Eight website fails that could destroy your lead generation

Mobile (un)friendly

When it comes to worldwide website traffic, a Statista study reveals that mobile web access is the most popular vehicle, and if your website is a car crash those vehicles will divert and choose a much simpler and quicker route. To avoid this diversion of traffic, your site must be designed for mobile, which means focusing on how quickly your site loads, the quality of images on mobile and how easy it is to navigate on mobile.

A responsive website ensures that your site adjusts in accordance with any screen size to give your users the best experience possible on any device. It’s important to ensure your site is responsive in order to keep it from looking outdated and being difficult to navigate. Search engines such as Google in particular, are now indexing every website based on its mobile version, rather than desktop, so to maintain and increase your search engine rankings, it is crucial that you have a responsively designed website.

Slow load speed

Whether it's desktop or mobile, there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for a site to load. A Google study found that 53% of visits to a page that takes more than three seconds to load are likely to be abandoned.

With the Google page experience algorithm update it is crucial, now more than ever, to ensure that your site is delivering the best page experience possible, especially for mobile. You can review and fix your site speed issues using the Lighthouse tool, or alternatively, Google’s Test My Site lets you quickly check your site’s mobile page speed. 

Web design inconsistency 

The layout of your web pages is the dealbreaker when it comes to showcasing your business online. If your site is difficult to navigate or is of poor quality, then you may find that your users will give up and go elsewhere. A consistent design throughout your website means that common elements such as your company logo, imagery, copy, and site navigation are placed in the same area on each web page.

With good consistency of design throughout, your site becomes much easier to navigate, allowing your users to focus more on engaging with your content, but it also ensures that your business and its values are represented professionally.

Cluttered layout 

As a company, understandably, you would want to promote your business in the best way possible. After all, you want your visitors to know that you’re a business to trust. However, when it comes to your website, trust starts in the design, and if your website is stuffed full of too much information and too many images, you’re going to give your visitors information overload.

To avoid a messy website fail, it is best practice to keep your site clean and tidy with an equal amount of white space and content, making it easy for your customers to engage with your content and invest in your business. 

User journey

The whole point of a website is to give your business an online presence to convert a high percentage of site visitors into valuable paying customers. The key to this conversion is to prioritise your user experience, making it as easy and as simple as possible. It’s fairly easy to get a user to click on your site; the difficulty is in keeping them there for long enough, and if your site visitors can’t find what they are looking for in just three clicks, they’re more than likely going to leave.

To keep your visitors from leaving, it’s important to structure the information on your site by prioritising what is of most interest to your customers. Whether it is the product knowledge page, making a purchase, or contact details, these must be features that are all quick and easy to find. 

Broken links

There’s nothing worse than clicking on a site link and being met with a 404-error page. Preventing error pages from ruining your lead generation is an easy fix, however, finding the time to check all of your links frequently can be the bigger challenge. If your site has far too many broken links, this can tarnish the reputation of your site with the search engines and frustrate users to the point of no return.

If you’re not an SEO Expert but would like to quickly check your site for broken links, there are various free site audit tools online.  

Broken links can be fixed by redirecting your visitors to other relevant pages, or if you can’t find a page well suited for this, you can also offer a fun 404 page that reengages your disappointed site visitors enough to encourage them to get in touch.

Lack of social media links

Engaging with your site visitors doesn’t just stop once they’ve made a transaction. You want to be remembered for future purchases, so why not keep in touch? 

Creating relevant social profiles for your business and including the links to your site is a great way to encourage your customers to follow, like, share and subscribe to your content. Keeping your presence in front of your consumer allows you to demonstrate authenticity, build brand trust and encourage them to return.

When integrating your social pages with your website, be sure to include your social links in the footer of your webpage, keeping your contact information at the top. This allows you to convert your visitors into leads by pushing relevant information at them first before they scroll to the bottom and wander off to view your social profiles.

No calls to action

Without CTA buttons your site will lack lead generation. Statistics from DSIM show that over 90% of users who read your headlines will also notice your Call to Action. Having an effective CTA button at the top of your page helps to convert your site visitors into leads by prompting them to make that transaction.