12 Reasons Your Site Sucks

1. URGENCY: There’s no Urgency to Act

Why would a potential customer take action – buy, enquire, contact you, etc – right now, instead of later? Are you making it too easy for customers to delay making a decision?

Urgency (or scarcity) is perhaps the most valuable tool in a marketer’s arsenal – and it can lead to clear spikes in buying behaviour.

For example, almost all users of the popular Market Samurai keyword research software buy at one of three times: immediately upon downloading the trial; the day before our special discount pricing expired; or the day their trial was due to expire.

By creating two points of scarcity within the customer experience, sales for Market Samurai tripled – helping to get the software into the hands of 100,000’s of users worldwide.

2. VALUE: Not Enough Value is Demonstrated

We’re constantly performing mental arithmetic on every decision we make – deciding if something is more valuable than the effort it takes to get it, or more valuable than the potential risk to our own security.

A truly incredible offer can overcome all sorts of sales objections.

How does your offer rate? Is it far better than your competitors’ offerings – or pretty similar? Is it enough to drive customers to take action on a single visit to your website?

3. RELEVANCE: Your Site Isn’t Relevant to the Customer’s Needs

Relevance isn’t just about ranking well in the search engines.

Relevance is about sales too.

How well are you speaking to your customers’ needs? How closely does the product you offer fit with the problem your customers are solving?

4. PATTERNING: Your Site Doesn’t Use Expected Action Patterns

Consider the image above this article. Rather than following the planned pathway, human beings have worn their own pathway in the grass (something that behaviouralists call a “Desire Path”) as a shortcut to where they want to go.

In his TED talk, Tom Hulme shares the importance of understanding these Desire Paths when it comes to design.

By supporting humans in taking the natural behaviours they want to take on your website, you’ll help to get them to the sale faster and easier.

5. PHRASING: You Use The Wrong Words, or Speak The Wrong Language

It might seem silly – but there’s a big difference between “Start Your Free Trial” and “Start My Free Trial”.

In a conversion test, the uptake rates for the free trial offer nearly doubled (90% improvement).

This is why it’s so valuable to test different ways to say the same thing.

6. VISIBILITY: Important Information is Hidden

In print media, advertisers talk about “above the fold” and “below the fold” – or right-page and left-page positioning.

Having your ad appear “above the fold” (in the top half of a newspaper, above where it would be folded), and on the right-hand page (where readers naturally look first when turning a page) increases the performance of an ad.

Similar patterns apply to websites too.

A common mistake I see made on websites is hiding the “Checkout” button inside an ecommerce shopping cart. This one action can instantly halve sales – as it creates resistance and confusion around completing a sale.

Simply make sure your key conversion goals (sign up, add to cart, checkout, etc) are as visible as possible. Big, bright, bold, obvious, and positioned prominently.

7. LIKENESS: You’re Not “Human” Enough

In my testing, I’ve consistently seen personality-driven brands outperform corporate brands.

When the “guru” behind a brand steps away from their prominent position as the face of the product, sales typically fall.

The reason why this happens is because we relate to humans far better than faceless corporations. We trust humans more than corporations.

Weaving a human face into your website marketing can be a big booster of performance.

8. TRUST: Customers Don’t Trust You Enough

Although there’s no longer as much tension around buying products and services online – there’s still a need to establish trust via your website in order to maximise sales.

Testimonials, awards, industry recognition, endorsements, security seals… All of these can lead to increased sales.

For one client, showing off a recent business award prominently in the header of their website improved website sales by over 71%.

9. RECOGNITION: Customers Don’t Recognise You

There’s a reason McDonalds sells so many hamburgers.

It has nothing to do with the quality of their product, and everything to do with being recognised for their consistent experience.

Consider travelling through an unfamiliar town – and being presented with a range of various small Mom-and-Pop restaurants, and one instantly recognisable burger chain. It takes less “mental overhead” to decide to eat at McDonalds, than to risk a potentially-better-potentially-worse meal at a less recognisable restaurant.

10. DISTRACTION: There Are Too Many Options!

In general, the longer a user spends navigating through your website, the less likely they are to make a decision.

So having a big, prominent navigation menu on your site – providing easy access to a lot of information – could be damaging your sales.

When performing conversion tests for the restaurant chain Nando’s, we discovered that removing a key sidebar menu (and removing the visibility of other catering packs) increased the number of online catering orders received by 417%!

Sales increased by a further after the “back” button was removed from their checkout page. Rather than revising their order ad-nauseum, customers were 45% more likely to simply complete their order.

11. CONFUSION: Too Many Considerations!

Perhaps Henry Ford was onto a winner when he quipped that customers could have the Model T Ford in any colour – as long as it’s black.

When it comes to sales – and happiness – decisions equal death.

In his book, The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz shares how eliminating choice increases shoppers speed of decision-making, and happiness with decisions made.

Make the decision to buy as simple as you can.

12. ANXIETY

If a customer is unsure or anxious when making a decision, they’re unlikely to buy. Or if they do buy, they’re likely to regret their decision, refund, or cause problems for customer support later.

A risk-reduction strategy (such as a no-questions-asked money back guarantee) can help alleviate some of this buying anxiety.

Counterintuitively, a longer guarantee doesn’t necessarily mean more refunds.

Justin Christianson, author of “Conversion Fanatic”, has an brilliant case study that demonstrates this principle at work. By increasing a guarantee period from 30 days to 1 year, sales doubled – and refunds rates remained largely unchanged.