Why your website doesn’t attract customers

March 27, 2014 by Ifesinachi Okpagu Leave a Comment

Ifesinachi Okpagu

A website can be much more than a fancy presence online. It can also be used as a marketing tool to convert visitors to prospective customers. However, there are tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your business website. Think you may not be getting it right? Well, here are nine ways to tackle that:

Outdated content

Even in physical offices, things change and with that change there is the need to update customers and partners on recent development. A website with an outdated content can be misleading to visitors. For example, you may have changed product prices or particular products may be out of stock; if the content is not updated online, your visitor may be disappointed if s/he decides to place an order.

To fix this, ensure your website content is timely and updated as often as new changes occur. If you run an e-commerce store, ensure that inventory is updated in good time too.

Ensure visitors return for more

A static website is like a resume. It shows you what you need to know today and does nothing to get you looking through it the following day. Here are ways to fix this: you may publish a blog on your website or create an external blog to publish fresh updates related to your business industry or post videos. For example, some restaurant businesses publish videos illustrating how to prepare simple meals to engage their visitors.Discover what works for you and stick with it. The important thing is to either be entertaining, informative, educative or all three.

Cluttered pages, poor images, badly written content

Have you visited a website and immediately suspected the business of being fraudulent? What informed your suspicion? It may be purely psychological — a company website that has poor graphic images, cluttered layout, badly spelt words or broken links may appear to be so.

The best way to fix this is to engage the services of a good website designer and a copywriter you can trust not to tarnish your brand image online. The investment is worth it when you view the final result.

No optimised landing page

A landing page is an online page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead form (HubSpot). Many business websites are guilty of this, as business owners do not understand the importance of having a great optimised landing page. Imagine meeting a potential client for the first time and not collecting a business card to follow up on the prospect?

To fix this, discuss with your website designer on how best to collect visitor’s information on your website so you can follow up converting visitors to leads and finally, customers.

Poor navigation

A website is like a road map, which leads you from your starting point to your destination. In the case of a website, the starting point is usually the home page and the end point, the action you want the visitor to take.

If your website does not have a strategic navigation plan, consult with your website designer to think up one and ensure s/he follows that roadmap through to ensure that visitors take the necessary action before leaving your website.

Visitors lack compelling reason to buy now

This is most common with service-based businesses that prefer fancy words rather than giving their website visitors a concrete overview of what they are really selling and how their services will benefit the visitor.

For example, it is easy to assume what a business management company does, but not easy to see why you need such a service immediately. To fix this, try selling your services as you would products.

Lack of single call-to-action

Every page on your website should tell your website visitor exactly what action to take next. Your call-to-action may be “Click here to buy” or “Read more…” or “Contact us to get a quote”, etc. To fix this, discuss with your website designer and integrate call-to-actions in as many pages as you can.

Not optimised for search engines

Websites that rank higher when certain keywords are typed into search engines make use of keywords based on what the average visitor would use. For example, someone visiting Lagos for the first time may decide to type ‘hotels in Lagos’ into Google search. If your website and your other external links have sufficient information built around those keywords, it is more likely that you will rank higher.

To fix this, consult a knowledgeable Search Engine Optimisation expert or a website copywriter who understands how SEO works.

Not viewable on mobile devices

Consider the last time you were on the road and needed to confirm certain information online. Did you use your mobile phone? I bet you did. Statistics range in the percentage of people who view websites via mobile phones but we can say an average of 40 per cent, if not more, access the web via mobile devices. This means if your website is viewable only on desktops, you may be missing out on a large number of potential customers who shut down your page once the inevitable error message comes up on their mobile screens.

To fix this, discuss with your website designer to either build a mobile website for you or use layouts that are already optimised to be viewed via mobile devices.

 There are, of course, other ways you are not enjoying the benefits of owning an online property, but these are just a few to get you on the right track. Join the conversation @lexitonpr for your enquiries!