If you are reliant on your website to generate income from your business, then you need to invest time into producing something that your customers will love using. But if you lazily throw something together, and if your website turns out to be annoying and frustrating to use, then you will turn off your customers, possibly causing them to migrate to your nearest competitors.
This is a contributed post. Please refer to my disclosure for more information.
What will turn off your customers?
There are a number of reasons why your customers will leave your website in the virtual dust! Consider the following as examples.
Your web design is outdated or unusable. Remember the old adage: never judge a book by it’s cover. You may have invested time in writing wonderful blog entries. You may have uploaded your best photographs. But if your website looks old-fashioned, or it’s difficult to navigate, then your visitors will judge you before delving further. Look at your website like a puzzle. All the pieces need to fit together well, both looking and feeling the part. Whether you start from scratch or reorganise your site, brainstorm the design, perhaps using Microsoft Visio, and come up with a new plan. This guide to moving objects in Microsoft Visio will help, as will Microsoft’s own support pages. Consider the items you want on each webpage, and concentrate on a design that will attract rather than repel your customers. Use your experiences of web browsing to also guide you with your decisions.
Your website has too many pop-ups
When your customer lands on your webpage, they want to be confronted with your site’s content above and beyond any ads or call-to-action pop-ups you have on your site. Not only will they slow your web pages down to a snail-like crawl, but they will also frustrate your site visitor, especially if they become overwhelming. Reduce the number of ads on your site, limit your call-to-action buttons, and remove anything else that obstructs the customer’s view when they arrive at your website.
Your website has no personality
If your website design and content have no personality; if it is generic rather than giving an insight into who you are, and what your business represents, then you need to make changes and give some personality to your online presence. Choose branding colours that reflect your business. Write with a first-person perspective in your blog. Include elements of personality in your ‘about me’ page. Host a YouTube video, and embed it into your website. Do anything that can connect your visitors to you, rather than leave them with the impression of yet another faceless website that anybody could have created.
Your website is slow to load
Your potential customers aren’t going to wait longer than a few seconds for your website to load. They just don’t have the patience anymore, and will likely click away from your site rather than wait another second. So you need to get to the bottom of why your website may be loading slowly. We have already mentioned pop-ups as one possible reason, but there may be other reasons why your site may be having issues loading in reasonable time. Get to the bottom of the problem, as if your web pages are slow to load, your visitors will be quick to move on elsewhere.
Finally
Don’t do yourself or your business a disservice because of your website. If you can identify with the issues we have raised in this article, do the right thing, and make the appropriate fixes today. You need your customers as much as they need you, so you are doing everybody a favour if you do!
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