Do Customers Hate Your Website?

So. What do your customers think of your website? Ever ask them? Forget what your friends, co-workers, or mom thinks. It’s customers that keep the lights burning, right? What about potential customers? Did you miss out on a sale due to your website? While there are many methods, and strategies available to help you answer these questions, a good place to start is a little self evaluation. To help get you started, I’ve listed out some key areas that I usually look for.

 

First Impressions

In most cases, you’ve only got a few seconds to grab a potential customer or site visitor’s attention. Especially if it is their first visit to your site. More importantly, your visitor’s immediate perception of you will greatly affect whether or not they become a customer. Ok. So, how do we accomplish this? for starters……

Is it Pretty?

I know. Mom always said it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but on the web it’s all about looks. At least for the first few seconds anyways. Don’t get me wrong, content is a HUGE part of a site’s success. However, that takes part in the “getting to know you” stage of the relationship. But, to get there you’ve got to catch their attention first. And fast. Simply put. If you’re sporting an ugly design, people won’t stick around. And if they don’t stick around, how are they going know about all the great things you do. Basically, website design is meant to chorale all your content, offerings, benefits, etc  in a visually appealing way that not only grabs their attention but also makes them want to learn more.

Another unintended consequence to poor design is that many people also associate a bad website design with bad service. Think about it from your customer’s stand point. If you didn’t take the time to put together a good site, what would make them think the quality of your service or product would be any different. Good site design will give visitors a sense of what it’s like to do business with you.

Is it immediately clear what you do?

While this falls into the first impressions category, content also plays a major role here. Visitors to your site should be able to make a quick scan of your web page and have a fairly clear idea of what you are all about. This not only goes for your homepage, but for every page on your site. You can’t always guarantee visitors will land on your homepage first. So, every page on your site should convey and highlight exactly what it is you do, sell, or offer your visitors.

 

Keeping Their Attention

Ok. So you’ve got their attention. Now what? This is what I like to call the “getting to know you” stage. Now it’s time to introduce yourself, introduce your products/services and layout the benefits of doing business with you. Like above, there are some key questions to ask yourself.

Does your site’s navigation, well navigate?

One of the most critical elements of any site is the navigation. After all, even the best looking, most creative taglines mean nothing if you can’t get visitors to the information they want. The key to a successful site navigation is your ability to properly organize and categorize the information on your site in such a way that makes sense to your visitors. Additionally, good site navigation should keep in mind the “3 click rule”. Your visitors should reach their desired information within 3 clicks or less.

Does your site look like the inside of an Apple store or a garage sale?

Consistency is the name of the game here. As your visitors navigate throughout your site, the content, layout, design, etc should all be laid out in an organized and consistent manor? Choose a design/layout that works best for your needs and objectives and stick with it. That’s not to say you can’t customize each page on your site with individual images and text, but changing backgrounds, layouts, navigation, etc just to reflect different products or service pages is not only counterproductive, but also could be distracting to your visitors.

Did your visitor come away with anything?

After you’ve lured  them in, showed them around, and told them everything there is to know about you, what are you sending them away with? Did they learn, download or sign up for something? Depending on the goal(s) for your site, adding in a reward or thank you in exchange for some type of action taken, could be a valuable tool to you and your visitors. However, the key here is to not turn into the overly eager used car salesman. And, most importantly, be upfront and clear on what said action will result in. If it’s free, it’s free. If you get emails, don’t spam or sell the info.

Well there you have it. Just a few high level areas of evaluation, that will hopefully help you start thinking about ways to improve your website’s performance and online presence.