8 Fixable Mistakes You’re Likely Making With Your Website
A website serves as a powerful first impression of your business. Here’s how to make sure it doesn’t look like its from 2005.
We don’t always notice a good web experience, but we always notice a negative one. One could argue the focus on building great digital experiences has disappointingly lagged in security marketing.
Companies like Starbucks, Uber, Spotify and GrubHub have become the Cadillac of mobile and web experiences and although many of these companies have shifted a big part of their attention to apps, their consideration for experience design is second to none.
In the B2B space, the focus on building great digital experiences has lagged behind the consumer space. This is because by and large, customers don’t “purchase” off of a B2B website, especially from integration firms.
This has led to integration firms and even manufacturers to continually build websites that act as giant brochures.
Sometimes with a touch of “New” or a bit of focus on mobile, but overall, the sites serve as a dumping ground for self-promotion of services (which can be okay), but overall, lack the pop that makes more than a “Meh” impression to the visitors.
So let’s talk about the mistakes that integrators should avoid if they want to wow customers visiting their site:
1. Lacks Responsiveness
This is the pinnacle of a crappy web experience: lacking responsiveness between devices. That giant pop up on your home page to opt-in to your mail list doesn’t translate well to an iPhone.
Make sure the designer builds a site that creates not just a consistent experience, but a good experience on every device type where content is consumed. Caveat: more and more focus on mobile should be made as it is more and more where people start their online content consumption.
2. Over-SEO’d
This is an old-school marketing mistake that we still see today. Yes, search is important, but making your site read like a keyword search vomited on the page is unattractive.
Lists of keywords in the bottom navigation or building countless pages that have small variances for different keywords is mostly silly, old-school SEO.
3. Confusing Menus
Navigation needs to be simple. How quickly can a prospect or customer find what they are looking for? If someone is visiting for the first time, is your first image and message clear?
What does the homepage say about the company? All of these things must be considered. Keep the homepage neat and clean and make the navigation easy as well.
4. Difficult to Contact
This one is so simple. Just make it easy for clients and prospects to contact you. Also, look into chatbots and interfaces that can make it easy for users to get simple questions answered and/or reach out during off hours.
5. No Thought Leadership
Most sites have a blog, but many don’t have content on them, OR they have advertisements masked as blogs. An article called “ABC Integration Rocked Video Conferencing For Big Bank” is a press release or a case study (see below). It is NOT thought leadership.
Blogs or thought leadership articles are good for brand perception, building relationships between buyers and a company’s values AND yes, as a more natural way of incorporating SEO and building traffic.
6. Too Wordy
Long descriptions of services are boring. People have short attention spans. Mixing content audio/visual marketing types to incorporate video, podcasts, graphics and other non-written content is a good way to make your site easier to consume.
Remember, some people like to read content, some like images and others like videos or listening. While analytics can help you understand what content is most consumed, try to make the site a good experience for all different types of content consumers.
7. Needs Case Studies
Testimonials and case studies aren’t new. And long, boring written case studies don’t excite anyone. However, having interactive and interesting case studies has become more important as customers do their buyer journey research online.
When they see customers of similar size or industry that you have helped solve problems for, they can tick that box and continue to look deeper into ways to engage.
8. Outdated
This one is the worst, but I still see sites that look like they haven’t been updated since 2007. They tend to lack most of the first seven items, but also still have pictures of service technicians hanging outdated-looking analog cameras.
We all know that the web is the first place we go when learning about a prospective company. If your site hasn’t been updated in the last 2-3 years, get going with a better web marketing strategy.
This article first appeared on SSI sister publication Commercial Integrator.
Daniel Newman is a principal analyst of Futurum Research and CEO of Broadsuite Media Group.
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