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Episode 134: 5 Common Website Mistakes You Might Be Making
494 Plays3 years ago
In today's episode Krista and I cover five website mistakes that we commonly see people make. If you're looking for higher conversion rates on your website you will want to make sure that you're not making one of these mistakes. If you find this episode helpful you might also like our ten common DIY design mistakes episode which covers more design specific mistakes that we see when people customize their own websites.
For show notes visit...https://daveyandkrista.com/common-website-conversion-mistakes/
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Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker
And I think we see a lot of this on about pages because people fill them up with all sorts of fun things about themselves that are really cool, but they don't always lead somebody to a conversion.
Introduction and Show Purpose
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
Website Mistakes and Conversion Rates
00:00:33
Speaker
In today's episode, Krista and I cover five website mistakes that we commonly see people make. If you're looking for higher conversion rates on your website, you'll want to make sure that you're not making one of these mistakes. If you find this episode helpful, you might also like our 10 common DIY design mistakes episode, which covers more design specific mistakes that we see when people customize their own websites.
00:00:55
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode and we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at DavyandChrista. Now on to the episode.
Podcast Banter and DIY Design Mistakes
00:01:18
Speaker
All right, we are back with another episode of the Brands That Book podcast here with Krista today.
00:01:22
Speaker
Hi, I'm excited to be here. Yeah, it's always weird when you say that, because you're literally, this is your office, you know? But I feel like it's your podcast. I mean, your picture is the one I'm a little thumbnail. Yeah, yeah, all right, true. Anyways, today we're talking about some common design website mistakes that we see. Some common website design mistakes.
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm excited to chat about this because we see these over and over again. Yeah, absolutely. And we actually have another podcast on some common DIY design mistakes that we see. So you can check that out. I can't remember exactly what episode number it is. I think it was in the 60s. We're getting up there now. But we mentioned 10 common design mistakes in that episode. And we still think all of them are, they're still all mistakes that we see.
00:02:03
Speaker
So consider this sort of an extension to that, in some ways summarizes it a little bit. Also, I think too, to a certain extent, maybe these are different kinds of mistakes. Yeah, these are probably more like big picture and those might be more like nitty gritty, like making fonts too small, if I remember correctly. Yeah, you know, I guess if we're getting specific, right? We're talking in this episode about website mistakes. I guess the other episode is more aptly named design mistakes. Okay.
00:02:32
Speaker
So, that's good. I'm glad we figured that out as we're recording the episode.
00:02:36
Speaker
But I think that these are things that everybody should be aware of as they're designing their website. And something that I think is good to go back and review on your current website, even if you're not in a website design project, because as you add things to your website, all of a sudden it can just feel like, okay, where did I go wrong here? You know, like even if you hadn't done a website design recently, but you're just kind of adding things as your business evolves and all of a sudden you feel like it's just this uncontrollable mess.
00:03:03
Speaker
I think that's easy. I mean, that has happened to us in the past. Like you want to add more work to your portfolio. You want to add more testimonials. You add a service and so you keep adding things in and then all of a sudden it doesn't feel cohesive. Maybe it's too much. And then you get into some of the mistakes that we're going to talk about now.
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so we are going to cover five mistakes here. I think this will be a relatively quick episode for people, but we're going to cover five mistakes, starting with mistake number one.
Building Conversion-Focused Websites
00:03:31
Speaker
Which is? You're not conversion focused. You want to explain since you are Mr. Conversion.
00:03:41
Speaker
Sometimes I don't feel that way. But anyways, what's the point of your website? And this is something that I want to, that I try to emphasize to people, both at Till Agency and here, if you are a product-based business, it's likely for someone to buy your product, right? That's the end conversion you're looking for. If you're a service-based business, it's likely getting somebody to inquire. So there's all sorts of things that we can add to our website that are really cool.
00:04:03
Speaker
but is it going to help you reach that goal, meet that end, you know? And if it doesn't, then you should really think twice about adding it to your website. So for instance, one of those things, a plugin, I remember looking at somebody's website and that this plugin basically would tell you how far through a post you are. So like, you know, um, as you scroll down through the post, a, a progress bar, you know, would appear, it was a thin bar. It wasn't ugly or anything. Yeah. I've seen this before.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. And, and it's kind of cool. It's kind of helpful at the same time. It was definitely slowing down their website, you know? And so it was like one of those things where it's like, do we really need this? No. All right. Well, let's, let's get rid of it. So, you know, we want to make sure that we're, we're being conversion focused and that nothing we're doing on our website is distracting visitors from that end goal.
00:04:51
Speaker
Right. I mean, so as soon as somebody comes onto your website, it should be very pretty clear what you want them to do. So if you're a service-based business, it's probably seeing which services you offer, reading about them and then inquiring. I probably wouldn't have somebody come onto my website right away and take them to the contact button. There are probably not many people who are just going to contact you as soon as you hop on.
00:05:12
Speaker
Sure. I think that's an important note is that just because the end conversion is getting somebody to buy your product in your store or whatnot, that doesn't necessarily mean that the first thing that you should welcome them with is, hey, yeah, buy now. It's like proposing on the first date. We've used it as an example
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So pretty common example. So mistake number one, not being conversion focused. And that's just a good filter. Anytime you're doing something on your website, is this distracting from the action I ultimately want them to take? Or is it taking their hand and leading them there?
00:05:49
Speaker
And I think we see a lot of this on about pages because people fill them up with all sorts of fun things about themselves that are really cool, but they don't always lead somebody to a conversion. Yeah. And I would say the two, you know, just as a kind of the last note about this is thinking about the order of things. So for instance, like on your website,
00:06:09
Speaker
should you have links to your social media? Probably somewhere, right? But should that be like this big canvas on your website? Probably not, right? Because you don't necessarily want them leaving and going to your social media.
00:06:22
Speaker
pretty likely that they're going to get there. They're going to see that they have like a little notification with notifications and they start scrolling or whatever. You know, and sometimes people are actually looking for the social media, like your Instagram handle, because they want to see like, Oh, I kind of want to see, you know, it helps them build trust, right? Especially if they're new to your brand. But point being is just because something is good, is it good in that place? You know, is it a proper step in the next direction?
00:06:47
Speaker
So we have links to all of our social channels, but they're in the footer of our website. They're not in the header. Yeah, that's just an example. But filter everything through that question. Is it conversion focused? Let's take number two.
Lead Generation and Trust Building
00:06:57
Speaker
Lead generation is not a priority.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, and so for this one to the point that you had just brought up, when somebody lands on your website, they might not be ready to inquire. They might not be ready to buy your product. So are you giving yourself an opportunity to follow up with them and nurture them? And even, I think that lead gen is tough for people on a number of levels.
00:07:19
Speaker
One, it's kind of the question of like, okay, well, what do I offer in exchange for an email or a phone number or something like that? In addition to that, if I have a product that is selling really well organically, it's like, why do I need to do lead gen? Well, when that product isn't selling really well organically, you want some way to start nurturing cold audiences or cooler audiences. So people who have never heard of you or who aren't in a position ready to buy.
00:07:47
Speaker
So what do you think the best way to do lead generation is for a wedding photographer, for example? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for a wedding photographer, it could be offering a free guide to venues in the area. It could be offering something around getting engaged. Timeline tips. Yeah, timeline tips, stuff like that. You know, the tricky part for, you know, in coming up with a lead gen idea, you know, especially for somebody like a wedding photographer is that window. You know, if you did something like the best portraits to get on your wedding day,
00:08:15
Speaker
you know, to a certain extent that might be too, that content might not be relevant until somebody's already booked their wedding photographer and is getting close to their wedding day, right? So you want to come up with content that's early in the process. Like if someone's still looking for a venue, they may not have booked their wedding photographer yet, you know? So coming up with content like that.
00:08:35
Speaker
It's probably a little bit easier for other types of service based businesses because if you're a portrait photographer, I mean in theory, unless you only do newborns, you can do photos of them for the rest of their lives. There are all sorts of content that you could come up with to get them on your list and then to sell them, especially if you do something like mini sessions.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But I would say, you know, especially if you're running an online business, you know, lead generation is super important. And if you want to see sustainable results, if you want to see consistent results over time, then lead generation, it really needs to be something that's prioritized. And, you know, I haven't come across very many businesses that do, you know, that get really consistent, sustainable results that don't focus on lead gen.
00:09:18
Speaker
They're out there. I think that's why they say the money is in the list. Yeah, sure. Mistake number three, not closing the trust gap with reviews, testimonials and features. Yes. So this is pretty key. And I don't think that, I think that some people think that these are really hard to get, but I don't think they're that as hard to get as some people get in their heads. So I think that when people come onto a website, they want to know that you're good at what you do. And so one of the ways that you can do that is through reviews, testimonials, and then submitting your work to get featured.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I just think, you know, we've seen a lot of really ugly websites that still convert. I wouldn't say a lot. Okay, so I take that back. What we've seen, everybody's seen a website that doesn't look good, but that you know the business is still killing it.
00:10:04
Speaker
The reason is, is that people trust that business. And that's really the key when we're talking to businesses or when we're talking business is can you bridge that trust gap? So people are in a position where they can answer that question competently like, yes, I know I'm gonna get this product and it's going to work for me.
00:10:22
Speaker
And social proof can come in all sorts of forms, testimonials, reviews, features. We just recently recorded a podcast episode on a subscription box business that we recently built. Talked about using one of those tools where people can go on, leave a review, and that review's gonna auto-populate on the website, that sort of thing. That might not fit with your brand or with your business, but getting testimonials from people. Social proof is going to be key regardless of what business that you're running.
00:10:50
Speaker
And even if you're a luxury level photographer or wedding planner or whatever, like if I'm starting a luxury level wedding photography brand today, one of the things that I'm gonna focus on is getting in with luxury level photographers. I mean, I'm sorry, luxury level planners.
00:11:08
Speaker
Because if I'm a luxury brand, I'm probably shooting 10, 20 weddings a year maybe. And so I don't need necessarily like Facebook ads to book that. But what I need is probably to be in with a couple key planners.
00:11:23
Speaker
which is what we did when we were wedding photographers. Yeah, but that's still social proof is my point. Especially if you can get a testimonial from them and add that to your site. That's great. And include their business name, especially if they're really recognizable. We have a blog post on this, but when it comes to testimonials, you don't just have to sit there and wait for them. You can email your past clients or people that you've worked with and ask them for testimonials. What we personally like to do is ask them a series of questions like,
00:11:52
Speaker
Why did you decide to work with us? If somebody was on the fence about working with us, what would you say? What did you enjoy most about working with us? And then from there, a lot of times you end up with really good texts that you can use as a testimonial. And you could even craft something back based on what they said and then ask them to post it to WeddingWire, Facebook, Google, etc.
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you probably have an idea of whether, of how crucial reviews are to your business, you know? Like for Amazon, if you have a product for the Amazon, reviews are crucial, right? If you are, you know, I mean there's just certain businesses where I'm going to just kind of scour the reviews before I purchase something. And there's other businesses where what I really need is a personal recommendation from somebody, you know? And so word of mouth becomes super important.
00:12:42
Speaker
There's certain businesses where, I'm not looking at their, I can't even remember, to be honest, the last time I looked at Facebook reviews. I feel like you look at the reviews from the less expensive products, but for big products, you want personal recommendations. When we were hiring our builder for our house, he doesn't have anything online. Yeah, exactly. But what do we want? We wanted to see houses he's built. We wanted to talk to people whose house, yeah, exactly. So that's a good point.
SEO and Strong Copy for Engagement
00:13:10
Speaker
So mistake number four, this is a sort of a pet peeve of mine, not doing basic optimization on your website. So what do you mean by basic optimization? Cause there's this like, I think there's this concept that you just do SEL and I'm using air quotes that you can't see and that you do it once and that's it and you're done.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, so SEO, optimizing your website, something that you have to do on an ongoing basis, but there's a few things that you can just do once. Like for instance, setting page titles and meta descriptions. So if you've ever launched a website, or if you've ever gone to, think about maybe your own website. When you share the homepage to Facebook, what shows up? If it says in the thumbnail in the title, home,
00:13:50
Speaker
And then in the description, it just pulls the first few lines of text. My guess is that the page title and the meta description haven't been set. And you don't have to be an SEO genius to figure this out. And you don't even have to be, for most of us, even if we were to take a complete shot in the dark without doing any keyword research, what our page titles should be. We're probably going to get pretty close.
00:14:13
Speaker
Because we know our products and services well enough, and we know how our customers talk about them. So what I would recommend, if you use Show Up for instance, go in, on every page, there's an SEO box module. You click in the page and it's on the right-hand side.
00:14:28
Speaker
Under advanced, I think it's either under advanced or it's SEO YouTube video showing you exactly how to do it. Point being, go in there and set that stuff because, you know, for instance, when it's shared to social, that's what's going to show up in the thumbnail. And then also, you know, you have a better chance of ranking for the keywords that you're hoping to rank for. If you go and do that, even having done no keyword research, then if you were just to leave it blank and the page title, your homepage is home.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's what I would consider basic optimization. If you're using a website platform like ShowIt, they have some built-in SEO tools. And then, of course, if you're on WordPress, you can use something like RankMath, and it makes it super easy to do that. So I won't get into the nuts and bolts of that, but just to go do it, because it is a pet peeve. When people share their website,
00:15:16
Speaker
on social and I just see, you know, it says, it's like, you know, they link to whatever and it just says home. I'm like, this is such a missed opportunity. One, I just don't immediately know what it is that you do. Or like if you have a million tabs open in your browser, then you don't know which tab it is too. All right, mistake number five, this is a favorite of ours, not investing in copy.
00:15:36
Speaker
And so obviously like as a design agency, we love good imagery and good imagery matters. Most people know that though. So, you know, it's not like, you know, so I think the area that people overlook is copy.
00:15:50
Speaker
I think that a lot of people think that if their brand is more of a visual brand, they can get away with hardly any copy on a website. And one, that's not great for search engines. And two, it's not great for trying to connect with your ideal client. I think some of the best websites that we've worked on, so the highest converting, they're engaging, they keep people active and scrolling are ones that have worked with a copywriter. You know, I think like Till is a great example because you guys worked with Jester Dana and she just crushed your copy.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, and I would just say, our point here is not that you have to invest in a professional copywriter. As much as it is, just spend intentional time on your copy. There are a lot of resources out there. Jess has resources herself called Promptlets, which are basically like templates for copy that could probably get you
00:16:36
Speaker
I would say at least conservatively 50% of the way there, if not more. Copy can make a big difference on your website. And back to our point, we've all seen ugly websites that still do a really good job of conversion. And it's probably because social proof might be there, but another thing that might be in place is just really good copy.
00:16:58
Speaker
And I think that the thing that a really good copy does is it gets in your client's head. So like, maybe I'm a new, I mean, since I'm gonna have a baby in a few months, I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna be a sleep-deprived mom who probably wants to get more sleep and get my child to sleep.
00:17:13
Speaker
Like if I'm looking for help getting my kid to sleep and I go on a site like Becca Campbell does a great job of this little Z sleep. I'm reading it and it's like she's reading my brain. She knows that I'm tired. She knows that I'm frustrated. She knows that I want to probably have more time to myself and not spend an hour trying to get my kid to sleep only to have them wake up an hour later. And so like when copy can speak into that, I think it's really effective.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so I just, you know, it's one area I'd say if we worked in a different industry, we'd probably change this mistake to imagery matters a lot, you know, or you're not investing enough in imagery, but you know, for a lot of our clients, the imagery is beautiful and it's, you know, really the copy that's a struggle. And if it's something that you don't feel like you can do on your own, even with tools, then, you know, we've never worked with somebody who's worked with a copywriter and regretted
Conclusion and Additional Content
00:18:02
Speaker
it.
00:18:02
Speaker
definitely something to consider as you're starting a website project, a website redesign, something along those lines. So anyways, like I said, we have more content that you can review along these lines. If you're looking for specific design mistakes, then head on over to our previous episode, 10 Common DIY Design Mistakes that we see. We also have a podcast episode of the same title that covers the same content if you'd prefer to listen.
00:18:30
Speaker
All right, thank you all. And remember, we have launched a YouTube channel, so you can find a lot of this content on YouTube as well if you prefer YouTube as a medium. And if you do, head on over there, subscribe to our channel, like videos, comment on them. All of that apparently helps. Of course, only if you feel like the content is good. So we really appreciate you all. And if you have any suggestions for content as we move forward, the best way to make a suggestion is to DM us on Instagram at DavyandChrista. Thanks, guys. Thanks.
00:19:03
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.