Every company wishes to build a website that will set them apart from the competition in their field. The internet has over 1.5 billion websites today. All of them are vying for visitors’ attention, but how many of them are actually succeeding? Unfortunately, the majority don’t because of a few glaring red flags that often drive visitors away from your website instead of towards it. Here are 5 red flags that could potentially be driving your visitors away
1. Too many menus or menu options
According to studies, when confronted with too many options, the human brain can become so agitated that it cannot make a decision. You don’t want to put your website’s menus in that predicament. A visitor’s eyes may glaze over if your site includes menus on both sides of the page or too many drop-down options under each title on the main menu. They have a low to none chance of finding the knowledge they need to convert.
2 .The 404 error page is a dead end
If a visitor makes a typo in the URL or clicks a link to a page that no longer exists, they will receive the 404 page. To see how often this happens to your audience, look at your website’s error log or Google Search Console. It’s aggravating when you can’t locate what you’re looking for. If your 404 page only has an apology and a back button, or a simple link to your homepage, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to turn a bad experience into a good one. This page should serve as a tempting link back to important portions of your website, rather than a dead-end.
3. Stagnant Blog
A blog, in theory, is the ideal complement to your company’s website. It aids in the development of your brand as a subject matter expert, improves your reputation, and is beneficial to SEO and improving your organic search results. Writing your first few blogs is exhilarating, but by the tenth blog, it’s a little more difficult, and instead of writing twice a month, you’re just blogging once a month, and finally, the blog fades away and you stop posting completely. Not only will you miss out on many of the advantages of having a blog if you don’t write, but your website visitors will notice that the material they’re receiving is out of date.
4. Visually unappealing content
Out-of-date design, tacky stock photography, low-quality images or videos, and illegible or mismatched typography are all major deterrents to visitors staying on your site. We routinely remodel websites businesses that have a lot of out-of-date content. Customers and other industry professionals have complained that their sites are lacking critical content or feel unprofessional owing to an antiquated design, despite the fact that they have excellent reputations based on decades of expertise. Your website should be visually beautiful, easy to read and convey a sense of trust and authority.
5. Lack of secure hosting
If your site isn’t securely hosted – if your page URLs begin with HTTP rather than HTTPS – you’re sending out warning signals to the website visitors that you are not a secure business. In addition, because Google prefers secure sites, you’re immediately sending out bad ranking signals. If a user is about to visit a non-secure site, Chrome and other browsers will alert them. If your audience is concerned about privacy and data this warning, together with the multitude of other search results, may be enough to lead them to competitor websites.
When it comes to your web presence and website maintenance, knowing these red flags will help you avoid them. These would most certainly be only the tip of the iceberg, and there’s probably a lot more you can do to improve how you display your firm to potential clients and customers online. At MasterTej, we can breathe new life into your old and out-of-date website, transforming it into the ideal reflection of your company. To get started, connect with us today!
