5 UX Pitfalls To Avoid, To Make Your Marketing Dollars Go Further

Just as poor customer service or merchandising can make a serious dent in conversion rates for offline retail, user experience on a website can make or break returns on your digital marketing spends. It is effortless for a customer browsing a website to decide against making a purchase by switching to another window or closing it completely. Small details matter – whether they are technical security aspects, ease of use factors or aesthetic factors that make a more visually pleasing impression.

As the digital component of marketing budgets edge up and companies strengthen their efforts to accurately measure returns on marketing spend, it is increasingly important that marketers maximize conversions from hard-earned website traffic. As a digital-first business, Webnames.ca has two decades of experience in fine tuning conversions online and in this article I identify five mistakes to watch out for and avoid.

Not installing an SSL certificate on your website

In an effort to make the internet safer, in early 2018, Google Chrome version 68 started to display a “Not Secure” message in the browser bar notifying visitors of any webpage that is using HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol which by default does not encrypt communication to and from the website), rather than HTTPS (“s” for “secure”). Other major browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari have similar messages. The alarming messages caused website visitors to close HTTP sites and abandonment rates on such sites across the internet skyrocketed.

To avoid the “Not Secure” message and to convert your HTTP site to HTTPS, you simply need to install an SSL certificate on your website.

Conversions on most websites require users to send some sensitive information through a contact form - personally identifiable details, credit card for purchases or even financial information. A correctly installed SSL certificate encrypts this (and all other) data that is sent and received by a user browsing your website.

Installing an SSL certificate can also help improve your website SEO as Google has indicated a preference for HTTPS and can help bolster your credibility with website visitors. Some SSL certificates from leading Certificate Authorities also offer the option of displaying a website seal or your company name on the address bar, as a sign of validation. You can choose from a wide variety of SSL certificates and Webnames’ support staff will be happy to help you install it on your site, should you require assistance.

Using free email or your ISP email for business

Email is essential to modern business communications, yet many small businesses make the mistake of using the email address provided by their internet service provider (ISP) or a free service such as Gmail or Hotmail. These look unprofessional and give the impression of a very small or even fly-by-night business. Why promote your ISP or Hotmail each time you send an email when you can be promoting your own business? These free email services should be kept to personal use or for signing up for subscriptions to separate spam from your business.

With business email, you can set up multiple email accounts to organize your business, and, where desirable, appear larger than you are. A small company or one person operation can easily set up info@yourcompany.com, sales@yourcompany.com, president@yourcompany.com, finance@yourcompany.com and support@yourcompany.com. All of these emails can be forwarded to the same person (or multiple people) but this gives the impression of a large, sophisticated operation and at the same time help you organize what types of enquiries you’re getting and even help you determine your next hire.

If you are privacy conscious and want to ensure that your email and data are stored within Canada, you will want to choose a Canadian provider. Features such as mobile access, webmail and MS ActiveSync are increasingly common with most providers and make life easier for businesses looking for simple and powerful email tools.

Spelling errors on your website content

One of the top performing blog articles on the Webnames blog is on the topic of how to identify a website that is a scam or fraud, and one of the checks we recommend is to look for typos on the website. As marketers, we surely know that bad spelling or grammar on website copy is highly unprofessional and can result in low conversion rates and loss of credibility.

Websites get a through editorial review when they are first launched, but as time passes, errors can creep in with subsequent copy updates. Outsourced content or guest posts are a common source of poorly written website or blog content and it is essential that you run them through tools such as Grammarly or even basic grammar, spelling and semantic checks on Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

Slow load times on the website

We have all been there. We have made up our minds about what we want to buy, are ready to wrap it up and then the website takes forever to load. Not only does slow website load speed have a major impact on conversion rates, it also has a major impact on SEO rankings. With its most recent push for Web Vitals, Google has made page load speed and page elements a big part of its ranking methodology.

A few powerful tools to help measure your website speed are Google Pagespeed Insights and GTMetrix. This data is also available on your Google Analytics (GA) dashboard if you use GA. If your website is diagnosed with slow load speeds there can be several contributing reasons, ranging from web hosting resource utilization, no or incorrectly configured Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) or just poorly written website code. I recommend that you test your website speed and contact your website developer to troubleshoot and resolve the issue.

No website; only social or marketplace profile

You may have a solid social media footprint, selling services and products through Facebook Marketplace or Amazon or Etsy. You may have a good presence and excellent reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor that are driving business.

In fact, diversifying your channels of sales is important, but by relying exclusively on these platforms you are relinquishing control over your own future. These platforms are walled gardens by design, and in the case of Amazon, it operates both as a marketplace and a seller which gives it an unfair advantage. What happens if your only source for business is Yelp and you get one or two bad reviews causing customers to stop visiting?

You should have your own website which acts as the centre of your identity, brand and products/services with social media profiles acting as offshoots to drive sales. You do not want to be completely dependent on third party sources for your business, especially if a particular platform arbitrarily makes a policy change to shut you down or reduce the engagement you receive.

Attracting traffic to one’s website through earned, owned, or paid media is often a challenge. Therefore, it is crucial that marketers steer clear of these common mistakes which can drag down conversion rates and waste your hard-earned marketing dollars.

Written by Cybele Negris, CEO & Co-Founder of Webnames.ca