15 Website Conversion Killers That Are Hurting Your Business

Don’t Slam the Door on Your Visitors!

The primary purpose of your business website is to tell folks how great your business is. It needs to attract visitors and convert them into consumers of your product or service. That is not likely to happen if they are facing a bunch of website conversion killers on your home or landing pages.

From slow load times and flat calls-to-action to buzzword babble or a hard sell, these mistakes are guaranteed to lose your conversions and leads. While they may sound minor to many of you, they are anything but insignificant. With the human attention span less than that of a goldfish, you mustn’t give your site visitors reasons for leaving.

While website conversion killers can come in many forms and flavors, here are some of the most common ones. If your website has any of them, you really should look into changing that as soon as possible.

15 Website Conversion Killers

1 – No Call-To-Action

Missing CTAs are a widespread website conversion killer. By not defining a call-to-action, you are leaving that part up to your website visitors. Merely saying they should call or email, you will not work. Instead, you should decide on a reasonable first step, and instruct visitors to take it.

2 – Cluttered Page Design

You know the saying: “Less is more.” Minimalism applies here. If your home or landing page is cluttered, crowded, poorly designed, and confusing, your potential consumers will leave. Instead, the first page of your website that visitors see must be friendly, inviting, and easy on the eyes.

3 – Keyword Disconnect

Your website visitors come from somewhere else, most likely searching for something. And whatever search term or phrase your visitor clicked on needs to be immediately apparent on your page.

4 – Too Much Content

If you have reams of text content on your website, you are missing the point. Remember, the attention span of a human is shorter than that of a goldfish. Nobody reads that much anymore. So be sure to keep the content on your website in bite-sized chunks.

5 – Techno Babble

You may be into your industry jargon, but your site visitors most likely are not. You are taking to them, so be sure to keep your content personable and easy to understand. You can leave the buzzwords for white papers, case studies, and the like.

6 – Not Being Credible

Being pushy and sensationalistic will only drive your visitors away. Make sure to establish credibility and trust among your audience with social proof. In other words, publish evidence in a variety of formats such as web pages, blog posts, white papers, case studies, etc. Then let your website visitors decide for themselves.

7 – Not Being Helpful

Imagine a shopkeeper that stood there, arms folded across the chest, and scowling at people. Not exactly friendly and inviting, is it? Avoid creating that feeling on your business website. Instead, you should be informative, helpful, and inviting.

8 – No Empirical Evidence

The majority of consumers will look at product reviews before making a purchase decision. That includes product ratings on e-commerce sites. Therefore be sure to include both product reviews and product ratings on your website.

9 – Slow Load Times

Page load speed is not only an important search ranking factor; it also is one of the biggest website conversion killers.

10 – Not Using Social Media

Your prospects will expect to engage with your business on social media, as well as sharing your content with their social networks. If you don’t allow them to do so, you will miss out on many opportunities for engagement and conversion.

11 – Not Allowing Social Log-In

If you require consumers to sign up for an account to purchase from your site, many will not do so.

12 – The Hard Sell

Let’s face it; nobody likes the hard sell. Especially first-time visitors to your site are not very likely to purchase right away if you appear overly pushy. It usually is a better approach to nurture the relationship before you hit them with the Buy Now button.

13 – Not Allowing Search

Your business website may seem perfectly obvious to you. But even a small business or e-commerce site can be confusing for visitors. You can speed access to your relevant content by including a search function on every page of your website. Be sure to direct them with the appropriate signposts.

14 – No Direction

One of the worst website conversion killers is not having any direction. The content of your business website must direct visitors to your call-to-action. Make it clear what the next step in the buying cycle is. And make sure to explain why that is beneficial.

15 – No Marketing Strategy

Your business website needs to be part of your marketing strategy. Once you attract visitors, you must keep them interested in your brand. You need to stay in touch with them to remind them how great your business is. Getting your visitors to sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your blog is an excellent way to do that.

Removing Website Conversion Killers

If your website has any of the above website conversion killers, you need to remove them as soon as possible. I know many of you are focusing on other areas of your business as well. But this must be a priority!

Start with the easy ones first. Make sure your call-to-action is clear and straightforward. Rewrite copy to include a more human factor as needed. Ease up on the hard sell. Put yourself in the position of your website visitors. Make your business website as helpful as it can be.

Other website conversion killers will take longer to fix, and most likely, you will need some professional help. Those include improving page speed, creating opt-in forms, and anything else of a technical nature. Remember that you are investing in your online presence; the extra effort and cost will be worth it in the long run.

If you are still planning or working on your business website, you may want to check out some more web design or WordPress posts on our blog or learn some additional tips and tricks.

Creating a useful business website is one of the most challenging tasks for any business. Many business owners start with the best intentions but end up failing on their own. Shouldn’t you let a professional at least help you?

Need Help Removing Website Conversion Killers?

We are experts at designing and developing user-friendly and high-performing websites for businesses of all kinds! At PixoLabo, we offer a full range of web design and development services, including web design and development, e-commerce solutions, search engine optimization, and website hosting and support.

Contact us to learn more about our business web design services, and how our team can help you fix any website conversion killers on your business website.

Do you have any other website conversion killers to add to our list? Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit as well, and grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! And help your audience grow their business by sharing our website conversion killers with them!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By Gregor Schmidt
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregorspeaks