5 Website Mistakes That Are Turning Your Dream Clients Away
Is your professional website working for you or against you?
While branding, marketing, and copy are essential components of your online presence, a poorly designed website could be the reason you aren’t getting any inquiries or hearing from your target audience.
In order to build a high-converting website, you have to remember that the way you present your information is just as important as the information itself.
Haven’t touched your website in a while? Now’s the time to do a quick audit!
Here are 5 website mistakes that are turning your dream clients away:
1) It’s not clear what you do or who you help.
When people visit your website, they want to learn more about you, your work, and most importantly, what you can do for them. If this isn’t clear right away, then your ideal clients will eventually bounce.
Adding a simple but conspicuous tagline to your homepage (e.g. your name + what you do + who you help) is an easy way to prevent unnecessary confusion.
Ex: “My name is Kelly Stamps and I help students level up their mindset from dust to elegance.”
Always put yourself in the mind of your ideal client and ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?”
In addition, make sure that the text is big enough or differentiated enough from its surrounding text (e.g. by using a different font) so that people cannot miss your tagline.
2) Your website doesn’t (easily) indicate where to contact you.
If you want to sell services or partner with brands, then having your contact information (where you can see it) is a nonnegotiable. Make it easy for clients to reach you by creating a separate “Contact” page or listing information such as your email address or phone number in the footer of your website.
Again, do a quick audit of your website right now! Is your contact information easy to spot?
If you have to hunt for it, then that could very well be the reason why no one is reaching out to you. (Because they simply don’t know how!)
3) You don’t have obvious calls-to-action.
As with Reason #2, don’t make your clients jump through hoops! The longer it takes for people to find information, the faster they will lose interest and close out of your website.
If you want someone to take a specific action, make that CTA as clear as day. (Ex: A button that says “Schedule a Consult Call” or a newsletter signup box.)
4) Your website has too much going on.
Is your website too chaotic? Possibly. Sometimes, the amount of content is not so much a problem as it is how you organize it. Here are a few ways to declutter your design:
Keep your copy as concise as possible. If you have a lot going on on your page, then try your best to communicate the most essential information in as a few words as you can.
Space out your content and make use of white space (aka “negative space”). Give your eyes “breathing” room, if you will, to focus on a few visual elements at a time.
Remove any unnecessary content! This includes graphics, buttons, embedded files, and any elements that don’t really add to the overall purpose of a specific page.
Improve your site readability by making headers and body text easily distinguishable from each another.
If you have a lot of content on your page, but it’s all important to conveying a specific message, you may just need to do a bit of rearranging or restructuring.
5) Your style isn’t resonating with your dream clients.
You could be the most talented photographer or a filmmaker in the world, but if your website is doing a poor job presenting your work, then people won’t see the full potential in what you have to offer. The average site visitor has the attention span of a goldfish (one can only assume), which means you need to make a good first impression.
Do you want to attract clients in a specific industry? If so, does your style speak to the niche that they’re in?
Do you want to work with people who share your playful approach to work? If so, does your website reflect this aspect of your personality?
As an exercise, find some of your dream clients on Instagram (if that’s where they’re hanging). Study their aesthetic, and tweak your website design accordingly.
You may need to update your color scheme or choose more relevant imagery. Or as discussed before, you may need to reduce clutter on your website to highlight your best work.
Along with the design, your style should come through in your copy too.
Are you making your mission and offerings obvious throughout your website?
Are you choosing key words that make your clients think “this person speaks my language!”
There’s a lot that goes into creating thoughtful design, and the seemingly smallest details can make a huge difference in the way people perceive you.
“But I’m tired of DIY’ing my website, Gawoon!”
If that’s you, submit a project inquiry here and book a free consultation call with me! ☺︎︎