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Is your website design killing your business?

You might find this hard to believe but a large percentage of phone calls that we receive are from business owners that are seriously frustrated by the fact that they are ranking on Google but they are not getting any decent leads. They simply cannot understand why they have paid all this money to an SEO agency and yet their sales and revenue hasn’t increased. They tell me they are ranking on Google but the phone is simply not ringing.
This is far more common than you would think and the answer to this is simple; they are not getting any qualified leads because their website is flawed and not converting site visitors into customers. Called conversion rate optimisation, websites are floundering online badly and customers are deserting theses sites (even eCommerce sites) because they have simply not adhered to fundamental web design principles.

We find that these business owners have not been properly educated at the outset of their SEO campaign regarding the implication of having a sub standard website and the ensuing damage it can and will cause as the ranking begin to rise. It is essentially the fault of the SEO agency for not pointing out the issues on the website and for not fixing these.

For the sake of ease I am outlining some issues that many websites have in common that should be immediately fixed before starting any SEO campaign. I know when people come and see me for their SEO, the first thing I do is go through a check list of things that a website must have and look at any issues with their current site that needs immediate attention. I make sure I tell the client about these at this meeting and look at ways of addressing them promptly. I clearly explain to them that we can certainly drive traffic to their website but this will be pointless unless the changes are done. In 99.99% of the cases these are implemented by us quickly and we see immediate improvements in their websites conversion rates. You’d be amazed by

So, here are some critical ‘ on page’ issues that are killing your inquiry rates.

# 1: There are simply no call to action buttons on the website. You will be surprised by how many people do not even have a phone number on their site. The most important thing you must have on your site is a buying path where visitors know how to contact or phone you. This is mandatory and if your number is not front and centre, then it needs to be.

# 2: I find that a lot of websites have been left untouched for many years and they still carry the excess baggage of what was in vogue 5-10 years ago. This includes lots of animation, sound and over the top graphics that are now not relevant.

# 3: There are a ton of websites out there that still have out dated services that are completely irrelevant to their business and when they start to rank on Google and get inquiries for this they are a complete waste of time. Ideally, you need to be updating your website regularly with your services and pruning the redundant ones.

# 4: I still see sites that have content that has been purely written for the search engines pre Panda update. There is a whole lot of gibberish and waffle that makes no sense and is stuffed with as many keywords on the page in order to try to trick the search engines. The only outcome is that it just annoys people and contributes to lower conversion rates.

# 5: Some websites are still not mobile or responsive. There is so much literature about this online that I’m still amazed by people who still refuse to make their website compatible with mobiles. This is the death knell for any site and owners need to wake up and get on board with modern day technologies if they are to remain competitive.

# 6: You are stuck with a really bad CMS that doesn’t allow you to make any changes or edits – this is really common as many web design agencies con and scam people into using their own proprietary CMS systems – we make sure that the first thing we do is transfer the site over to WordPress.

# 7: Slow loading sites with heavy graphics that were designed by an agency and have never been optimised for speed. Slow loading sites as we all know are a real pain and waiting for them to load simply allows more time for people to exit the site. We make certain that site speed is lightening fast. We also look at the hosting to make sure it’s within Australia and that your not locked into some out dated hosting plan – with excessive monthly fees.

Basically the formula works like this: great content plus top graphics combined with a clever user interface and customer experience will lead to higher conversion rates. Add some decent SEO here and you are on a winner.

The issue with low quality websites is that Google will devalue them and place them lower in the rankings. The more relevant and more Google compliant the websites are the chances of them ranking will be far higher as will the conversion rates.

If you feel that you are missing out on your piece of the pie and you site is doing well on Google, then it’s time to do something about it. Obviously, you current SEO agency is not doing their proper job by telling you’re the bare facts and truth about your website. So my advice is to make the switch and get on board with a proper digital design agency that can handle, web, SEO, design as well as conversion rates. Call the team at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514 and stop giving your competition the advantage!

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