Websites with a singular focus on their calls-to-action and product offerings will outperform vaguely planned websites every day of the week.
Your content should have a flow. Read one thing, then read/do this next. No guess work for the visitor.
Below are the common ways your website is causing your visitors to leave without ever returning or contacting you.
1) It’s not obvious what you sell/do
Countless websites are filled with jargon that doesn’t communicate properly to the target audience.
Make your copy (writing) simple and easy to understand.
Use lists and modular sections to make it easy to break your business into easily digestible pieces.
Most importantly, make sure you have enough actual information to help people make a buying decision.
The longer people stay on your website, the more likely they are statistically to purchase from you.
Attention can equal dollars, so keep your content flowing while ensuring your offering is concise.
“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” -Albert Einstein
2) You don’t sell the benefits
Let’s use the example of an accountant.
The accountant doesn’t really sell bookkeeping services, accounting, tax preparation and advice.
They sell peace of mind.
Sure, the work they do is bookkeeping, accounting, tax preparation and advice.
But what makes me want to buy is the confidence knowing my business is protected legally and financially.
It means that I’m paying for the knowledge that my business’ lifeblood (money) is being safely looked after.
This allows me to focus on my business while resting assured that my backside is being covered.
I buy the peace of mind.
If you’re an accountant, lawyer, consultant or other type of professional services company, you really need to be addressing the pain points and focus on offering a solution to provides peace of mind (the benefit).
If the pain is strong enough, people will pay good money for that pain relief.
The same goes for any business. Tell the features, but sell the benefits.
3) You don’t have prices on your website
Many businesses don’t publish their prices online.
Which is fine. But if you’re active driving traffic and leads to your website, a vast number of them will leave the website without contacting you.
They will assume you’re expensive or will try to gouge them for your services.
Having prices on your website does two things.
- it qualifies your prospects who would otherwise be outside of your price range
- it plants a firm number in their minds (benchmarking), and that number rattles around in their head until they are ready to make a purchase.
It’s okay if your prices are a little expensive. In my opinion, they should be above average. Just explain clearly what your value proposition is and deliver on being a premium provider if that is the case.
As acclaimed author, marketer and thinker Seth Godin says, the race to the bottom only leads to going out of business.
Don’t be the cheapest and never apologize for your prices. But deliver superior value every time.
4) There’s no clear way to contact you
Have you ever been to a website where you have to figure out how or jump through loops to contact the business?
You contact information should abundantly clear on every page of your website.
If contacting you is the primary call-to-action of the website, t should be coloured brightly and be distinct from the other elements on the site.
I like to keep it in the header of the page, but that can sometimes make tracking your conversions a little trickier unless you’re tracking the incoming calls.
5) There are too many options/decisions
When faced with too many decisions, people will frequently make none.
Your top-level navigation should be consolidated and easy to understand.
Somewhere between 4 and 6 primary navigation items is usually enough.
A secondary navigation can be added for important but second-level links such as social media sites and blog categories.
It is often wise to ensure your home page isn’t cluttered so as to avoid distracting the visitor from your primary call-to-action. I try to avoid more than 3-5 “important” highlighted items but instead focus on creating a path for visitors to follow.
It’s okay to have a lot of content on your website. But don’t try to emphasize everything.
As they say, if you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.