A website is one of the essential elements of your business. A "good" website should give visitors a view into what products or services you offer and has the potential to turn a simple website visitor into a paying customer. A website that lacks or misuses certain features can make a good business look "bad." If your site is struggling with at least one of the issues below, Cloudsent Digital can help you get it right!

 

Broken Links

When clicked, a broken link will send the user to a nonexistent or incorrect page. Have you ever encountered a '404 Not Found' page? That's what your viewers will see if there are any broken links on your website - not good for business! Be sure to test all links before publishing.

 

Outdated Information

Having outdated information on your website may come across as if you don't care. If there's a 'What's New!' tab on your homepage or a blog, make sure to update often to keep your website current. Customers will appreciate easy to find, up-to-date information about your business!

 

Horizontal Page Scroll

Unless there's a specific reason to use it, avoid the horizontal page scroll at all costs. An instance where it could work is if you're attempting to have the website look like it has a page turn. There are probably a few other cases where this is okay, but for the most part, it just shows poor design skills.

 

Vague Headlines

Website visitors should be able to tell what a page, article, or blog post is about just by the title. At the very least, they should be able to know if it's something they might want to read. Leaving a headline too vague could turn away readers. For example, if your business sells home décor, your headline could say, "We Sell Home Decor!"

 

Irrelevant or No Call to Action

Your site should call your viewers to do something, whether it's to contact you or make a purchase. If you manage to get people to view your website that's great, but if there's no call to action, you're missing an opportunity to interact with a customer and potentially make a sale.

 

Slow Loading

Many people will click off your site if it takes too long to load. Two things that you can change to help speed up your site is using files that have a smaller size and using fewer images. If neither of those options makes your site load any faster, the problem is likely in the coding.

 

Too Many Colors

While you want your page to pop and stand out amongst others, too many colors (or the wrong colors) can be distracting and irritating, driving attention away from your site. Choose a color palette for your website that represents your brand well. If you have a logo made before creating your website, think about pulling colors from that and using complementary colors as well!

 

Too Many Fonts

Too many fonts can be a distraction also and can drive customers away from your website based on its design, not the content. Overloading your site with different fonts will give it an inconsistent feel, and your website could quickly start to look unprofessional.

 

Lack of organization

You should organize your website in such a way that it only takes three to five seconds for a visitor to tell the purpose of the site and the type of business. An unorganized site will confuse customers and drive them away. In most cases, if the home page has too much or too little information, the customer will hardly look at it before clicking off.

 

Poor Navigation

Visitors to your site need to be able to tell where things are on your site. The best way for customers to find content on your site is to provide a navigation bar at the top or left side of your website. Also, consider adding a link in the footer that takes you back to the top.

 

Pop-Ups

Pop-ups become very annoying, very fast. Website visitors are there to see content and information that is relevant to them, not to have pop-ups always thrown in their face! One pop-up that is a good idea is an email subscriber window that adds visitors to an email list.

 

If your website needs improvement in any of these areas, CloudSent can help get you on the right track! Are you interested in creating a brand new site? CloudSent can help with that too - contact us today!