Spooky Website Mistakes That Scare Customers Away
With Halloween fast approaching, many of us are looking forward to a spooky season of pumpkins, ghosts, and ghouls. Although the skeletons and scary decorations are a big part of what makes the season fun, you don’t want your website to become a haunted house that scares your customers away. That’s why it’s so important to avoid these website mistakes…they could come back to haunt you!
The 5 Spookiest Website Mistakes that could Scare Customers Away
1. Your Website Doesn’t Have a Clear Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
If a potential customer visits your website and doesn’t immediately know what you can do for them, that is a huge red flag. A statement about what you do and why you are uniquely qualified to do it should be above the fold on your homepage, and it should be reinforced by everything else on your site. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept or practice of a Unique Value Proposition, read our previous post here. Think about it – if you go to a website and can’t figure out right away what good or service the business provides and why they’re the best business for the job, you’re likely to leave and never come back.
2. Your Website is Hard to Read
If your website is difficult to read or understand, your bounce rate will be high. Far too many websites are physically, literally hard to read, because they are using font that is too small, font that is confusing or difficult to read, or using a text color that doesn’t contrast enough with the background. Customers don’t want to wade through paragraphs of unreadable text to discern your business’ services or prices, and if they’re having a hard time using your website, they will leave and choose one of your competitors. Beyond being literally hard to read, some websites use long sentences and paragraphs that can look intimidating and limit quick comprehension.
3. A Haunting Website Mistake: Your Site Loads Slowly
The number one thing that can kill your website’s chances before people even interact with it is slow loading. The internet age has taught us to expect instant results. Whether this is a good thing or not, people who come to your website are expecting it to load quickly and fully. If this isn’t the case, they are extremely likely to leave. A one-second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%, and 46% of users don’t revisit poorly performing websites. In fact, you could even face negative SEO effects by not meeting Google’s user experience standards with page elements that load too slowly.
4. Your Site is Hard to Navigate
Picture this: You go to the grocery store in a hurry. There are a few things on your list you don’t strictly need, like pecans in case you make pumpkin french toast and want a fun topping. You can’t find the pecans right away – they’re not in the baking aisle where you expected them. You consider trying to find and ask an employee, but you don’t really have the time. What do you do?
Almost everyone would just leave the grocery store without the pecans. Don’t let your goods or services be the pecans! Your website holds answers to questions like “What service packages do you provide? What are the terms and conditions? What’s your pricing like? How do I contact you?” Do not let these answers be hard to find. Your site navigation must be intuitive, and your site should be searchable, to ensure all current and future customers can find what they need easily and quickly without human intervention.
5. You Don’t Have Clear Next Steps
A big part of a business website’s purpose is to provide information, but this is only part of its ideal function. Even if your customers are getting great information about your business and having their questions answered, this isn’t enough. They need to be offered an opportunity for action. Once they know about your UVP, you need to offer clear next steps – this could be a form to fill out, a contact phone number to call, a product or service to purchase, or something else along this line. If you have your audience’s attention and don’t place a clear call to action, you are fumbling the ball at a crucial moment.
How Can You Fix these Website Mistakes?
With time and careful consideration, you can fix a lot of these websites mistakes yourself. However, you can make the process easier by involving a trusted web professional who can make sure your website is beautiful, SEO-friendly, driven by excellent user experience, and call-to-action focused. WebArc is happy to help you refine or redesign your website to make it as effective as it can possibly be. Contact us about your project today.