If getting customers to visit your website is your first challenge, getting the customer to look around is your second. The basic layout, design, and content of your site can make the difference between a sale and a lost customer due to the back button. Whether you’re looking to build a website from scratch or thinking about upgrading a current site, here’s a list of five designs that are sure to turn most of your customers away.
1) Flash Presentations
Besides being terrible for search engine optimization, modern web surfers hate the introduction of Flash. Intro animations are mostly (and therefore expected to be) a barrier between a customer and the information they are looking for. Even if your intro contains relevant information or offers a skip button, ditch the Flash!
However, Flash animations can be a useful tool if your product or service is better described in an audiovisual medium. If you know your animation helps educate your customer about your product or service, link to it on your home page, but prevent the customer from looking or listening before moving on to a different page.
2) Automatic sound or videos
If you must have music or a video on your home page, make sure the customer has the option to watch or listen. NEVER make the sound or video play automatically, even if you have an “off” button in sight. In my opinion, these are the two most common violations of network etiquette (that’s internet etiquette) and they will send your customers looking for the back button, not the off button!
3) Stock Photography
We’ve all seen the image of the smiling telephone operator waiting to take our call, but she sticks out like a sore thumb on a small business website. Bottom line: Stock photography is cold and impersonal, it’s not the image you want to show your clients.
So what is the solution to fill all that empty space on your website? A digital camera! Take photos of your office, team members, storefront, showroom, warehouse, etc. These images 1) show that you are a real company, not just a website, and 2) give your customers the feeling that they are dealing with real hardworking people like themselves.
If you’re concerned about the quality of photos you can take with your own equipment, hiring a photography student from a local college can be an inexpensive way to make your website photos look more professional. If money is less of an issue, a professional photographer could do the job in an afternoon.
4) Images of text, instead of text
You shouldn’t run into this problem if you’re starting from scratch (if you do, switch designers!), but I still come across dozens of small business websites each month that have images of text instead of text. this is the biggest search engine optimization (SEO) mistake that can be made. Period. If you have a website that has nothing but images, you’ve been a long time for an update!
In addition to being an SEO issue, text images prevent customers from copying and pasting phone numbers or addresses and other useful information, but they mostly just look dated and unprofessional.
5) Cleanliness is king
Simple and clean designs are the new dominant design force on the web. Many of the most visited websites on the web have mostly backgrounds, text, and a header and footer. Take a closer look at some of your favorite websites, and you’ll notice that they’re deceptively simple!
How is this simple design principle applied? Avoid black backgrounds, strong color palettes, or graphic-heavy layouts. This way, your content becomes king, not your design.
Bonus tip: Do your customers visit a physical store or office? If so, adding an image of your building’s exterior to the “Contact Us” page can help your customers quickly identify your building and avoid missing out or losing your business altogether.