Building a website that pulls in visitors and converts them into customers is never an easy thing to do. There’s a lot of trial and error, especially in the beginning.
Are you struggling to convert customers? Do you feel like your website is letting you down? Here are some of the most common mistakes that small businesses make with their websites.
Busy homepage
It’s easy to go overboard by trying to include everything all at once on your homepage. However, modern websites are much more minimalist these days. They’re fresh, clean and don’t give you a headache as soon as you arrive.
You don’t want 101 things jumping out for attention or the visitor won’t know where to look. As long as you have good, clear navigation there’s no need to squeeze every little detail on your homepage.
Lots of different fonts
Some websites will make use of a different font for the header, the menu, subheadings and body text. Just because you can do this doesn’t mean you should. While mixing it up a bit and using two different fonts can look fine, using too many just makes the website look messy and distracting.
Colour overload
Some websites will play it safe and choose one colour (usually blue). Others will go overboard and choose lots of different colours. The former looks a bit boring and the latter looks messy.
Instead, choose at least two for your website. Having more than one colour can help to make the website look fresh and more interesting. It can also help things stand out where you need to highlight them.
Try to pick colours which complement each other well. If you’re struggling for ideas, try Coolors, a free colour scheme generator.
Novel-like copy
This follows on with the ‘too much or too little = bad’ theme. Too little copy doesn’t grab your attention, can make the website look bare and can also harm your SEO efforts. Search engines like copy of at least 300 words per page typically.
On the other hand, don’t overwhelm your website visitors with huge blocks of text. It might contain interesting or helpful information but the chances are no one will ever stop long enough to find out. We have short attention spans, especially online, and your copy should reflect that. Leave the more in-depth copy for blog posts.
Poor navigation
Ideally, you want people on your website and able to find what they’re looking for within a few seconds and clicks. Don’t make it hard to find out more about you, to see reviews, to contact or to actually buy from you. Again, people have short attention spans and if your website navigation is confusing they’ll go elsewhere.
Missing a clear call to action
When someone comes on to your website, what do you want them to do? Not showing them the next step makes it unlikely that they’ll take it themselves.
If someone likes what they see, they’ll want a clear next step or call to action so that they can begin the buying process. This is particularly important for those selling a service. Those selling products can have a clear Shop page to direct to. With a service, it’s less clear what the next steps are.
A call to action might be a ‘subscribe’ button or a ‘get a free quote’ button. You may want these at the bottom of each page or in the form of a sticky button that follows the visitor wherever they are on the page so it’s easier for them to act when it suits them.
Doing it yourself
In the beginning, it’s cheap and easy enough to set up a basic website yourself. It might be fine for a while but if you want to go one step further and make your website truly professional, get a professional to build it.
Most of us are not naturally great at website design. A professional will be able to create a website that works best for you, while also ensuring the backend is working correctly.
The same goes for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) too. Trying to do it yourself may be better than nothing but if you really want to give your website a boost, you need someone working on it constantly, preferably with years of experience. You don’t have to do everything yourself!
Want some help with SEO, copywriting or social media management? Get a free quote and a website review from Team Organic.
