Making a Name for Yourself

3 Signs Your Website Is Just Awful

14 September 2020 by Catherine Barnes

Quality website design is a difference-maker in the world of online marketing. If you don't design websites for a living, though, you might wonder what tells you whether you have a bad site. Here are three ways you can tell if your website is just awful.

It Looks Terrible on Mobile Devices

Modern website design services providers use a technique known as responsive design to ensure sites will look good on as many devices as possible. In particular, you should have a site that resizes properly on all widely used mobile devices and browsers. This means everything should fit on the screen without trouble when you view the site on a phone or tablet. If it doesn't, it's a good bet that it's time to start over and build a site that employs responsive design principles.

Not Collecting Any Data

Online marketing must be data-driven, and that means you have to commit to collecting data. You don't have to be invasive with your efforts, but you should use opt-in cookies, mail forms, and on-page analytics engines to gather as much info as possible. Otherwise, you'll struggle to determine whether your efforts to fix the website are bearing fruit.

Be aware of the importance of privacy laws. Anyone with customers in Europe or California should consider brushing up on the GDPR and CCPA respectively. This will help you address privacy issues before they have the potential to become legal trouble.

Traffic Isn't Driving Actions

Putting a site on the internet and attracting traffic aren't small feats, but they're far from the entire ballgame. Your goal should be to drive specific actions.

If you run a law firm, for example, you want to have an online marketing funnel. People might start by searching for content related to your practice and end up on a blog article. From the blog article, they look around at the services you offer and decide to use the contact form to ask for a consultation.

Every site will have its own goals. A retailer will want to drive sales, while a non-profit foundation may want to drive memberships and donations. Political campaigns will want to engage with voters and swing opinions. It's important that the website design leads visitors to the actions you need them to perform.

If you have good content but you're not seeing users act accordingly, there's a good chance the site has some interface issues. A website design services firm can help you clean things up with a new site.

Share

Search