Does your website feel 'off'? Here's what's missing!

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Ever look at your website and think, ‘Something just feels… off’?

You’ve put in the work. The branding looks good. You’ve got your offer front and center.

 But you’re not seeing the sales, the leads, or the engagement you expected.

Here's the truth: when your website feels off, your audience feels it too, and they bounce before you ever know they were there.

After working with online business owners for over 20 years, I’ve seen exactly what creates that ‘off’ feeling—and more importantly, how to fix it.

If even one of these things is missing, it’s costing you revenue.

Hey, it’s Carrie here with a quick update - eCommerce Made Easy is now Smarter Online Business!

Same practical tips you love, just a clearer name for coaches, course creators, and online business owners. You’re still in the right place to learn how to turn your website into your smartest sales tool. 

Find our show notes at our new domain

https://www.smarteronlinebusiness.com/

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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:00):
Ever look at your website and think something
just feels off.
You put in the work, thebranding looks good, you've got
the offer front and center, butyou're not seeing the sales, the
leads or the engagement thatyou actually expected.
But here's what can happen whenyour website feels off to you,
your audience can feel it too,and they will leave before they

(00:22):
do the action you want them to.
And after working with onlinebusiness owners for over 20
years, I've seen this.
I've seen what creates anoff-website feeling and, more
importantly, how to fix it.
So even if one of the thingswe're going to talk about today
is missing, it could be costingyou revenue.
Welcome to the e-commerce madeeasy podcast.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders.

(00:42):
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine-month-old my maingoal To help others.
Now, with over 20 years in thee-commerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech into easily understandable
bits to help others besuccessful in their online
business.
Whether you're a seasonede-commerce veteran or just

(01:04):
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of
e-commerce together.
Welcome back to the show.
If you've ever stared at yourwebsite and wondered why isn't
it working, then we're going tobe discussing that and hopefully
helping solve that for youtoday.
You might think your websitelooks polished, you may have

(01:24):
updated your copy recently oradded something new for somebody
to get for free, but there'sstill just a simple disconnect.
You're not getting theconversions or the phone calls
or the customers that you areexpecting you would.
So today we're going to betalking about several components
that could be costing you salesin your business, and the first
one is that there is no clearvisual hierarchy.

(01:47):
So your layout might be pretty,but is it guiding the eye to
the next step?
I have come across websitesthat look beautiful.
Their branding is great, but itjust doesn't compel you to do
anything.
You kind of look at it and go,oh, that's pretty and that's
about it.
It's kind of like one of thoseyou know stores you might be

(02:08):
walking by and you might see thefront window.
Go, oh, that's pretty, but itdoesn't really pull you into the
store.
There's nothing compelling tomake you want to see more, and
people don't really readwebsites.
They scan them similar to ascan from the storefront
whenever we're shopping.
We're going to evaluate that,get a first impression before we
go inside, so if everythinglooks the same size or height,

(02:32):
they might get overwhelmed andleave.
We want to create some variety,some places for their eyes to
scan and want to land, and wealso want to make sure we have
enough white space.
Sometimes I find a website's abit too cluttered or a bit too
busy and there's no places forour eyes to land.
So we can do that by makingclear headlines.
One of the things is that clearheadline.

(02:54):
We need to really talk to whowe are and who we serve and what
we do right away, no matterwhether you're selling products
or services.
And we also want to make surewe have bold call to actions.
They need to be actuallyactionable, too, and very clear
as to what they're going to get,and what I mean by bold is that
the call to action should standout from the rest of the

(03:15):
website.
It shouldn't be like eyeglaring and you know it's hard
to look at, but it should besomething that your eye drops to
right away because it's adifferent color than the rest of
your website.
It's still going to complementthe rest of your website, but it
needs to be like a differentcolor and then intentional
spacing to show people where togo next.
That's the white space.
That's what's really importantis to have that intentional

(03:37):
spacing.
Another thing that could bethrowing things off on your
website is generic or confusingmessaging.
If your copy, if the words onyour page could be used on
anyone's site, that's a reallybig red flag.
Or even if large chunks of itmaybe you've personalized
something you've seen before butit still looks kind of template
and generic then that could bea red flag.

(04:00):
Visitors should instantly knowwhat you do, who you serve and
what action they need to takenext to get more information or
to buy your product or buy yourservice.
So I want you to make sure thatyou are speaking
customer-specific language.
Make sure your headline answerswhat's in it?
For me, when we're shopping,when we're browsing, when we're

(04:23):
doing things like this, we're abit selfish internally and we
want to know why should I stayhere?
Our time is valuable.
You need to give them a goodreason to stay on your website
and do the next action you wantthem to do Now.
Another thing that can alsoerode your website's conversion
is lack of social proof.
We want to make sure we havereviews.
We want to make sure we havetestimonials.

(04:45):
We want to make sure we haveclient logos whichever of those
are appropriate for yourindustry.
Visitors will hesitate to trustyou if they don't see some good
social proof on your website.
And now the cats are runningthrough the office I don't know
if you can hear that on here.
So we will need to have areassurance that others have

(05:05):
gone before them and had success.
And if you're brand new inbusiness, one thing you can do
is you can talk about thesuccess you had in your previous
nine to five jobs.
So say, you're a new businessowner and you don't quite have
those reviews or testimonialsyet.
Ask the previous people youworked with what did you love
about me, what really stood out,what you know, what was I great

(05:28):
at?
How did I help?
You use those words Cause I betthey're going to apply to your
business, because many times wewill build a business around
something we already knew andalready did.
So I bet you can get sometestimonials from that If you
are new to your business, oreven from a trusted friend that
can give you a genuinetestimonial about who you are,
how you help others, et cetera,and I want you to also sprinkle

(05:52):
the testimonials in.
We want to make sure that wedon't have them all in one place
either, because, especially ifyou have a longer website, you
might want to sprinkle it in.
You may want to have, like youknow, maybe five and then some
more content and then anotherfive.
If you're doing services, ifyou are selling physical
products, then you want to havea review section on your website

(06:14):
for each of the products andyou may want to have a separate
testimonials area just for yourgeneral business in general.
This is something that we haveon our main core website for our
e-commerce customers, as wehave, you know, testimonials as
well as reviews of products thatwe've sold.
And then next, we want to makesure that there is an emotional
connection.
Many times I find businessowners trying to be a bit too

(06:39):
professional.
We do it too.
Sometimes it's really reallyeasy to do, but if you're not
creating that emotionalconnection, then you're going to
be missing out on sales,because we first shop with
emotion and then we validatethat shopping with logic.
So first you need to drill themin with some emotion.

(06:59):
We want to have some heart toit.
We want to see some personalitybehind it.
We want to just work that in ina very natural way.
It's kind of like talking tomaybe your business bestie, so
it would be kind of a businesslytalk if that's what you feel
like your vibe should be.
But we're also being friendlyin it as well, so you can be

(07:20):
professionally friendly on yourwebsite.
So find that right balance foryour brand.
You can even have a shortfounder story about you.
Some way to human, humanitizeyour brand.
Talk about your hobbies whenyou're outside of the work
environment, even if you sellproducts.
Sometimes this really can helpus draw into it.

(07:41):
Now, obviously, we want to nottalk about touchy subjects out
there to sway people from buyingfrom you, unless that's what
you really want to do.
But most of the time we don'twant to talk about touchy
subjects like politics andthings like that or religion.
But you can still humanitizeyourself and make yourself feel
more human, make yourself feellike a real person Because, like

(08:03):
I said a few minutes ago, webuy with emotion first.
That's our initial start intothat buying process and then we
finish it out with logic.
So make sure you're puttingthat emotion in before we start
putting in the logicalinformation on the website.
And then, lastly, some things Ifind sometimes is a disjointed
design or brand vibes.

(08:24):
So think of it as you know, youmight be clicking on one page
of the website and then you goto the next one.
It's got a little bit moredifferent fonts and different
colors.
We want to make sure the fonts,colors and also the photos the
photos is the one that's easierto mess up Fonts, colors and
photos have them align with yourbrand and make sure that they
are cohesive.

(08:45):
Because if them align with yourbrand and make sure that they
are cohesive, because if theymisalign some, that can create
subconscious distrust.
So if you don't have the samestyle photos, if you don't have
the same two to three fonts onyour website and you change it
up a lot because you think thisone looks cool here and that one
looks cool here, and, yes, itmay look cool in different
places, but we need to make surewe're consistent because that

(09:06):
creates more trust.
And then your visuals shouldmatch the tone of your brand.
Are you fun, are youprofessional, are you friendly
professional, are you calming,are you bold, etc.
So make sure your visual stylematches your tone of your brand
and there's nothing wrong withany of those tones of our brand.
Sometimes brands are bold andthat works for them because

(09:28):
that's what their personality isfor that brand.
So don't shy away from bold ifthat's who you are, or don't shy
away from fun if that's who youare.
I know there's plenty of peoplewho I love to buy from who
actually have that funpersonality that comes out.
I'm actually thinking about myfavorite chapstick called Chop
Saver.
I'll give them a little shoutout on the podcast the best
chapstick ever.

(09:49):
And they're always fun.
He's always having fun in hisemails.
His pictures of himself arealways fun and his words are fun
in these emails.
So embrace the brand, embracewho you are.
So do a mini check.
Does your site feel like thebusiness you want to run?
So look at your website.
Does it feel like and fit thebusiness you want to run?

(10:12):
Do that gut check today for meand see are you on the right
track?
Do you have a littledisjointedness?
Do you need to just fix somewording?
Many times these fixes are justsome simple wording or maybe
some color or moving some thingsaround or picking the right
photos.
So don't feel like this is abit overwhelming.
Take a little piece at a time,improve it, see how things go

(10:32):
and reiterate on this regularly.
So I want you today to do aquick 60 second scan of your
homepage and ask, as if you wereyour dream client, what is the
first thing, what is confusing,what doesn't feel trustworthy?
And then you might want to dothis with a business friend as

(10:53):
well.
Have them check your website orone of your really good friends
in your personal life who youknow you can trust to give you
an honest opinion.
So choose one of these five keyareas we talked about today and
give it a simple, honestrefresh this week and schedule
out in a few more weeks to dothe next one, and I bet in no

(11:14):
time you will have a lot betterconverting website.
It's going to help you get moresales, be able to reinvest back
in it and just really skyrocket.
So let's recap the differentareas you want to look at when
we're wanting to evaluate ourwebsite, if you think it feels
off or if you just want todouble check it.
So, first off, visual guidanceAre you guiding the visitor to

(11:38):
the next step?
Are you creating that whitespace?
Are you creating that clearcall to action.
And then next, do you haveclear personal messaging?
Does it sound like you?
Does it sound like your brand?
Is it the right tone?
And then do we have the propersocial proof on your website?
Check that next.

(11:58):
And then is there emotionalresonance within the website?
Does it all flow together?
Does it be you?
Is it not just jointed indifferent pages?
And then we also want to makesure brand consistency like
fonts, colors and our photos.
We want to make sure they arecohesive and consistent.
So these aren't reallycomplicated changes, but they do

(12:21):
require a bit of attention andintention, and when you align
these pieces, that off feelingwill start to disappear and your
conversions will go up.
Thank you so much for listeningto this episode of the
e-commerce made easy podcast.
I hope you thoroughly enjoyedthe information today and that
it will help you with yourwebsite.
And if you ever need any helpauditing your website or having

(12:44):
a second view on it, you'rewelcome to reach out to us at
one of our social medias or youcan email sales at
bcsengeineeringcom and we'd behappy to do a website audit for
you and give you moreinformation on that.
And that's all we have for thisweek and we will see you next
week.