Business owners desire to have a website that is both easy to use and allows for visitors to quickly communicate their interest in a particular service or product. However, this ideal scenario is much easier said than done.
So, to alleviate frustration and offset a future state of complete mania for website owners, let’s view the challenge of having the most “perfect” website through the lens of trying to have the least “imperfect” website by exploring how to tell that your website needs a new design.
Google defines Bounce Rate as “a single-page session on your website”. Essentially this means that a visitor leaves your web page or blog post after a single visit. A quick way to gage the effectiveness of your bounce rate is to use the following scale:
Another area to evaluate when inspecting your site’s Bounce Rate is its User Flow. Google Analytics offers are report called User Flow that displays the drop off points by which visitors leave your website after visiting certain pages, or, a series of pages. This type of report is very helpful because if your website Bounce Rates are high, and, the User Flow drop off rates are high then a correlation can be made that visitors do not find a specific pages of your website interesting or usable.
Website owners can no longer get away with not having a mobile responsive website. In fact, a mobile responsive website is an expectation now for almost all website users and those websites that are not mobile friendly have a greater likelihood of having higher Bounce Rates, decreased online purchases, and decreased inbound inquires. Lastly, when users know that your website is not mobile friendly their loyalty for a return visit to your website in the future may also decrease.
If the products and services that your company offers have changed or evolved, then updating your website to reflect these changes is imperative. Aside from the physical location of your business, the second most important location that your company has is its website, and thus, having the most current and relevant information available to its visitors is of the utmost importance.
When it is unclear to a user what to do when they visit your website, the chance of having them take the action that you have planned and desire significantly decreases. When planning a website owners typically try to create what are called a “Call-To-Action” which is a certain desired outcome that is expected when a visitor arrives to a website page or blog post.
Examples of a call-to-action include but certainly are not limited to the following:
If your website is missing elements like the above, and, also lacks the ability to track the success of these items then strong consideration should be given to overhauling and re-tooling your call-to-action within the design of your website.
If your website is missing from being found in major search engines then that means your current and future customers cannot find it, visit it, and much more. Having a website that is optimized to rank in major search engines for relevant keywords is essential for a business to be able to compete and generate new inbound customers and opportunities.
Here are some simple ways to test how easy or difficult it is to find your website:
If you find that your competitors outrank your website, or, are uncomfortably close to the rankings of your website then an audit needs to be conducted for how your website can be better search engine optimized.
If, after comparing your website to the areas above, you are concerned about your website and are looking for a solution we encourage you to contact us or call (248) 662-5323 for a confidential discussion.
