As a small business with limited marketing dollars, it can be incredibly frustrating when a website you invested in just isn’t bringing in the leads or sales you need. Building a website can be a costly affair, and just like hiring a contractor to build a house, you may not know if they developed your website according to the latest best practices and codes.
At BrandMinded®, we design and launch websites that are future-ready to give you a competitive edge in your industry, using the best practices and full transparency with our clients. Through our years of experience, we have identified 5 sure-fire ways that small businesses lose customers by incorporating these deadly design sins on their websites. Read below to see if you self-identify with any of the reasons why your website might be costing you business.
Slow Site Speed
Nearly half of web visitors expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less, and if yours takes longer than 3 seconds to load, more than half of your visitors will have already left your website.
With speed being synonymous with revenue, having a speed-optimized site is crucial. You’re not only dealing with stiff competition in the market, but you’re also dealing with an audience with increasingly shorter attention spans. You have only a fleeting moment to make a good impression, otherwise, it could be your last.
“Be fast or be prepared to drown in the sea of competition,” says Meagan Floco, Digital Director at BrandMinded®.
Google prioritizes pages that have a faster loading time, so if you want to optimize your chances of views, focus on your website speed. Your site could have the best content in the world, but if your site speed is slow, it’s less likely to be seen.
There are tons of ways to fix to slow site speed, some are as simple as upgrading hosting, and others involve more technical skill from an experienced web designer.
Want to know how fast your website is? Contact our Tampa web design team to get a detailed website speed assessment!
You’re invisible
Site speed factors into SEO (search engine optimization), but there is another important factor that can improve your chance of getting more visitors. Proper markup on pages, descriptions, alt tags, and captivating meta descriptions can encourage and entice people into visiting a page – but only so long as it accurately describes the content they’ll see.
Small and medium-sized businesses need to be especially aggressive with their local SEO strategy. Depending on your industry or service, your customer may not travel very far after searching for a business. Imagine all the local competition who will appear on the maps as well. At BrandMinded®, we use the best-in-class SEO solutions to elevate our clients’ online visibility, building strong local strategies to help distinguish you from your competitors.
Poor User Interface, Outdated Design
User interface (UI) refers to the layout, navigation, and overall feel and design of your website. The best user interfaces are designed with the user experience (UX) at the forefront – every page, every module, every pixel of your website should provide something meaningful or valuable to the visitor.
Every once in a while, design best practices undergo a paradigm shift. What was once the standard in web design, might become detrimental to you a few years down the road, Meagan explains.
“The only thing permanent about digital is that it’s ever-changing. A website that was built this year might not be as effective as a marketing tool in five years when a competitor hits the digital stage with their brand new, modern site. Small businesses owners may not be aware that their website should be redeveloped or refreshed every few years with the latest designs and best practices in order to remain relevant.”
Lack of Content
Let’s say someone lands on your website, clicks around, and doesn’t understand who you are or what you provide – then you have a big problem. Not only will the visitor be frustrated by the lack of clarity on your website, you’ll more than likely lose them forever as a customer.
Content doesn’t just refer to blogs, product descriptions, or news articles on your site. It includes your messaging, your unique value, your philosophy, and your thought leadership. Both visitors and search engines will find your website stale and not useful if it hasn’t been updated for a long period of time.
At BrandMinded®, we take a brand-centric approach to everything that we do. Content and brand identity go hand-in-hand in web design, and your website should be tailored to address specific questions and intentions that your visitor has.
No Promotion, No Identity
Users won’t visit a website if they don’t know that it exists. SEO can only get you so far. You’ll need to advertise to get customers to recognize and develop a relationship with your brand. Making an effort to build brand awareness is a great way to drive more traffic to your site, and it can even help to engage customers.
Many small to medium-sized businesses overlook the value of advertising because they mistakenly associate it with a big price tag. Fortunately, the digital landscape gives advertisers full visibility into what works, and what doesn’t work – unlike traditional advertising of the past. If you think it’s important to invest in a website, you should realize it’s equally important to invest in other online activities that will elevate your brand and help drive qualified traffic and customers to your website.
If you think about it, a website is like having a 24-hour employee who works for you 365 days a year. They don’t take holidays or vacations, they don’t ask for a raise or promotion, but they handle all of your digital customers and often serve as the first touchpoint you have with them. First impressions are vitally important in today’s digital landscape, and you may only have as little as 2 seconds to entice them.
After reading this, if you realize that you’re not giving your website the attention it deserves, contact BrandMinded® – a digital marketing agency that specializes in strengthening the digital presence of small and medium-sized businesses in the Tampa Bay area. Our experts in web design and SEO strategy have improved the marketing positions of numerous companies, and we’d like to do the same for you. Reach out today to get started.
