The Six Biggest Reasons Websites Fail

Many companies invest in a new website that features updated copy and images and a fresh design only to find that it doesn’t perform as they had expected. It’s not drawing the search rankings, site visitors or conversions they were hoping for.
While there are many reasons why websites underperform, there are a few reasons that we see most often in the sites we diagnose.

1. Page Load Times

Each second that it takes for your page to load increases the chance that a user will give up and go elsewhere. Achieving optimal page load times requires a complex of tactics including enabling caching, compressing code, minimizing redirects, optimizing images and much more. Whenever we build a site, we analyze all of these elements and continually optimize them to ensure the fast page loads users expect.

2. Information Architecture

We often see websites with information structured in a way that made a world of sense to the people who designed it, but doesn’t work for the people who visit. Good site architecture uses labels that make sense to your customers and orders the information in layers they will understand. It places navigation menus, headings, links and calls to action where users are most likely to find them. It also leads users seamlessly from one action to the next. Creating information architecture that does all this requires a thorough understanding of user-centered design.

3. Design

A well-designed web page is not only attractive and appealing, but reinforces the site architecture. It uses color and layout strategically to reflect the relative importance of elements on the page. Features such as menus, calls to actions, hyperlinks, and page relationships are styled consistently to help the user quickly understand how the site operates. Something as small as the color of a call to action or the way a site treats hyperlinks can make the difference between a visitor clicking through to your contact form and turning away in frustration.

4. Content

Using the best long- and short-tail keywords in your site content is critical, as is providing relevant, unique content on each page. Links from authoritative sites and a steady supply of fresh content are also important to achieving good search results. In addition, content that fails to offer users the information they’re looking for or fails to direct them from goal to goal will impair your site’s conversion rates.

5. Errors and Redirects

Failing to monitor and address errors and redirects is another common issue we see with underperforming websites, especially following migration to a new site. This should be managed before and after launch of a new site to ensure a seamless transition.

6. Mobile Optimization

We’ve said it before, but failing to provide a good user experience on mobile devices is a serious competitive drawback today.

Is Your Site Performing as Expected?

If your website is underperforming, it’s probably suffering from one or more of these problems to some degree. We can help you uncover hidden problems with your site and find fixes, whether you want to tweak your existing site’s performance or design one from scratch.

If you think your site could be doing more for your business, let’s talk.