At Juice, we have two main goals when we build a website. First, we want the business owner to feel proud of their website. We’ve found that when a business owner is proud of their site, they get excited, their passion for their business gets re-ignited, and they go out and grow their business! Second, we want their website to have the best chance to create sale leads. Today, I’m going to talk about some mistakes I see on many websites that I think prevent “conversions” (converting a viewer into a buyer).
1. No phone number on the home page
I can’t tell you how many websites I visit on a daily basis that make me search for a phone number. Usually it’s buried on a contact page, but sometimes I’ve come across sites that either don’t have a contact page, or the phone isn’t on the contact page (the contact page just has a form to fill out and that’s all)!
As a best practice, we put the business’s phone number on EVERY page by including it in the header of the website. For instance, Juice recently launched a new website for Nichols Insurance, and we included the phone number and email address at the top of every page, just above the logo.
So let’s think about this for a second. Viewers of a website can “enter” the site on practically any page, right? They don’t always come to the home page first, because they might have done a Google search and entered the site on a page other than the home page. So if you don’t know which page a viewer is going to enter your site, and getting them to call your business is what you ultimately want them to do, then why not put your phone number on every page? Don’t make finding a way to call you an “adventure!” Make it easy for them to find your phone number.
2. No calls-to-action (CTAs)
This brings me to the next topic: Calls-to-Action. A CTA is some short statement, a graphic, or a button encouraging the viewer to take the action you want them to take, whether that’s to pick up the phone to call, or to fill out a contact form on the website (those are the two most common website CTAs).
We recently launched a new website for our client George Kostakis, DDS, and he has pages on his website titled “First Visit” so that new patients know what to expect when they see him for a dental procedure. What’s great about this is that he has a CTA on the bottom of this page that accomplishes two goals: first, it gives them a way to download and fill out the new patient forms, and second, there’s a button they can click to make an appointment!
So my recommendation is to try to find a way to elicit a call-to-action on every page of your website. If not every page, then at least have a CTA on the pages that explain your products or services. So if you’re an insurance company that sells individual, group, and Medicare insurance, at the bottom of every page for each of those services, you should have a CTA asking them to call or fill out a form.
Tell people how they can do business with you! Don’t make them wonder, tell them the next step they should take.
3. Too much text
So I find that business owners fall into one of two categories when they take on the task of writing content for their website. Some don’t know what to say, so they don’t quite have enough content on any given page (Juice can help with that! We offer copywriting services for our clients). Others have a tendency to write too much. I want to talk to the latter group.
While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of content on a Web page, you have to take a step back and ask yourself “is someone really going to read all this?”
I’m of the opinion that as a very general rule, a Web page should have between 400 and 700 words. People are comfortable reading that much without getting bored.
There are exceptions to this rule. I recently finished a website for a personal injury law firm, and they had a LOT of content on most of their pages. I talked with them about possibly shortening some of the pages, and they insisted that all the content was necessary (hey, they’re lawyers! I’m not going to argue). So there are ways of breaking up large blocks of paragraphs so that a Web page is easier to read.
3a. Use headlines
A headline is a phrase or sentence at the top of a block of content, usually in a larger font, and usually summarizing the following content. I use headlines in this post to list the three points I want to make.
So what I find is that when people first land on a Web page, they scan headlines and then go back to read the paragraphs if the headlines interest them. You probably jumped ahead and scanned all three points before you read this post, didn’t you?
My advice is to liberally use headlines. If you have a lot of content on your page, it’s a good practice to break up the paragraphs with headlines. This makes your content easier on the eye to read. I cover how to do this in a video entitled Edit and Add Posts to Your Blog. I start talking about headlines about one minute into the video.
3b. Use images
Images are another way to break up large blocks and paragraphs of text on a Web page. Most website systems allow you to “float” an image left, right or center on a page. I generally like to float images to the right of the content. Adding images that appropriately correspond to what’s being talked about on the page is a great way to break up the content and add some visual stimulation so people don’t “fatigue” from reading too much content.
In that same video, I mentioned above, I discuss how to add images to pages and posts in a WordPress website. I start talking about that around two minutes and 30 seconds.
Avoid these top 3 website mistakes and you’ll be in good shape toward having a great website!
When clients hire Juice Marketing to build a website for them, we use our years of experience building great websites to craft a site that not only makes you proud to give it out to people but also creates sale leads for your business.
Call 727.386.8611 today for a free website consultation!
[you noticed the CTA didn’t you?] 🙂