Your website plays an important role in the success of your business. It helps to turn prospects into customers by positioning your business as a dependable, trustworthy and experienced provider in your industry. However, it’s not enough to have a website. You must also ensure that it’s well-designed and optimized to drive specific actions, like clicks, downloads, sign-ups and purchases.

What Prevents Company Websites from Being Effective?

If you find that your website isn’t helping you achieve key marketing goals, there may be several factors impacting its performance. These problems include:

1. Slow Loading Speed

People once were willing to wait several seconds for a page to load, but those days ended with the shift from dial-up to broadband internet. Now, 47% of users expect a maximum of two seconds loading time for an average website. A slow loading speed does more than frustrate visitors. It can cause them to leave your website, as pages that take five seconds to load have a bounce rate of 38%. It also impacts your conversions, which drop by 7% with a mere 100-millisecond (1/10-second) delay.

2. Low-quality Content

The push for "high-quality content" was spearheaded by Google, but it can do more than help you rank high in search engine results. Quality content attracts visitors, keeps them on your site longer and even moves them along the customer journey - ultimately leading to a conversion. Nine out of 10 B2B buyers say that online content has a moderate or major impact on their purchase decisions, while 48% of marketers use specialized content to support 3-5 consumer purchasing stages.

Good content provides benefits for prospects, search engines, and the business itself. To boost your website performance, website content should be optimized for SEO, updated regularly, well-structured and useful and relevant to your audience’s needs. This helps to improve the site’s visibility and entice visitors to buy your products or services.

3. Bad Design Elements

Design is another important factor that can affect your website performance. Your website helps customers form a first impression of your brand, and poor design can drive them away and negatively impact your brand perception. In fact, 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design. This can affect your site’s ability to retain visitors and drive certain actions.

Some examples of bad design elements include flash animation, auto-playing video (especially with audio), distracting visuals, pop-up elements and a lack of white space. These can distract visitors from their initial goal - finding information about your brand - and cause them to move on to another site.

4. Poor User Experience

Visitors should be able to easily access and find the information they need when browsing your website. That’s where user experience (UX) comes in. UX describes the feelings a person has when using your website. A poor experience can lead to fewer page visits, less engagement and fewer conversions. Not surprising, 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.

To ensure you’re providing a good user experience for website visitors, consider the following tips:

• Use clear navigation

• Place calls-to-action (CTAs) strategically throughout the site

• Reduce friction on your website (ie. bad design elements)

• Use simple forms to collect visitor information

A great website can drive awareness, increase engagement, and improve conversions for your business. To make your site great, start by eliminating the four problems mentioned above. You can also hand it over to a professional, like Zimmer, who specializes in website design to help you build a strong online presence. Improve your website today to begin seeing clear, measurable results.