If your website isn’t delivering the visitors, leads and customers your organization needs to be successful, it’s likely that your virtual front door not only needs a little work, but it could actually be costing you business. But, have you given much thought to the true cost that an underperforming site has on your business?

If Your Customers Can’t Find You, They Can’t Buy From You

There can be several reasons why your ideal customers are not reaching your site, but in our experience, poor site traffic usually stems from a lack of search engine optimization and/or proper site promotion.

If your site is not properly optimized to make it easy for search engines like Google, Bing and others to crawl and index the pages, or there are errors present in a few key sections of code, it could be disastrous to your site’s search engine rankings and results.

Additionally, not promoting your site through channels that prove influential to your customers when they are making a purchase decision (i.e., social media, digital advertising, forums, groups, review sites) not only makes it more difficult for them to find you online, but it often attracts unqualified and irrelevant visitors that are more likely to leave your site immediately.

Visitors Leave Your Site Within Seconds

Studies show that the average human has an attention span of 8 seconds. As if the stakes to make a good (and exceptionally quick!) first impression weren’t already high, Adobe estimates that 39% of users will stop engaging with a site if images either take too long to load or won’t load at all. In fact, a delay of a single second in your load time can result in a 7% loss in converting visitors into leads and customers. Furthermore, if your site’s design/layout is unattractive or your navigation is not intuitive, you are likely driving 38% of visitors away from your site and possibly to your competitors.

So, what can you do to increase the time visitors spend on your site? We recommend evaluating your site’s user experience to identify areas that could benefit from improvement, such as design, layout and navigation to meet the needs of every type of user that may visit your site, includng current and prospective customers, prospective employees, investors, partners, members of the media, etc.

Your Site Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

With mobile devices now accounting for nearly two of every three minutes online, having a mobile-friendly site is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. In April 2015, Google released a new algorithm update that focused on elevating the search ranking of mobile-friendly sites and pages to improve the experience for those conducting searches on mobile devices, and pushing sites that are not mobile-friendly down toward the bottom of search results.

As if that isn’t enough incentive to deliver a responsive website experience to your customers, there’s extensive evidence that proves mobile-friendly sites deliver higher conversion numbers and lower bounce rates compared to their non-responsive counterparts. If your business isn’t currently delivering a responsive experience, we suggest making this a top priority to capture visitors, leads and customers.

It All Feels and Sounds the Same

If your online experience is virtually identical to that of your competitors, or your content doesn’t seem to be resonating with your visitors, it’s time to consider a refresh that focuses not only on differentiating your company but addressing the pain points felt by your customers. By giving some attention to your online strategy, messaging and overall content – ensuring that it aligns with your overall brand – you’ll see a boost in your website performance, which should translate to increased sales and revenue.

As your company’s virtual front door, your website is the most critical element in your marketing toolkit, which is why it’s essential to ensure that it is performing at the highest possible level to garner visitors, leads and customers. If you’re wondering how to get the most out of your site, ask about our free website assessment.