I absolutely loved this article by @razorsocial I have edited out everything but the salient features and added my comments, I hope they don’t mind, or you could just read the full article on https://www.razorsocial.com/website-mistakes/
1. Doesn’t pass the 5 second test
Within the first 5 seconds, can a visitor figure out where they are, what they can do on your site, and why they should do it?
It’s important that you communicate these things ‘above the fold’ or the area of your website that users see without scrolling down the page. This is typically your hero image and accompanying content.
2. Analytics and/or Google Search Console not setup
Or as you would have heard elsewhere, you can’t manage what you don’t measure! full article at https://www.razorsocial.com/website-mistakes/
Are you sure your website analytics is set up correctly?
3. Not enough focus on conversion optimization
doh, you have paid money to drive people to your site, what do you want them to do now they are here?
Not making your primary call to action obvious
Not giving people a secondary call to action
I advise people on how to find the right people to do this for you at a fraction of Irish agency rates!
Not analyzing your conversion statistics
How to Build a Google Analytics Funnel to Track your Sales
How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals and Score More Conversions!
4. Website Mistake: SEO issues that are easily resolved
Oh this is a classic, when I first sold, we dotted the i and crossed the t, we found every way of touching people and letting them get to know us. Google does the same, so help it. Use a techy boy to do the 200 metrics you d not see or are bothered about, but do the obvious yourselves!
- Missing, duplicate or invalid SEO titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags.
- Broken links on your site. With tools like Ahrefs, you can find broken internal and external backlinks on your site in a matter of minutes.
- Pages missing on your site: put correct redirects in place. So if you are deleting old pages you need to redirect them to appropriate new pages that provide related content. If you don’t do this, users will end up on 404 pages which is a frustrating experience for them. In addition, Google doesn’t index pages that return a 404 status.
5. Inconsistent branding
This is why I work with graphic designers, whether online contractors or a branding expert like Barbara Monahan. And then I help you pull it all together.
Check out this detailed guide on building visual identity from Canva: (canvas is a great tool for creating visuals but the way!-rm)
20 actionable tips to build a winning visual brand identity
6. No pixel tracking setup
If you ever felt like a company is ‘following you’ around the Web with their ads, then this was a tracking pixel at work!
7. Website not secure
Isn’t it obvious lads? But what I have found is Irish Internet Service Providers taking advantage and charging €65 or €89 per annum for an s! Whereas siteground.com include it in their hosing plans. On that subject, one Irish, sorry “Mainland” UK company support is crap now and I would have moved form them but for the manual tenner they charge to move a domain, so I leave the name with them and have hosting with siteground.
RAZOR SOCIAL had this advice: A secure website is a must if you want to have a professional web presence and establish credibility with visitors. If you still don’t have an SSL certificate and you were worried about additional costs, now you can get it for free from sites like Let’s Encrypt.
8. Poor website copy
Read their article https://www.razorsocial.com/website-mistakes/ on this, but it makes sense, why should I read it if it is not interesting?
How is google to know what is in there if you do not help it?
What’s in it for me?
9. No clear blogging strategy
Quality will always beat quantity, so it’s better to focus on writing two long-form, quality blog posts per month than to publish low quality posts two times a week.
- they make a good point about what is the copy making the reader do, and tracking it!
10. Poor website performance (speed)
Have you checked the speed of your website recently? This is quite easy to do with a tool such as GTMetrix. Or use the link at the top of the page above (PS I am not paying the premium to use the email addresses, so have no worry!)
11. No backups in place
Check out 7 WordPress backup solutions compared from WPBeginner.
12. No good email sequences after signup
In my world, the website is there so Google knows you are an expert in answering people’s questions and to gather email addresses for email marketing so they get to know like and trust you and ready to buy from you when they are ready:
Content
Relationship
Promotional asking for the sale
13. Social media feeds on your website
They say, and they are experts, “Embedding Facebook and Twitter feeds on your website is just bad.”
……. but it’s still going to slow down your website.
……..distract your visitors from taking more important actions…….
14. Complicated navigation
I’d say it must be obvious and easy to find what they want and what you want them to find!
Check out these Website Navigation Best Practices from CrazyEgg.
15. Poor content layout
Here are some content layout tips:
- Use shorter paragraphs with a maximum of four lines of text
- Use enticing headings to break up the text
- Enrich the content with strong, relevant imagery and/or video to capture visitor attention
- Avoid clutter – people love whitespace as it helps them focus.
16. Confusing visual hierarchy
Certain elements of your website are more important than others (e.g. forms, calls to action, value proposition, etc.), and you want those to get more attention than the less important parts by using ‘tools’ like positioning, size, color, contrast and shape.
The issues we often encounter when reviewing websites in relation to visual hierarchy include:
- Not following typical page scanning patterns. Readers tend to scan pages based on particular patterns, like F shaped or Z shaped patterns. Designers tend to rely on these patterns if they want audiences to notice elements on a web page in a particular order.
- Not leveraging color to drive attention to calls to action. Quite often we see websites that use brand colors for their CTAs, making them blend in. This is a bad practice as you want to pull the visitors eye toward CTAs by using color and contrast.
- Not adjusting the size of website elements to show their importance.
- Poor alignment of elements on the page. The alignment of website photos, texts, buttons, and graphics is extremely important if you want to achieve visual hierarchy that ‘flows’ naturally.
Check out this great post on Visual Hierarchy from Interaction Design Foundation.
17. Not optimized for mobile
Seriously, how many of your prospects use a mobile?
Here’s a useful checklist for making your website mobile friendly.
Summary
I think this article is great and I have always loved razor Social’s webinars for Bord Failte. The point is really that you are selling. You spend time and money to get people to your white, so help Google get them there and then get the prospects for your business to do something!
At very least you want them to get to know like and trust you and educate/ready them to buy from you when you and they are ready! No hard sell, well I won’t work with you if you are, because we need prospects in the long run, we want people to be our ideal customer, so filter them over time with content that reflects your value system and what you want them to want. Can you really help? Then do.
There are stages to the sale, it takes the typical prospect 5, 8, 12 contacts to buy, so give them what they need in those contacts and have them scream at you LET ME BUY!!!
Reards
Robert
threefive.ie a new approach to getting leads and sales