We’ve all experienced it; you jump online in search of a product and service you need, stumble across a business you find on Google, struggle to find what you’re looking for on their website, then leave the site defeated. You sit there wondering if this business is allergic to your money; after all you were ready to buy.
This is something in the digital marketing world called bounce rate. A bounce rate is the percentage of people that visit your website and leave after only visiting one page. A high bounce rate is an indication that your website is scaring potential customers away.
Don’t stress though, as a web design agency we’ve seen countless websites and can safely say there are six main reasons your website is scaring your customers away.
Slow load time
Every day it seems like people are becoming more and more impatient. This seems to be especially true when people are surfing the web. If your business website takes a long time to load, then you’re in serious trouble.
A case study conducted by HubSpot revealed that websites that load in 2.4 seconds only have a bounce rate of 12.8%, whereas websites that load in 10 seconds or more have a bounce rate of more that 58%. What this means is 58% of visitors leave the slow loading website after only viewing one page. This should be a very concerning metric for business owners. If your websites visitors are potential customers and most them leave the site after only visiting one page, then they obviously aren’t staying on your website to view your products, services and contact page.
A simple way to improve your websites loading speed is it:
- Ensure all website images are optimised for web. High resolution images are large files that take a long time to load.
- Have the website hosted locally.
To further improve your websites loading speed it is probably best to talk to your web designer.
Isn’t mobile friendly
If there were ten commandments for web design ‘thou website shall be mobile friendly’ would be number one. Since the release of smart phones, internet searches on mobile and tablets have increased dramatically. In 2018 it has been revealed that nearly 60% of all internet searches are done on mobile phones. This means if your business website doesn’t work on mobile phone, you’re in serious trouble.
Websites that aren’t mobile friendly have a significantly higher bounce rate than ones that are mobile friendly. In addition to this Google is now penalising websites that aren’t mobile friendly in the search engine results. So if your website is not mobile friendly and you’ve noticed it drop a few places, now you know why.
If your website isn’t mobile friendly, it is important to update your website with a responsive design. A responsive design is one the automatically adjusts its layout to fit the size of the screen it is being displayed on.
Not enough information
Here’s a scenario, you’re looking for a builder to build your next home. You jump on Google to do a bit of research and visit a website of a builder that looks good. You have a look around the website, you can’t find the areas they operate, the services they provide, there’s a phone number but no email address and it’s too late to call. Chances are you’re going to leave that website and find another one, probably their competitor.
In this situation, excluding basic information on the business website could be costing the owners thousands of dollars in lost inquiries. You must remember, if potential customers are finding your business online, they have probably never heard of you before and therefore have no idea about your business. This means you need to include all information about your company.
A good way to make sure your website has all relevant information is to write a list of your most frequently asked questions. Next, go through your website and see if you can answer these frequently asked questions. If not, your website needs more information.
You website should include all the information you would answer if asked these questions:
- Tell me about your company?
- How long have you been in business?
- What services do you offer?
- How much do you charge? If you don’t have a set fee, how do I get a quote?
- Where do you operate?
- Who have you worked with?
- Why should customers choose you?
- What do you do different?
- What’s your phone number, email address, business address?
Hard to navigate
Let’s say your website has all the information a potential customer could desire; the next question is, can users find what they are looking for. One of the biggest complaints we hear about a website is it’s too hard to navigate. Just like all the other points in this article; a website that is hard to navigate will have a high bounce rate.
Website navigate can be quite difficult to get right especially if there is a lot of content on the site. To make your website easy to navigate you will have to create a sitemap based on a hierarchy. This is an example sitemap for an Accounting firm:
- Home
- About usOur Story
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- Mission Statement
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- Our Team
- ServicesFinancial Reporting
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- Tax ReturnsIndividual tax returns
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- Company tax returns
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- Trust tax returns
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- Auditing
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- Financial Planning
- Our ClientsIndividualsCase Study 1
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- Case Study 2
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- Small BusinessesCase Study 1
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- Case Study 2
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- Large EnterpriseCase Study 1
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- Case Study 2
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- Case Study 3
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- Contact Us
Once the site map is decided, the next question is how it should the navigation be displayed. We believe sticky navigation, with drop down menus are the best. A sticky menu is one that stays on the top of the page; like the one on this page.
Looks unprofessional
First impressions last forever. Chances are your website is going to be the first impression a potential customer will get of your business. You have approximately 10 seconds to make a good first impression. The first 10 seconds will determine if they are going to stay on your website or leave. There are a few small things that can help your website stand out:
- Use professional photography or professional stock images.
- Get your website built by a professional website designer.
- Use a graphic designer to produce logos and graphics for the website
- Use a colour palette that matches your business logo. (a colour palette is a selection of colours that complement one another).
- Use a variety of fonts and accent colours that suits your businesses brand.
No call-to-actions
Let’s say you’ve done everything right so far. Your website loads fast, you have plenty of information, it’s easy to navigate and looks professional, yet for some reason you just aren’t getting the number of enquiries you expected. This is probably coming down to a lack of call to actions.
A call-to-action is a prompt for a website user to take a desired action on the website. For example, book an appointment, request a quote or get in contact. People have a tendency to be indecisive, therefore your website needs to encourage them to get in contact with you.
Conversion rate optimisation is practice of adjusting a websites layout and content with the intention of increasing the percentage of enquires from website visitors. To ensure your website is converting visitors to buyers efficiently, it is important that every page has a distinct call to action depending on what objective you want to achieve.
Final Thoughts
We’ve been in the website design business for what feels like a life time. We’ve seen the good, the bad and the absolutely horrendous it makes you want to be sick ugly business websites. From our experience a great website is something that can really help improve sales in your business. Several clients of ours solely rely on their website as their only form of business promotion.
If you’re looking to increase your sales, perhaps your website and a digital marketing strategy should be your next step. If you don’t know where to start, feel free to click here to visit our contact page and discuss your website and digital marketing needs, and yes, we do operate worldwide.
