3 Ways Your Small Business Website Could be Pushing People Away

Distraction 1: Look away, I’m hideous!

Some of your sites are bad. Really bad. They make little children cry at the sight of them. But much like the mother of a horrid monster, you see it through the skewed vision of love (or through the equally distorted lens: “it cost me big money”). You may not recognize that your site is an evil, ugly and terrible creation gone wrong, and it must be stopped. Let us help you come to grips with the truth.

Your site is distractingly awful if:

• it plays music
• one of those horrible people walks on screen and starts talking to you when the page loads.
• your logo is the size of the moon in E.T.
• you have silhouettes of people in your images
• your website : “emboss” :: Joan Rivers : plastic surgery
• your background is a tiled image of clouds, bubbles, a brick wall, outer space, your logo, etc.
• your dog barks at it when he sees it
• your text is…
  • all centered
  • justified
  • all caps
  • text with no white space
  • all bold
  • too small, or too big
  • all the colors of the rainbow
  • text in illegible or annoying fonts like comic sans, papyrus, etc.
  • a color that clashes with the background, such as light on white, dark on dark, red on blue, etc.
• anything blinks
• the page contains a starburst graphic, rainbow of any kind, dancing animal or religious figure, flying toasters, or clipart
• you have a 2nd tier of dropdowns that shoot out of the side of the first dropdown. You might not hate those, but every other living being does.

These kinds of design no-no’s cause visitors to marvel at how much your site sucks, and how much you must suck to have allowed such an abomination to see the light of day. Your business loses all credibility, because users equate a website’s quality with the actual company/product/service’s quality. They’ll assume their experience with you will be as bad as their experience on your site.

If your site has even one of those problems, you’ve gotta reach out to us & let us save you from yourself!

Distraction 2: Where did you dig up that old fossil?

When was the last time your site was overhauled with a brand new look? If it’s been around 3 years or more, congratulations: you are now the proud owner of an antique. But not a nice fancy antique you show off to the neighbors. An antique more like that creepy dilapidated house on the block where you grew up. And a visitor’s reaction to your site will be the same reaction you had to that creepy house as a kid… try to avoid it, and if you have to go near it, just run away as fast as you can.

But my childhood trauma aside, do an honest appraisal of your site. You might be the creepy house on the block if your site:

• is built with tables
• is 800px wide (or less)
• has an awesome Flash animation
• has a “splash page”
• uses frames
• uses images that have text in them
• doesn’t have a Content Management System (CMS)
• uses images as it’s navigation
• uses DHTML gadgets like news tickers or text that chases your mouse around. The “D” is for “devil,” you know.
• has a spinning “@” icon to email you.
• it refers to “geocities,” “MySpace,” or “America Online”
• tells you it’s best viewed in Internet Explorer 5. Or 6. Or 7 through 10. Basically if your site even acknowledges that Internet Explorer exists, it’s automatically part of the problem.

We could go on for days. The point is, nothing screams irrelevance like a Neanderthal website, and visitors end laughing at the relic instead of focusing on your business and its value. Just like you shouldn’t let your brick & mortar location fall into disrepair, you need to invest in a significant site design overhaul every few years. Consider it routine maintenance, and the investment will pay real dividends in converted visitors.

Distraction 3: Give ’em the ol’ razzle dazzle.

I’ll be honest. Most of the time click a link or type in a URL, I cringe & brace myself for impact of the eyesore I am about to behold. But some of you have sites that are eye-popping, jaw-dropping, ultra-slick and cutting edge! You should be congratulated! You’re making the online world a better place!

But be careful… sometimes a web designer gets in the zone and creates a masterpiece of design… but the design gets in your way. It is so cool that it’s distracting. It could win awards but doesn’t convert visitors to leads. It looks like a million bucks and hasn’t generated you a dime of ROI.

Beware of the “over-design.” It’s too easy for both client and designer to want to knock users’ socks off with their earth-shattering design… at the cost of usability, brand-alignment, conversion optimization, and quality of content.

Always remember, the thought you want the user to take away is not, “wow, what a great design.” It is, “I am so glad I found this company and I just had a great conversation with one of their representatives, at the end of which I gleefully gave them my business.” Get the point? Anything on your site – whether totally lame or totally awesome-sauce – that doesn’t serve to funnel the user to a point of decision is a distraction and a mistake. Make sure your design serves as an usher & doesn’t barge onto center stage.

How does your design hold up?

We hope you’re one of the select few whose websites don’t have any of these problems. If you are, spread the word to your deceived, lost peers: there is help & hope for those less fortunate.

For those who are committing one of these pitfalls, let us elevate your site with a great new, effective design that will instill users’ confidence and be a major reason that the user does choose to engage with you. The turnaround will only benefit your bottom line.