Why Your Website is Not Converting
You have invested in a website but you never or got very little business from it. In this article, we will talk about some of the reasons why.
Your website is a conversion machine full of information about your customers, the ones that actually visit it and the ones that should be visiting it. Yes, that’s correct! You just need to learn how to do that and interpret the results.
But first, let’s understand why you haven’t made business from your website and why you need to invest in it, when you have your social media pages and other online platforms that drive customers to your business.
You’re not sharing it enough but instead you might be sharing your social media.
It’s fine to advertise your social media and there’s nothing wrong with that. It is interactive and it brings you results. But wouldn’t it be better if the results are coming from different sources? Having your own website makes your brand legit. It can be present anytime and anywhere even when you can’t.
Take a look at Adobers.net for example, an online community resource and directory for Filipino-Americans.
This networking and resource platform could have been a group on Facebook where people would engage and communicate with each other. But Facebook is not designed to be a directory. One can simply start a thread about local businesses to buy from and support then business owners can comment with their account’s pages. The downside is, your comment gets buried within minutes. And when comments reach a certain amount, people are less likely to view all of them. That thread also loads very slowly leading people to leave.
There is a big change you are not showing up on search results.
But how do you show up in the first place? SEO is the best way to do that. But did you know that you can also achieve that without doing an SEO campaign? Yes that’s right and it only takes a matter of time! You can do that through harnessing the power of keywords. Keywords are what customers use to search for businesses in your niche and in your location. You need to make sure that you have the right keywords and the relevant search terms to increase your chances. You could also apply these keywords to your social media accounts but make sure to drive customers to your website too, through social media.
You’re not tracking analytics.
Or maybe you are. You just haven’t addressed the results yet. Analytics are a very powerful set of information about who’s actually visiting your website. It gives you more information than your social media insights would. The jarring part of analytics is it may be confusing or overwhelming to look at. You can ask a professional to interpret it for you, in English, as they say.
Here’s an example our design studio performed for a client in interpreting their website’s analytics into something they could easily understand. We took out the information that makes the report hard to understand and focused on the details that matters most. At the end of the day, they have a clear understanding of where their online presence stands and they have accurate information to use on their next marketing strategy.
Your website’s layout may be causing your leads to leave the website.
The design of your website is very important. Minor details matter and could lead to major loss. A few of the most common mistakes when it comes to website design are:
- Too much content in a section in too little space
- Too much space that leads to more scroll time specially in mobile
- The text size is to small or too big for mobile devices
- The flow of content is hard to follow
- There is no clear path to what you want the customer to do
These are just a few and a lot more factors can contribute to a poor user experience which causes people to leave your website instead of engaging with your content.
We performed an activity heat mapping for Takamichi Beauty Room, one of our clients in New York. We installed an application to record actual user activity which generates a heat map that gave us information about where the users take their mouse pointers, where they click on and not, how much they scroll and where the website loses the user’s attention.
We ended up with a conclusion that the page’s design is using too much space that results in multiple scrolls which makes it hard for the visitors to find what they are looking for. So instead of performing lesser activities, they take more time to engage and complete their goal of being on your website, to buy from you or hire you.
Final notes.
In person interaction is still the best way to make a connection with a prospective client and close that sale. But websites are an extension of your brand and your business. It goes where you cannot and when you cannot. It’s your online storefront and it is yours alone. While social media has a wide coverage, it is shared by many other businesses including your competition. And it has restrictions on what you can do. You can do anything you want with your website. It’s yours. The only limitation is your imagination.
