8 ways your website could be costing you business
Right at this very second, there could be a tonne of mistakes, errors and issues with your website that could be costing you business, sales and users.
These problems can vary from small and minor issues that a handful of users are picking up on to website-wide disasters that you didn’t even know were a problem. To help you alleviate these issues, today we’re going to explore eight of the most common ways your website could be costing you business.
It’s All About Speed
This is probably a common error that you’ve heard time and time again, and that’s because it’s one of the most essential to remember. Fast websites get business; slow websites don’t. It’s that simple. Statistically, 3.8% of users will completely abandon your site if your website takes longer than two seconds to load.
Likewise, this loading speed will reduce your revenue by as much as 4.3%, and it will reduce your click rate by 4.4%. So, out of every 1,000 users, you’ll be losing a total 125 users just because of the speed of your website.
Two seconds might not seem like a lot, but when affects over 12% of your total users, it’s definitely worth optimising your images or investing in a faster server.
A Mobile-Friendly Website
Statistically, over 56% of all US internet traffic occurs on a mobile device. This means if you haven’t got a mobile-friendly website, you’re going to lose business and customers.
Richard Burgus, a website developer, shares his experience, “Don’t you just hate it when you go to a website on your phone, and you have to keep zooming in and out to see different parts of the website. The chances are that you just leave. If this is happening on your website, guess what your customers are going to do!”
Highlight What Your Users Want
Imagine you’re running a website for a restaurant or café. What would you show on your homepage? Maybe your best dish, an upcoming event, an interview with the head chef and a collection of articles and posts on the history of your establishment and why people should come and eat at your business.
However great this content is, you need to remember that you should be giving your users exactly what they want. Now put yourself in the position of the customer who wants information on the café or restaurant.
You’re going to be looking for a phone number, a way to book a table, an address and, most importantly, opening hours. This is all information that should be clearly displayed on your homepage.
Make Sure Main Points are Clear
Think about your page titles, your headlines and everything in between. Are these headlines clear or will your users have to look around to hunt them down?
Statistically, you have just under a second to catch your reader's attention when it comes to headlines before they ignore your posts. Users are also renowned for skim-reading, so if your content doesn’t contain keywords of interest that stand out, your content will be ignored once again.
Using Tried & Tested Reading Patterns
As humans, we’ve been hardwired how to read properly from being a child, and the same rules apply online. In fact, one survey found that we like to read in an ‘F’ pattern and we spend as much as 69% of their online time looking at the left-hand side of the screen.
By not following these patterns, your readers will subconsciously find it difficult or uninteresting to read your content, something you should bear in mind when designing your website.
Guarantee Accuracy in Your Content
Consider all the written text on your website. I’m talking about the content, the blog posts, the articles, the contact information and all the page copywriting. You may have spent a lot of time perfecting this content but are you 100% sure that it’s perfect?
I’m referring to sentence structure, grammar, punctuation and, of course, spelling. This all needs to be checked for any errors will make your website look unprofessional, and it will drive users away, once again costing you business.
You can easily brush up on your grammar skills using online grammar resources, such as State of Writing and Via Writing, for example, so you can efficiently check your existing content and any future updates you make. Otherwise, in 59% cases you will turn away visitors and customers, and also it will decrease the revenue of your business.
Poorly Written Content
The chances are that you’ve invested real time and effort into producing high-quality articles and pieces of content for your website. Of course, you’re not going to want to upload anything that’s going to make your business look bad and lose you, customers.
However, just because you think your content is good, that doesn’t mean that it is. You need to invest time looking at your analytical data to see which content excels and which doesn’t. You can then base future content pieces on the same format, style or topic to be sure that you’re maximising your opportunities for sales. And then you will see how many shares and comments your content collects. All top sites in Google search have unique and engaging content so it is worth all the effort. As we know “Content is a king”!
Not Providing Contact Information
Sometimes, a customer will want to ask you a question before making a purchase or using your services. However, if you don’t include contact information, that makes this impossible and therefore creates a lost customer.
Even if you have included your contact, always make sure that it’s clearly labelled and easy to find!
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways your website could be costing your business money and customers, no matter how small or big the problems are. It’s important to go through every page of your website regularly to make sure you address these problems, ensuring your business is a success.
