Is your website pulling in business for you, or is it driving business away? The days of being able to build your own site from a template or having a relative throw one together for you have long been over. Today, web visitors expect to see a well-designed site that is easy to navigate and has a clear message, all while being visually interesting. Let’s take a look at what customers expect when they visit your website and what will send them running to your competitors
Sites Should be Professionally Designed
Your website should be designed by a professional. Website design includes the look and feel of a site, as well as the ease of use. A website with poor color choices, bad navigation, and amateurish flaws will present your business as amateurish. The people who visit your website begin making assumptions about your company almost the moment they have laid eyes on your site. Is the text large enough for them to read? Is it easy to move around from page to page and find the information they are looking for? Are there broken links or missing images? Is your site easy to navigate on all kinds of devices like phones, tablets, and laptops? Is your site pretty to look at or does it look dated and old? All of these issues and more are addressed by a good website developer. Customers have been using the internet a long time now and they don’t trust bad design.
Your Website Should be Easy to Navigate
When I visit a website, I am either looking for a product or service you offer, an answer to a question, or the contact information for the business. Would I be able to quickly locate these items on your website? The experience on your site should be the same for visitors on a desktop computer as it is for a mobile user. Do I need to pinch and zoom on your website to read the content? Visitors want their experience to be easy. If it is going to take too long to locate the information they seek, or if the site itself isn’t easy to use, you are likely to lose those customers to the competition.
Your Customers Want a Fast Website
The internet has become faster and faster over the years, and our expectations of immediate answers or results have only increased. A slow loading website will frustrate your visitors and they may “bounce” off your website and into the hands of your competition. If your site loads quickly, you are much more likely to retain the visitor, have them purchase something and/or fill out an information form. Whatever your end goals for your visitors, site speed plays a critical role in whether you will be successful meeting your goal. Are you curious how your site performs? Here is a page speed tool from Google.
Avoid Popups
There are people who like popups - especially those “exit popups” you see when you move the mouse to leave a page. Popups tend to annoy and aggravate your visitors instead of accomplishing some goal to retain them. I would encourage owners to ask friends, family, and colleagues about their opinions on popups before using them on their website. Are they bad for all sites in all cases? No. But in general I recommend avoiding them.
Be Original
Your website should reflect the one-of-a-kind business that you have. Don’t settle for a cookie-cutter site that looks just like everyone else. A good website developer will help you by leading you through the design process. They will recommend styles, fonts, colors, images, and text that will be on the pages of your website. Listen to their expertise. A good website developer is constantly learning their craft and is up on the latest trends and the expectations of your users.
Your Website Is Never Done
If you choose to excel in the online world you must understand that your website is never done. You, with the help of your website developer and SEO team, will continuously make changes to the site, adding new content and images as well as making the necessary style changes that occur over the years as trends, expectations and technology changes. But you do not have to be overwhelmed at the thought of managing it yourself. The Worx Company will be there every step of the way to guide you and manage the aspects you choose not to do yourself.
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