Running a website for your business can go one of two ways. You’re either using the website at its full capacity and are making good sales with it, or you’re wasting your effort and money with a website that isn’t getting enough clicks. Just as you can do the right things, you can also do wrong moves when running a website. Learn about these 5 marketing mistakes that are bad for your website.
Your website is a marketing tool in itself. From there, you can generate more leads than you would by simply opening a brick and mortar store.
The results each website owner gets vary but one thing is constant: there are a lot of windows
of opportunity in a website. The question is, are you able to leverage yours?
5 Marketing Mistakes that are Bad for Your Website
It’s always better to be mindful of the mistakes that you are committing when running a website before you focus on improving it first. That way, those two factors don’t clash with one another and your website operates at max capacity. Here are some of those common costly mistakes you need to look out for.
1. Your Website Is Loading For More Than 3 Seconds
3 seconds is just a specific number but there’s more to it than you think. According to recent studies, bounce rates increase to a whopping 32% if your website is loading fully within 1 to 3 seconds. Then on mobile devices, 53% of mobile website visits are abandoned if loading takes more than 3 seconds.
Bottomline – website performance and speed can affect your website negatively.
User experience and website performance are some ranking factors for SEO. That’s why at Constant Clicks, one of the first things we do is check whether or not our client’s website is operating correctly.
There are several reasons why your website is loading longer than usual:
Too Many Media Files
This is a common problem, especially for retail websites. Only put in the photos and videos that you need. For images, try to compress the file as much as possible. For videos, opt for embedding YouTube videos on your website instead of uploading them directly.
Bulky Code
Most of the problems with loading starts at the backend of your website. Particularly, on the code. If your code is not written efficiently, then your website will begin loading assets longer than usual. Have an expert web developer check if there are some ways you can shorten your code.
Poor Mobile Optimisation
Even if your website’s desktop version is performing well, there’s still a chance that the mobile counterpart is not operating at the same speed. In most cases, you should create a mobile-friendly version of your website. The goal is to make sure that the mobile version loads fast and that it loads properly as well.
Poor Servers
Web hosting is very important but the best hosting services are a bit expensive as well. At the start, your website can make ends meet with shared hosting. However, as traffic starts to pour in, you might want to shift to cloud or dedicated hosting instead. While expensive, these types of hosting will let your website operate at its best and even prevent downtimes from happening.
Outdated Software
You’re going to want to make sure that the software you use for web development and web design is always up-to-date. Aside from fixing security flaws, updates released on these platforms are mostly for a better browsing experience on part of the users.
These are just some of the most common problems that result in poor loading speed. Constantly check up on your website to see if it’s loading properly and quickly. Your visitors are going to thank you for giving them a platform that meets their needs as fast as possible.
2. Bad User Experience
Almost everyone owns a smartphone nowadays. Making sure your website is responsive on both mobile and desktop isn’t just a suggestion, it’s a requirement at this point.
Page speed is different from the user experience. Page speed simply refers to how quickly your website loads. On the other hand, user experience refers to various factors that make browsing your website easy and intuitive for your users.
A good user experience also means that a user can get what they want and what they need from your website without having to go through exhaustive ends. This is a good way to turn one time visitors into loyal customers of your platform.
What You Should Do
The first thing that you need to tackle is checking if all of the pages on your websites are working well. There should be no button that leads to a dead link. All clickable buttons on your page should be functional and easy-to-locate as well as you’d want to encourage people to browse your website for as long as possible.
Lastly, your menus should be simple and easy to navigate as well. Your visitors shouldn’t have to navigate through countless menus just to get to one specific page. The more intuitive your page is laid out, the better.
3. Low Trust
Trust. This is a very valuable thing on the internet. With so many websites, companies, and entities to transact with online, establishing trust and authority with your audience is a crucial step towards success.
There are many ways you can establish trust online. At Constant Clicks, we believe that one way to do so is through SEO or search engine optimisation. To put it simply, SEO refers to practices that help you rank higher on search engines.
There’s no written rule that you should only click on the links at the top of search results. It’s just a basic human instinct to trust those links more. Picture this – which link would you trust more: one that’s the very first after a search query? Or one that’s on the second page?
That isn’t to say that the links that go beyond the first three on a results page are not trustworthy. However, if you want to drive more engagement and sales on your end, then it should be your goal to rank high through SEO.
Customer Reviews
Another way to establish trust and authority is by making customer reviews readily available on your platforms. Set aside a specific page for these reviews. Alternatively, you can also stream a small banner that showcases these reviews at the bottom of your page.
People value customer reviews more than they do professional reviews. This is because they want to get raw and unfiltered feedback from people just like them.
4. Poor Exclusive Deals And Offers
Your customers are always going to be on the lookout for better deals and amazing offers. They need a reason to spend money on your website other than the fact that you have what they need.
If other businesses have better deals, then why would they pick your platform in the first place?
A good way to create a sense of urgency to make a purchase is by offering your website visitors time-limited deals. You’re probably well aware of how enticing “buy within the next 10 minutes and get one item for free” sounds. Don’t limit yourself to those kinds of deals.
Give people an incentive to work with. For instance, if they follow your social media pages, they’ll be entitled to exclusive discounts. Another good offer is to give them freebies for being return customers.
It may sound as if you’re going to lose more than you’ll earn with such a business practice but that won’t be the case. People are going to transact with you more if they see that your website is chock full of amazing deals.
To create loyal customers, you must be willing to give back to them as well.
5. Barely Noticeable CTAs
CTAs or call-to-actions on websites are buttons that urge your visitor to do something. Examples of CTAs include “buy now,” “check out” and “learn more here.”
As their main purpose is to get visitors to do something, CTAs need to be noticeable. However, you need to thread the line between being noticeable and being too forceful in what you want your visitors to do.
A good CTA should…
- Be relevant to your ad copy
- Feature a good contrast of colours for the button and font
- Strategically placed at the end of ad copy
Avoid making your CTA feel too spammy. Like one of those CTAs that you’d find on scammy websites. It should be good enough to leave a lasting impression on your audience. At the same time, it should be simple and easy enough for the eyes.
These are the most common mistakes marketers make when it comes to managing a website. We’ve helped many businesses get over these minor hurdles in the past and we might just be what you need to get over yours.
Once you surpass these problems, it’s going to be easier to drive sales and engagement towards your website and platform. It’s a long and painstaking process but it’s going to be worth it.