January 30, 2024 • 18 mins
Ever feel like your online store isn’t converting as well as it should? Join me as I share with you the 5 most common website mistakes that could be holding your website back!
In my over 20 years of eCommerce experience, I find many online business owners are just guessing when it comes to their website content and features. As we juggle the overwhelming process of running our businesses, it is easy to overlook simple mistakes. From poor website design to overwhelming navigation menus, I will dive into my top 5 common website mistakes and how to avoid them!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Running an online business can be hard and
overwhelming, especially ifyou're unsure if you're doing
the right things, having theright elements on your website,
etc.
I find many online businessowners are just guessing when it
comes to their websitescontents as well as their
features.
So take a listen as you gothrough the five common mistakes
online business owners makewith their websites.
(00:23):
Welcome to the eCommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine-month-old.
My main goal To help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theeCommerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I've seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
(00:45):
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedeCommerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of eCommerce
together.
Welcome back to the eCommerceMade Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
So today we're talking aboutcommon mistakes that I have
found online business ownersmake with their websites in the
(01:06):
past 20 plus years that we'vebeen working on websites.
While these mistakes are simpleand sometimes obvious, it's
very easy to look over them.
I know us, as even webdevelopers, have sometimes
overlooked our own websitesometimes, especially as times
change and things grow.
So I want to list to you someof my top five recommendations
(01:29):
that you always are aware of andreviewing pretty regularly to
make sure that you don't fallinto these common pitfalls that
are really crucial to having onyour website.
So first is a poor websitedesign.
I know that whenever yourbusiness has been going for a
long time at least for us it'sreally easy to be complacent
with your website design as itwas and but maybe it's not
(01:51):
appropriate anymore.
Something you can also find,too, is slow loading times.
As our businesses grow and aswe continue to put new things
under our site, we sometimesforget to check how fast our
website is, especially acrossdifferent devices and across
different areas of the world.
(02:12):
So making sure you're regularlychecking your loading times and
we will link in the show notessome great tools for that as
well as some reference articleswe've already done on this.
So making sure you your site isloading quickly is very
important, because nobody sticksaround for a slow website.
Also an unresponsive design,and we'll go into this a little
(02:32):
bit more detail, but we want tomake sure that our designs look
good on pretty much any device,ideally any device or any web
browser.
We also need to make sure thatour call to actions are clear
and simple.
We don't want to make themsuper generic like click here.
It would be much better to saysubscribe now, which is a much
(02:54):
more direct way of saying thatyou're going to subscribe to
your newsletter, for example.
So using very clear call toactions are very important.
Whenever a customer has aquestion in their mind, a
confused mind says no.
So you want to be crystal clearand you really want to be
writing to third to fifth gradelevel really on your website in
(03:16):
general, unless you're like ahighly technical website that
you really need to be spillingout all the exact technical
details and things.
We need to be conversational onour website and be speaking as
normal conversation, not super,super formal and confusing.
We also want to make sure thatour primary information is above
the fold.
So these are all the thingsthat go under poor web design.
(03:37):
So what that means is primaryinformation above the fold is to
think of it as an old stylenewspaper.
You probably remember you'reprobably old enough to remember
newspapers back in the day, andabove the fold was what you saw
when the newspaper was folded inhalf.
So it is what got yourattention as you walk by.
The newspaper stands back inthe day when people picked up
(03:59):
newspapers, and newspaper standsand is still being carried into
today's newspapers, which arebasically our websites, right?
So we want to have those reallybold and inspiring titles and
call to actions and the mostimportant information at the top
of the website.
So we want to be able to seethem when we first arrive at the
(04:19):
website.
So that's what above the foldmeans.
So if you have something that'ssuper important that you can't
see when you first go to thewebsite and please try this on
desktop laptops, tablets andmobile we want to make sure that
that's above the fold and ifnot, then you're going to want
to correct that.
So next is also not having afew core pages and information
(04:41):
on your website, and I find thisactually quite a bit.
So really pay attention hereand go to our show notes when
you're done listening to theepisode, because we want to make
sure that we're really givenout this core information.
Number one we want to have anabout page Whenever I go to a
new business, I want to learnabout them so that I can decide
(05:02):
whether I trust them for one.
So having a good about page isgreat.
Whenever you've already got thecustomer's attention and they
want to learn a bit more aboutyou.
Having an easy to find aboutpage is very crucial, and having
it well written.
That's kind of hard to say wellwritten and easy to read and,
(05:22):
you know, not too wordy, but youwant to be a bit verbose here.
So making sure you have a verywell crafted about page is very
important.
You also want to have a contactpage and you especially if
you're, you know, a businessowner, you're going to want to
have a way for them to easilycontact you.
So this could be on a contactpage which is very easy to find
(05:46):
because it's in your navigation,because your navigation is
clear.
We're going to go into that too.
But you're going to want topotentially have your phone
number or your email address atthe top of the page page or
above the fold to.
That's just indicates a greatcustomer service.
Whenever, either your contactpage is really easy to find and
very clear on how to contact you, or you have the information
(06:09):
above the page or even both manytimes in.
Both is actually excellent,because sometimes people maybe
they don't want to call you.
They would rather email you togive them several different
options for the ways that theycan contact you, and make sure
you do that in your contact page.
You're also going to want tohave social proof, so we're also
we're still talking about ourcore pages and information on
(06:31):
our website, so we want to havesocial proof.
We want to have reviews, wewant to have testimonials.
You could even screenshotreviews from social media and
then put them on your website.
If you don't have a social likereviews directly on your
website, you can take them fromGoogle business pages and
screenshot those reviews and putthem on your website because
(06:52):
it's public information If it'sout there on those social
platforms, so you can screenshotit and put it on to your pages.
I recommend screenshotting itrather than retyping it, because
it provides a bit of validitythat it wasn't actually a person
who wrote it.
Because they'll because whenpeople see it, they're going to
see their familiar area of, likea Facebook review or Google
(07:17):
review.
They're going to see, like theicons and the buttons around it
to make it make them feel likeyou didn't make up that review,
so doing your screenshots areactually pretty good here.
And then, if you're sellinge-commerce and you're actually
selling products that deliverand that are shipped, making
sure that you have very clearshipping information is vital,
(07:39):
and this is one that I seemissed a lot on e-commerce
websites.
You need to talk about how fastthey'll get their item.
You need to talk about thecarriers they use.
Do they use UPS, fedex, dhl,think of any of the carriers
that are local to you and yourcountry?
You want to be verbose and saywhat carriers you're going to
(08:00):
use, because sometimes at leastI know here in the United States
there are certain areas whereone carrier does a much better
job at delivery and service thanother carriers, and that really
actually varies across theUnited States, for example, as
one of them might be better thanthe other one in one place and
then it's flipped in anotherplace.
So making sure they know how toexpect their package is very
(08:24):
important and many times it's.
You know, I want to know am Igoing to get this thing in my
mailbox, is it going to be lefton my front porch, et cetera?
So, being very specific on howit's being shipped and how long
it's going to take.
And if you have extraprocessing time or handling time
to get the package ready, makesure you're clear with that too,
because a one to three shippingdelivery doesn't mean anything
(08:46):
if it takes you seven to tendays to get that package ready
and then you ship it.
So make sure you're very clearthat it's going to create some
expectations as a customer thatare more realistic if you're
very clear about your shippingpolicies and time frames.
Also very important fore-commerce or online business
owners in general, even thosethat do services return policies
(09:08):
.
It's very important that youhave a very easy to find return
policy page.
Be very clear about what can bereturned and what can't and
their time limits and all thosethings.
Make sure this is very clear.
This is one I recommend youprobably have your lawyer check
over to make sure it's wordedappropriately and make sure you
(09:28):
have that return policies page.
There's a lot of places I haveshopped on that didn't have it,
and there's been times I justdidn't shop because they didn't.
They weren't specific on thereturn policy, so I didn't know
what would happen if I was notsatisfied.
I'm not generally one to returnsomething.
It's just not.
It's just not who I am, unlessit's the wrong thing or
(09:49):
something.
But if I did my research and dodiligence on Bada and just
didn't simply like it, then Ijust feel like that's on me.
But having that return policyis there is something broken or
if there's something that'swrong with the order is very
important to have up there.
Okay, so, number three,neglecting mobile users, and we
touched on this just a littlebit in the beginning.
(10:10):
You are going to want to makesure that your website delivers
on mobile tablet, laptops,desktops all the different sizes
of devices iPhones, androids,whatever brands that are out
there.
At the current day that you'relistening to this right now,
iphones and androids are the toptwo in the market and we want
to make sure that your websiteworks across all of these
(10:33):
devices.
This not only affects userexperience, because many times
people will find you first via amobile search or via social
media.
It's just going to affect theiruser experience if they can't
get your website and find theinformation they want on their
mobile device, whether it's atablet or a phone, and it also
affects search engine rankings.
The major search engines putpriority on those who have done
(10:57):
a good job of creating a mobilewebsite, so you're going to want
to make sure that your websiteis mobile friendly, very, very
important.
I can't stress this enough.
I personally don't like to shopon my phone, but I will do some
research, initially on my phoneif I'm not near my computer,
and if I can't see it when I'mthere and it's in my mind, I'm
(11:18):
probably not going to rememberto go to it when I'm on my
computer.
So mobile is very, veryimportant, and tablets Okay.
So number four is inadequatecontent.
What I mean by this is thincontent, so content that's not
full and doesn't have enoughinformation.
It's very I like to call itanemic, although my husband like
(11:40):
laughs at me when I use thatword when I'm talking about
words, but to me it's likeanemic.
There's so little there.
Think about productdescriptions, for example.
Even if you don't selle-commerce, maybe you sell
services or something.
You're going to want to be veryspecific on what your product
is, how it's going to help them,what it's going to deliver to
them, etc.
So you want to make sure thatyour content is not thin.
(12:04):
It's very rich when you'redoing this discussion Now.
When you're doing that, though,you need to keep this next point
in mind, which is disorganizedcontent.
We don't want to flood theusers with paragraphs and
paragraphs and paragraphs ofinformation.
That's overwhelming.
People generally don't read,especially on the internet, even
(12:25):
though I just said we need tohave, you know, not thin content
, but people don't generallyread.
So how we balance this is withstructuring our content with a
scannable headings.
So we're going to want to haveheading tags, heading groupings,
above your paragraphs.
You're going to want to makesure that it's scannable.
So think about when you're inschool and you're writing papers
(12:48):
for school.
You usually would have like atitle and then some headings and
maybe some subheadings, andthen you had supporting
paragraphs underneath that.
So more detailed information.
You're going to want to do thesame on the website.
You're going to want to havethose major bullet points in
headings, so they're going to bebolder and it's going to be
bigger text, and then if youpeek their interest, then
(13:10):
they'll probably will read thatparagraph.
You're going to draw them inand they're going to be more
likely to actually read yourpage if it's just not a wall of
text and it's scannable.
So making sure that yourcontent is organized and
scannable is very, veryimportant.
Also, outdated content.
This is such a huge turnoff forme when I'm looking at a new
(13:33):
company that I might buysomething from or service that I
might buy, if they have reallyoutdated content.
Say, they have a blog and theyhaven't updated it in a year or
two or three or heck five orworse I'm going to wonder
whether they're in business.
Or, let's say, maybe they don'thave a blog or something that's
generating new content on theirwebsite regularly, but they
(13:56):
link to their social platforms.
I'm going to go to those socialplatforms and see when was the
last time they posted to it.
If it's been months or years,I'm probably again going to
believe that they're out ofbusiness and their stuff's just
kind of hanging around and Imight not get what I'm buying.
But if I see that they'reposting regularly and even if
that's only like a few times amonth, that's still regular
(14:19):
enough.
If it's been recent, I'm goingto accept that they're still in
business and feel like that theyare and have more confidence in
them.
So making sure your content isnot outdated, as well as making
sure your phone number mightchange or things like that Some
really super importantinformation from you.
You're going to want to makesure you update that anytime
(14:39):
something like that changes Okay.
So last but not least, iscomplicated navigation.
I've seen this time and timeagain where people have such
complex menus because they wantto fit all the things in there.
You're going to want to have atmost five, maybe eight top
level menu items across the topof your website at most, and
(15:03):
then you could have sub menusunderneath that.
But you're going to want to besimple in your navigational
names for those menu items.
You don't want to be cleverhere.
You want to be very clear.
Like I said earlier, a confusedmind says no, so please don't
be clever.
That's why I wanted you to bereally clear here.
You want to have the leastamount of menus across the top
(15:26):
that you can have and still havean effective website.
You can always put those reallyimportant extras at the bottom
in the footer.
That is a great place.
If you want to go back to theshipping policies and return
policies, that's a great placeto put.
Shipping and return policies isat the footer of your website.
That's where a lot of peopleexpect it.
So don't feel like younecessarily have to have those
(15:48):
at the top of your websitebecause that's going to be
clicked on.
If they're even more interestedin drawing into your page.
You want to first get themdrawn into your website first.
So having those are reallyimportant things at the bottom,
so they're not crowding the topof your navigation, is going to
be very important.
And you want to make sure youhave a search feature.
(16:09):
Nowadays, most people don'twant to browse around under
menus after menus after menus.
They just want to search andfind the information they want.
So making sure you have a goodsearch feature is very critical
to users using your websiteeffectively.
Okay, so keep in mind thatthese points that I just talked
(16:30):
about, these five points, notonly help your customer
conversion rates, but they alsohelp you be found.
Major search engines, like wetalked about in some of these
points, look for well puttogether websites that have
valuable content on them.
So it's really important thatyou are reviewing this very
regularly.
And, again, our show noteswe're going to, you know, bullet
(16:52):
out some of these points foryou so that you can keep them in
mind.
All right, so that's it for thisweek's episode.
Be sure to visit our show notes, like I said, at
ecommercemeadeeasypodcastcom, oryou should be able to see them
on your podcasting app if you'relistening on the podcast.
If you're watching this on theYouTube channel, be sure to hit
that subscribe button so youdon't miss out on any more
(17:14):
podcast videos.
And we're also be doing.
We're doing some tutorials tooon YouTube now, as we're working
on content for 2024.
So make sure you subscribethere.
And if you're listening on thepodcast, make sure you subscribe
to on your podcast player soyou don't miss any upcoming new
episodes.
And if you're listening to thisand you found value in today's
(17:35):
episode or any of the otherepisodes of the
ecommercemeadeeasypodcast, wewould love to hear from you.
What other content do you wantto hear on our podcast?
You can email us at podcast atbcsengineeringcom, or you can
also leave us a review.
We would love to hear from you.
Thank you again for listeningand we will see you next week.
Running an online business can be hard and
overwhelming, especially ifyou're unsure if you're doing
the right things, having theright elements on your website,
etc.
I find many online businessowners are just guessing when it
comes to their websitescontents as well as their
features.
So take a listen as you gothrough the five common mistakes
online business owners makewith their websites.
(00:23):
Welcome to the eCommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine-month-old.
My main goal To help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theeCommerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I've seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
(00:45):
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedeCommerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of eCommerce
together.
Welcome back to the eCommerceMade Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
So today we're talking aboutcommon mistakes that I have
found online business ownersmake with their websites in the
(01:06):
past 20 plus years that we'vebeen working on websites.
While these mistakes are simpleand sometimes obvious, it's
very easy to look over them.
I know us, as even webdevelopers, have sometimes
overlooked our own websitesometimes, especially as times
change and things grow.
So I want to list to you someof my top five recommendations
(01:29):
that you always are aware of andreviewing pretty regularly to
make sure that you don't fallinto these common pitfalls that
are really crucial to having onyour website.
So first is a poor websitedesign.
I know that whenever yourbusiness has been going for a
long time at least for us it'sreally easy to be complacent
with your website design as itwas and but maybe it's not
(01:51):
appropriate anymore.
Something you can also find,too, is slow loading times.
As our businesses grow and aswe continue to put new things
under our site, we sometimesforget to check how fast our
website is, especially acrossdifferent devices and across
different areas of the world.
(02:12):
So making sure you're regularlychecking your loading times and
we will link in the show notessome great tools for that as
well as some reference articleswe've already done on this.
So making sure you your site isloading quickly is very
important, because nobody sticksaround for a slow website.
Also an unresponsive design,and we'll go into this a little
(02:32):
bit more detail, but we want tomake sure that our designs look
good on pretty much any device,ideally any device or any web
browser.
We also need to make sure thatour call to actions are clear
and simple.
We don't want to make themsuper generic like click here.
It would be much better to saysubscribe now, which is a much
(02:54):
more direct way of saying thatyou're going to subscribe to
your newsletter, for example.
So using very clear call toactions are very important.
Whenever a customer has aquestion in their mind, a
confused mind says no.
So you want to be crystal clearand you really want to be
writing to third to fifth gradelevel really on your website in
(03:16):
general, unless you're like ahighly technical website that
you really need to be spillingout all the exact technical
details and things.
We need to be conversational onour website and be speaking as
normal conversation, not super,super formal and confusing.
We also want to make sure thatour primary information is above
the fold.
So these are all the thingsthat go under poor web design.
(03:37):
So what that means is primaryinformation above the fold is to
think of it as an old stylenewspaper.
You probably remember you'reprobably old enough to remember
newspapers back in the day, andabove the fold was what you saw
when the newspaper was folded inhalf.
So it is what got yourattention as you walk by.
The newspaper stands back inthe day when people picked up
(03:59):
newspapers, and newspaper standsand is still being carried into
today's newspapers, which arebasically our websites, right?
So we want to have those reallybold and inspiring titles and
call to actions and the mostimportant information at the top
of the website.
So we want to be able to seethem when we first arrive at the
(04:19):
website.
So that's what above the foldmeans.
So if you have something that'ssuper important that you can't
see when you first go to thewebsite and please try this on
desktop laptops, tablets andmobile we want to make sure that
that's above the fold and ifnot, then you're going to want
to correct that.
So next is also not having afew core pages and information
(04:41):
on your website, and I find thisactually quite a bit.
So really pay attention hereand go to our show notes when
you're done listening to theepisode, because we want to make
sure that we're really givenout this core information.
Number one we want to have anabout page Whenever I go to a
new business, I want to learnabout them so that I can decide
(05:02):
whether I trust them for one.
So having a good about page isgreat.
Whenever you've already got thecustomer's attention and they
want to learn a bit more aboutyou.
Having an easy to find aboutpage is very crucial, and having
it well written.
That's kind of hard to say wellwritten and easy to read and,
(05:22):
you know, not too wordy, but youwant to be a bit verbose here.
So making sure you have a verywell crafted about page is very
important.
You also want to have a contactpage and you especially if
you're, you know, a businessowner, you're going to want to
have a way for them to easilycontact you.
So this could be on a contactpage which is very easy to find
(05:46):
because it's in your navigation,because your navigation is
clear.
We're going to go into that too.
But you're going to want topotentially have your phone
number or your email address atthe top of the page page or
above the fold to.
That's just indicates a greatcustomer service.
Whenever, either your contactpage is really easy to find and
very clear on how to contact you, or you have the information
(06:09):
above the page or even both manytimes in.
Both is actually excellent,because sometimes people maybe
they don't want to call you.
They would rather email you togive them several different
options for the ways that theycan contact you, and make sure
you do that in your contact page.
You're also going to want tohave social proof, so we're also
we're still talking about ourcore pages and information on
(06:31):
our website, so we want to havesocial proof.
We want to have reviews, wewant to have testimonials.
You could even screenshotreviews from social media and
then put them on your website.
If you don't have a social likereviews directly on your
website, you can take them fromGoogle business pages and
screenshot those reviews and putthem on your website because
(06:52):
it's public information If it'sout there on those social
platforms, so you can screenshotit and put it on to your pages.
I recommend screenshotting itrather than retyping it, because
it provides a bit of validitythat it wasn't actually a person
who wrote it.
Because they'll because whenpeople see it, they're going to
see their familiar area of, likea Facebook review or Google
(07:17):
review.
They're going to see, like theicons and the buttons around it
to make it make them feel likeyou didn't make up that review,
so doing your screenshots areactually pretty good here.
And then, if you're sellinge-commerce and you're actually
selling products that deliverand that are shipped, making
sure that you have very clearshipping information is vital,
(07:39):
and this is one that I seemissed a lot on e-commerce
websites.
You need to talk about how fastthey'll get their item.
You need to talk about thecarriers they use.
Do they use UPS, fedex, dhl,think of any of the carriers
that are local to you and yourcountry?
You want to be verbose and saywhat carriers you're going to
(08:00):
use, because sometimes at leastI know here in the United States
there are certain areas whereone carrier does a much better
job at delivery and service thanother carriers, and that really
actually varies across theUnited States, for example, as
one of them might be better thanthe other one in one place and
then it's flipped in anotherplace.
So making sure they know how toexpect their package is very
(08:24):
important and many times it's.
You know, I want to know am Igoing to get this thing in my
mailbox, is it going to be lefton my front porch, et cetera?
So, being very specific on howit's being shipped and how long
it's going to take.
And if you have extraprocessing time or handling time
to get the package ready, makesure you're clear with that too,
because a one to three shippingdelivery doesn't mean anything
(08:46):
if it takes you seven to tendays to get that package ready
and then you ship it.
So make sure you're very clearthat it's going to create some
expectations as a customer thatare more realistic if you're
very clear about your shippingpolicies and time frames.
Also very important fore-commerce or online business
owners in general, even thosethat do services return policies
(09:08):
.
It's very important that youhave a very easy to find return
policy page.
Be very clear about what can bereturned and what can't and
their time limits and all thosethings.
Make sure this is very clear.
This is one I recommend youprobably have your lawyer check
over to make sure it's wordedappropriately and make sure you
(09:28):
have that return policies page.
There's a lot of places I haveshopped on that didn't have it,
and there's been times I justdidn't shop because they didn't.
They weren't specific on thereturn policy, so I didn't know
what would happen if I was notsatisfied.
I'm not generally one to returnsomething.
It's just not.
It's just not who I am, unlessit's the wrong thing or
(09:49):
something.
But if I did my research and dodiligence on Bada and just
didn't simply like it, then Ijust feel like that's on me.
But having that return policyis there is something broken or
if there's something that'swrong with the order is very
important to have up there.
Okay, so, number three,neglecting mobile users, and we
touched on this just a littlebit in the beginning.
(10:10):
You are going to want to makesure that your website delivers
on mobile tablet, laptops,desktops all the different sizes
of devices iPhones, androids,whatever brands that are out
there.
At the current day that you'relistening to this right now,
iphones and androids are the toptwo in the market and we want
to make sure that your websiteworks across all of these
(10:33):
devices.
This not only affects userexperience, because many times
people will find you first via amobile search or via social
media.
It's just going to affect theiruser experience if they can't
get your website and find theinformation they want on their
mobile device, whether it's atablet or a phone, and it also
affects search engine rankings.
The major search engines putpriority on those who have done
(10:57):
a good job of creating a mobilewebsite, so you're going to want
to make sure that your websiteis mobile friendly, very, very
important.
I can't stress this enough.
I personally don't like to shopon my phone, but I will do some
research, initially on my phoneif I'm not near my computer,
and if I can't see it when I'mthere and it's in my mind, I'm
(11:18):
probably not going to rememberto go to it when I'm on my
computer.
So mobile is very, veryimportant, and tablets Okay.
So number four is inadequatecontent.
What I mean by this is thincontent, so content that's not
full and doesn't have enoughinformation.
It's very I like to call itanemic, although my husband like
(11:40):
laughs at me when I use thatword when I'm talking about
words, but to me it's likeanemic.
There's so little there.
Think about productdescriptions, for example.
Even if you don't selle-commerce, maybe you sell
services or something.
You're going to want to be veryspecific on what your product
is, how it's going to help them,what it's going to deliver to
them, etc.
So you want to make sure thatyour content is not thin.
(12:04):
It's very rich when you'redoing this discussion Now.
When you're doing that, though,you need to keep this next point
in mind, which is disorganizedcontent.
We don't want to flood theusers with paragraphs and
paragraphs and paragraphs ofinformation.
That's overwhelming.
People generally don't read,especially on the internet, even
(12:25):
though I just said we need tohave, you know, not thin content
, but people don't generallyread.
So how we balance this is withstructuring our content with a
scannable headings.
So we're going to want to haveheading tags, heading groupings,
above your paragraphs.
You're going to want to makesure that it's scannable.
So think about when you're inschool and you're writing papers
(12:48):
for school.
You usually would have like atitle and then some headings and
maybe some subheadings, andthen you had supporting
paragraphs underneath that.
So more detailed information.
You're going to want to do thesame on the website.
You're going to want to havethose major bullet points in
headings, so they're going to bebolder and it's going to be
bigger text, and then if youpeek their interest, then
(13:10):
they'll probably will read thatparagraph.
You're going to draw them inand they're going to be more
likely to actually read yourpage if it's just not a wall of
text and it's scannable.
So making sure that yourcontent is organized and
scannable is very, veryimportant.
Also, outdated content.
This is such a huge turnoff forme when I'm looking at a new
(13:33):
company that I might buysomething from or service that I
might buy, if they have reallyoutdated content.
Say, they have a blog and theyhaven't updated it in a year or
two or three or heck five orworse I'm going to wonder
whether they're in business.
Or, let's say, maybe they don'thave a blog or something that's
generating new content on theirwebsite regularly, but they
(13:56):
link to their social platforms.
I'm going to go to those socialplatforms and see when was the
last time they posted to it.
If it's been months or years,I'm probably again going to
believe that they're out ofbusiness and their stuff's just
kind of hanging around and Imight not get what I'm buying.
But if I see that they'reposting regularly and even if
that's only like a few times amonth, that's still regular
(14:19):
enough.
If it's been recent, I'm goingto accept that they're still in
business and feel like that theyare and have more confidence in
them.
So making sure your content isnot outdated, as well as making
sure your phone number mightchange or things like that Some
really super importantinformation from you.
You're going to want to makesure you update that anytime
(14:39):
something like that changes Okay.
So last but not least, iscomplicated navigation.
I've seen this time and timeagain where people have such
complex menus because they wantto fit all the things in there.
You're going to want to have atmost five, maybe eight top
level menu items across the topof your website at most, and
(15:03):
then you could have sub menusunderneath that.
But you're going to want to besimple in your navigational
names for those menu items.
You don't want to be cleverhere.
You want to be very clear.
Like I said earlier, a confusedmind says no, so please don't
be clever.
That's why I wanted you to bereally clear here.
You want to have the leastamount of menus across the top
(15:26):
that you can have and still havean effective website.
You can always put those reallyimportant extras at the bottom
in the footer.
That is a great place.
If you want to go back to theshipping policies and return
policies, that's a great placeto put.
Shipping and return policies isat the footer of your website.
That's where a lot of peopleexpect it.
So don't feel like younecessarily have to have those
(15:48):
at the top of your websitebecause that's going to be
clicked on.
If they're even more interestedin drawing into your page.
You want to first get themdrawn into your website first.
So having those are reallyimportant things at the bottom,
so they're not crowding the topof your navigation, is going to
be very important.
And you want to make sure youhave a search feature.
(16:09):
Nowadays, most people don'twant to browse around under
menus after menus after menus.
They just want to search andfind the information they want.
So making sure you have a goodsearch feature is very critical
to users using your websiteeffectively.
Okay, so keep in mind thatthese points that I just talked
(16:30):
about, these five points, notonly help your customer
conversion rates, but they alsohelp you be found.
Major search engines, like wetalked about in some of these
points, look for well puttogether websites that have
valuable content on them.
So it's really important thatyou are reviewing this very
regularly.
And, again, our show noteswe're going to, you know, bullet
(16:52):
out some of these points foryou so that you can keep them in
mind.
All right, so that's it for thisweek's episode.
Be sure to visit our show notes, like I said, at
ecommercemeadeeasypodcastcom, oryou should be able to see them
on your podcasting app if you'relistening on the podcast.
If you're watching this on theYouTube channel, be sure to hit
that subscribe button so youdon't miss out on any more
(17:14):
podcast videos.
And we're also be doing.
We're doing some tutorials tooon YouTube now, as we're working
on content for 2024.
So make sure you subscribethere.
And if you're listening on thepodcast, make sure you subscribe
to on your podcast player soyou don't miss any upcoming new
episodes.
And if you're listening to thisand you found value in today's
(17:35):
episode or any of the otherepisodes of the
ecommercemeadeeasypodcast, wewould love to hear from you.
What other content do you wantto hear on our podcast?
You can email us at podcast atbcsengineeringcom, or you can
also leave us a review.
We would love to hear from you.
Thank you again for listeningand we will see you next week.
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