5 Ways Your Website Looks Can Hurt Your Business

Whether your company is new or has a long-standing online presence, your site could be a victim of one of these top five website mistakes. While you might have made the proper investment in SEO services and social media to increase your website’s traffic, your website’s visual imagery could be turning away visitors once they arrive. This can reduce your business from the site while also damaging your search engine ranking.

While your site’s use of colour and other website aesthetics may seem like minor details, studies show that people form a first impression in 50 milliseconds. This means in less than a second – and before visitors have time to read your site’s text, they might have already formed a negative impression. Read on to find out how to keep your site on track.

1. Colour Your Site Captivating

Xerox reports that colour increases reader attention spans and interest by 82%. While a black and grey site might look trendy, look at your website honestly to see if the colours are working for you. While the colour of your corporate logo might be set in stone, there are plenty of options to add contrasting colours, photographs, and graphics to keep visitors interested and your site looking relevant.

Remember that colour trends change. Each year Pantone presents their forecast for the colours for the coming year. It isn’t necessary to change your site to the trending colours for each year but it is important to make sure you are using colours that look current. While few visitors will consciously think “Wow, that website colour is so 2016!” many visitors will unconsciously register the colour and react negatively if the colours are unappealing or seem dated.

2. Size Does Matter

Narrow website page widths are commonly associated with the 1990s but a surprising number of new websites also have this problem. Improper page sizing is one of the easiest ways to make your website look dated and out of touch. Check to make sure your pages resize themselves appropriately to fit on the user’s screen.

Proper site sizing is more complicated than ever before due to the broad range of screen sizes in use. Sites should look good on wide screen monitors, tablets, and small smart phones – and everything in between.

3. Browse All the Browsers

Your website looks amazing…. but does it look amazing or even acceptable when using a different browser? We often don’t even think about what browser we use. Most people use the default browser that came installed on their computer on smart phone. Those who’ve switched to a different default browser rarely switch back to any other browsers, even while working on online content. While today’s browsers generally offer the same viewing experience, differences do exist.

Ensure that your website displays properly using all the major browsers. Switching between Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox should result in very little difference in your website. The images, functionality, and feel of your site should remain consistent across all browsers. Keep in mind that checking for compatibility is not a one-time activity. Each time you make any changes to your site’s layout or there is a browser software update, you should make sure your site still looks correct and functions properly.

4. Images with Imagination

Experts have estimated that by 2018, 84% of communications will be visual and 79% of internet traffic will be video content. To stand out from your competition and tempt visitors, your site must have good graphics and interesting and relevant images. Eye-catching photographs, infographics, and/or videos are critical to capturing the interest of visitors.

Websites with small and/or static photographs and too much text will cause many visitors to quickly go elsewhere. This will obviously hurt your company’s potential for online sale. Visitors who quickly bounce back out of your site will also hurt your search engine ranking.

5. Keep It Relevant

Keep in mind that it isn’t enough to have good images on your site. They need to tell the story of your company. Visitors should immediately understand what your site is selling and be interested enough to come back for more. If your site has return visitors, be sure to frequently update your landing images so your site looks fresh and relevant.

Pay special attention to any details in your images that could become dated. Computers, smartphones, clothing fashions, and automobiles styles quickly come and go out of style. Unless the photo or graphic is documenting a historical event, all images should look as though they might have been taken today or in the future.

While SEO, advertising, and/or social media are necessary to bring visitors to your website, the site, itself, must be able to convince visitors to stay. Very often this critical element is missed by companies as they focus on sales and other day-to-day issues. This can make it easy for even a well-establish company to begin losing potential sales.