An online business owner needs EVERY advantage they can get to be sure they are noticed and get their point across.
frank deardurff
Recently I’ve been working on a couple major site renovations, and in doing so it has brought some things to mind I thought I would share.
These are just a few common website challenges I see many website owners have and they may not even be aware that they are doing these little things that make a huge difference with their website visitors. An online business owner needs EVERY advantage they can get to be sure they are noticed and get their point across.
The first, of course, is the over all appearance. It’s not too uncommon to visit a website and immediately see there isn’t a consistent brand or color scheme. The logo (if there) is one or more colors and the rest of the site is not complimentary to those colors. While it’s okay to use a few different colors, overall, there should be no more than three to, at most, four colors.
On my website at FrankDeardurff.com, you will see my main colors are charcoal and white with orange accents. This compliments my logo, which happens to be predominately orange.
While I’m on the topic of colors this brings up yet another website challenge and that would be Button Colors. It’s best to keep all of the buttons on your website the same color so that they are not confused with something else.
On some websites you will see various different colors, shapes, sizes, and even different graphical buttons. This can be very confusing for your website visitor.
Also with the buttons, I like to keep the text on them fairly consistent when possible. I like to give instructions on the button text/copy, for example: “Click Here To Order For Only $37″or “Click Here To Submit Your Information.” On blog posts, instead of just “Read More” I like to use “Click To Read More.”
By adding the “Click Here” you are reassuring the website visitor that is what they are supposed to do. If the visitor is hesitant, they may not “click to buy.” For consistency, you also need to decide if you are going to use all upper case or if you will use both upper and lower on buttons.
I prefer title case, which means the first letter of every word is a capital or upper case letter.
In some cases it is just impossible to fit that much text on a button, and in the case of a longer sales letter where you will have several order buttons throughout the length of the page, it is a good idea to switch up the text on the button so that the reader doesn’t get bored seeing the same text over and over.
You will want to keep the style of your images on your website consistent, as well. If you use round corners make them all with rounded corners. Decide from the get go if your images will have borders or no borders. If you are using thumbnails of product shots or even info images, pick a size and try to use that size throughout so that your website has uniformity.
It is very important to make sure your site is up to date and this is important for many reasons. First if someone comes to your site and it looks years old, they will question if the product or service is even current. Also, if your website is stale and stagnant and nothing has been updated in quite a while, the search engines will not see your site as relevant.
And finally, if you are running a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress for your website, it’s VERY important that you keep updates current on the WordPress software as well as all themes and plugins.
I always recommend making sure you have a site backup before running updates just to be safe. These updates are not just about new features. In many cases, they are for your protection from security holes that may have been found.
Read more about website challenges in my book, “50 Biggest Website Mistakes: Secrets to Getting More Traffic, Converting More Customers, & Making More Sales” at 50Biggest- WebsiteMistakes.com.
