Your Mom Hates Your Site

Your mom may be a lot like visitors to your web site. She may not want to or be able to tell you the bad news — your site sucks. Your site could actually be a huge factor in why you’re not seeing leads, sales and other conversions. In fact, a new study by the Missouri University of Science and Technology has found that it only takes two-tenths of a second for an online visitor to form an opinion of your brand. You have a split second to make a good impression or a bad impression on your online visitors, and this can have a major impact on your revenue. Bottom line: if your site does not look like a professional site, then you are turning away customers.

There is hope though. With the advances in web design and development technology your company site can be redesigned quickly and efficiently.

But how do you know that your site is underperforming and turning potential customers away? Take a look at your site’s metrics. A bounce rate of 35% or higher and a conversion rate below 3% are sure signs that your site is not performing well. Beyond this, take a look at your site and compare it to top competitors’ sites. Does your site look outdated or tired? If so, it could be overdue for an updated design. Everyone in the office could have a different opinion about your site’s design, but what it really comes down to is the data. Has your conversion rate trended downward for years? Has your bounce rate trended upward? We at Leverage fully believe in truth in data and know through experience that the data holds all of the answers for your business.

Our Once Fresh Web Design Became Outdated

If you are thinking that your site could be due for a refresh, also consider surveying your online visitors. There are multiple ways to reach out to visitors and start to gain a fuller picture of how people are responding to your site. Take each specific response with a grain of salt though, and look for the trends within the data. These trends represent how the majority of your site’s unique audience is responding, and can hold key insights you can use to guide your redesign.

Once you determine that your visitors and maybe even your mom hate your site, go about a new design strategically, and again, let the data guide your design decisions. Just because the CEO’s wife likes the color salmon does not mean your should pepper salmon-colored “Add to Cart” buttons everywhere. These small design decisions could actually impact your site’s conversion rate and thus your bottom line. Leverage uses tools to test, record, and monitor how a new design performs even before the full site launch. This will allow you to either reject or support the push for pink-hued buttons based on data. Keep in mind that even if a new site design looks better than the former, everything needs to be tested so that you know that the new design will lead to improvement in both user engagement and conversion performance.

Consider what your mom would say about your site right now if she wasn’t your mom and, more importantly, delve into how your target audience responds to your site. Taking on a redesign should drive you closer to meeting your business goals and could even end up making your mom more proud of you in the process.

Sincerely,

Bob Kehoe