July 29, 2021

5 Huge Mistakes You’re Making On Your Website

Dot The i Creative

We compiled common mistakes that people make when they create websites on their own. Here are the top 5 mistakes that are keeping your website from converting.

1. No Call to Action

One of the biggest mistakes we see is not including a strong call to action above the fold. Above the fold is an old newspaper term, and it simply means anything you can see when you first land on the page without having to scroll. This is the most important part of any website page. The average attention span of people is officially less than a goldfish, so you have between 6-8 seconds to make an impact. If you don’t have a strong call to action that leads the user to make a move, you will see less conversion.

Here are some call to action examples that seem to work the best:

Call to Value

Buttons which emphasize “value” over “action.” The trick is to fulfil the value your title or main heading promises.

Objection Handle

This type of call to action adds a few words to your CTA to handle the user's biggest objection to clicking.

Email Capture + CTA

Pair email capture with your CTA to make signing up as easy as possible. You can still capture more information later if necessary, but make the first step as easy as possible to get people started and invested.

2. No Social Proof

Social proof is one of the largest factors in getting users to convert. Social proof adds instant credibility to the value you're promising. Take the image below for example. Any website can write “How small brands sell more online”. But it's their “18,000+ reviews” that make you believe it.

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Social proof doesn’t just have to be a review. Reviews are great, but they can take some time to build up. If you are launching a brand new website, product, or service, consider starting out with as many friend and family member reviews as possible. Social proof can be a single awesome review, an award, or even a founder's note. All of these options help personalize your website and increase conversion.

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3. Too Much Text

Remember that stat about the average attention span? Website users get daunted by large blocks of text. Even right now you are wondering how much more this article has so you can move on to the next thing. Website content should be short and sweet, and well sectioned. Now there are still a certain number of words we want to have on the page for SEO reasons, but in general, the shorter the better. This applies to your headings as well. Not only are your headings already in a larger font and take up more space, but shorter headings convert better. To go along with this, the average reading level in the U.S is between a 7th and 8th grade level. Shorter sentence structure allows more of your audience to understand your content.

4. Website Content Tone

For the most part, no one cares what you can do. They care what you can do for them. A common mistake we see is too much copy about you. We understand you are trying to sell your product or service, but your website needs to point out what makes you different, and the benefit that you or your product provides.

5. Apply It All Above the Fold

Like we said before, the initial above the fold section of your website pages is the most important. It may seem like too much to get into one section, but all of the items mentioned above need to be in that above the fold section. This is where the experience of a web designer comes in handy. It can be difficult even for the professionals to cleanly accomplish this, but it certainly can be done.

Here is a great example of the anatomy of a great above the fold section:

Short, authoritative title that makes it clear what you do.
Subtitle that gets a little more specific about how your product or service creates the value you introduced in your title.
Accompanying image that ‘shows your product in use.’ If you don’t sell a physical product, think more about showing the ‘end result’ or benefits.
Above the fold social proof. This can be smaller because you are going to have more down lower on the page!
Prominent call to action to get the user to do what you want them to do.

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Dot The i Creative

Dot The i Creative (DTi Creative for short) is a full service digital marketing agency offering Search Engine Optimization, PPC & Digital Advertising, Social Media Management, Website Design & Development, Marketing Automation, and Content Creation Services in the Dublin, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio area.

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