A website may be the first impression a business leaves with a prospect. With millions of websites competing for a visitor’s attention, the chances a company will be given a second look are slim.
First impressions are everything. Make sure your company web design is not committing these all too familiar mistakes:
The website design only has eight seconds to grab the visitor’s attention – as faster computers serve websites quicker, the visitor’s attention span shrinks. This means that companies have less and less time to attract the eye of their visitor. Most popular studies say you have less than 10 seconds to land your visitor. You message will have to be succinct, relevant, and catchy.
Does the web design create an atmosphere of trust and confidence – commerce websites that resemble dark alleys do very little business. Potential buyers are not going to share their personal, financial information with a business they do not trust. Companies are not going to hire a professional that has a website that looks like it was built by a brother-in-law over a few weekends. The website needs to look credible, professional, and secure.
Does the website keep visitors coming back to the well? – Relevant, fresh content keeps people coming back to a company’s website. People need a reason to revisit a website. This is a major reason blogging is so successful. Blogging about problems people are trying to solve or issues businesses are trying to overcome will lead to a larger readership. Think about adding offers in the form of case studies, white papers, surveys and such to attract visitors back to the company website.
Does the website design persuade visitors to take action now? – Calls to action need to be obvious, timely, attractive and compelling. There’s nothing wrong with having several calls to action on a single web page. Some website visitors will react to a paragraph of text while there may be more visitors stimulated by an image or picture. Try both.
Don’t treat every website visitor the same – Think about a trip to the zoo. Everyone who enters the front gate receives a map, and each family can head off in a different direction to see his or her favorite animals, be they lions, tigers, or bears. Letting people browse only leads to lost opportunities. Create the website with decision-making paths to lead visitors to the information they seek. Think of the main reasons visitors come to the website and create a special spot for each of their needs on the homepage. From the website homepage, create paths each visitor group can follow. Once they have the information they need, they will be ready to make their buying-decision.
