First Impressions
Like everything else in life, first impressions count. Nowadays, if users don’t find what they are expecting to find they’ll leave and more than likely never come back. First impressions are so important when it comes to web design and often this realisation comes at a cost for most website owners.
Making sure your website is well designed and up-to-date can make or break it. A good rule of thumb is to judge your website against others that you, as a user come across. If you think your website is out-dated or just looks wrong, then it could do with an upgrade and odds are your users have already come to that conclusion.
It’s important to keep things simple with a website. A good web designer, like here in Webtrade will offer their advice and expertise to clients to ensure that the website has a great first impression. They will know what works and how to maximise its’ potential.
Bounce Rates
A very good way to see whether your users are sticking around or leaving your website as fast as humanly possible is to analyse the bounce rates. If your website is showing a high bounce rate and low time on site, this means your users are not finding what they need for whatever reason.
As bounce rates are a good barometer for any website, keeping a close eye on this is important as this will have an impact on other areas of your website, such as conversion rates. It stands to reason that if your website has a high bounce rate, you’ll more than likely have a low conversion rate.
Low Conversion Rates
Coupled with high bounce rates is low conversion rates. A website should be used as a tool to make sales or to collect leads. If you are used to getting in a certain amount of leads or sales through your website and notice they are falling off, this would be a strong argument to upgrade your website.
Nowadays, users are expecting a well-designed and well though-out website. They don’t like to see outdated websites. This can also give a very bad first impression that the service you provide is equally as poor.
Not Mobile-enough
With the introduction and high take-up of tablets and smartphones, the game has changed quite significantly in the past 12 months. No longer are users coming predominately from desktop machines, they come in all shaped and sized screen.
Making your website responsive is important for two reasons:
- Users are visiting your website from mobile devices will get a design tailored to their screen
- Google rewards responsive websites because of reason 1.
As Google has pushed for greater adoption of mobile enabled websites, they are rewarding websites who has taken the time to develop their mobile versions while penalising those who have not. Google want to make the users’ experience better no matter what type of device they are on.
Low Search Rankings
An old website and the problems that go along with that can result in low search results. Tracking where your website ranks is important. There have been some big shake-ups in recent years with different algorithms meaning no longer are there any quick fixes.
Today, a well thought out website design which aids content creation, which is original and high quality is vital. Over time you should strive to improve your search rankings to ensure that you are making the most of your shiny new website.
Too Slooooooow
No one is going to wait for your website to load. Simple. Users have come to expect websites to load quickly. A slow website will give a terrible first impression of your company and you run the risk of alienating them against your brand forever.
Recognising that your website is slow should help you recognise that it may need to be updated. The time a user expects to load is around 2 seconds, anything more than that and you’ll never see them again!
CMS Issues
Often we see that websites are not updated because the CMS used behind the website is incredibly complex and difficult to use. This is one of the biggest hurdles website owners often say they face when they want to update their website.
An easy to use and well thought out CMS is important because it allows for changes when the time suits. Doing the changes in-house reduces overheads by reducing the outsource requirements when the website needs to be updated.
Embarrassment
If you’re embarrassed for your website, it’s time for a change. Your website is your shop window for the entire world to see. It’s a selling tool that is open for business 24 hours, 7 days a week. Annually it can be cheaper than a salesperson but all the while work towards your goals.
If you want to have a quick chat to us about your website just pick up the phone and call us on (01) 2990655 or email sales@webtrade.ie.