website to a new host or improving the site speed. To illustrate this point, open a browser you don’t usually use (Microsoft edge), and load your website. Have you counted past the 4 second mark as the site loads? Then without doubt your load speed is costing you customers.
- UX – Your user experience is overlooked
Now we have addressed the site loading with speed, once they get to the site, what are their first impressions? Cluttered, unorganised and stock imagery? Or are they arriving to a beautifully designed, well presented site which is intuitive to use with clear call to actions? The difference between these two scenarios will not only determine your conversions but your bounce rate as well. What it really comes down to is are the users seeing what they expected to find or is it all too much and they hit the back button? If you are unsure, look at your bounce rate within your analytics and you’ll be able to quickly assess this. In a client case study within the higher education sector we increased site conversions by 400% by simply presenting a quick contact form above the fold on the homepage.
- You are not persuasively on message
Think about how you personally communicate to a prospective customer, then look at the language used on your website are you telling or selling? If you asked someone who has not visited your site before to list the top 5 strengths communicated on the website, would there be a disconnect between what they see and how you communicate to your customers? We find when sitting with clients for the first time a massive disconnect between their passion and how they sell their services to how their website displays it. If you are award winning or have a long track record of success or have client success stories, these need to be communicated on your website. I have lost count the amount of times I’ve walked into a boardroom and seen some of the project’s customers have worked on which aren’t communicated online.
- Your products and services are poorly presented
Do you communicate what you are selling effectively? Different customers will want varying levels of information. Are you accommodating for these different levels of customer? Do you have well-presented imagery of the product or service? When you strip it all back, a website is images and text, over the past 10 years I can predict a customers reactions based on how good the imagery is.
- You’ve set up shop in the middle of the desert
You’ve built a great looking website, but it’s currently in the middle of the desert and there are no customers. You’ve considered a marketing campaign but with the number of avenues you are suffering from analysis paralysis. For a start, when a prospective customer searches for your services are they finding you or your competition? If you are not on Page 1 of Google, then those prospective customers are going to your competition. Being on Page 2 of Google and below is the equivalent of setting up shop in the middle of the desert. Unless your reputation precedes you, the odds are stacked against you.
If you’d like to know more feel free to contact me
Tim Nelson
Digital Marketing Director – TPR Media
