5 Reasons Why Websites Fail and How to Fix it

More often than not, there are several reasons why a business website fails to achieve its goals. If the website is not attracting new visitors and converting them into paying customers, then your website isn’t fulfilling its purpose.

Many believe that building a business website will immediately draw in a steady traffic of customers and skyrocket their sales.

However, sitting and waiting for a website to lure in visitors won’t finish the job. That’s because you have to make it visible as well as provide a robust and straightforward user experience.

Besides, your site’s performance is affected by a lot of factors. Here are five (5) common reasons why business websites fail and how to fix it.

Unoptimised for mobile

Mobile-friendliness is a well-known ranking signal that search engines use to rank websites. Aside from that, the increasing population of mobile users implies that static and unresponsive web designs won’t be able to leverage mobile traffic compared to sites with fluid layouts.

Moreover, business sites that aren’t built for mobile browsing will look small and broken on phones. This often results in higher bounce rates and lower search results as Google also implements mobile-first indexing when crawling websites. 

Hence, if you don’t want your users wasting time resizing pages, browsing indefinitely, and getting upset trying to tap tiny links, then here’s how to fix it.

How to Optimise Site for Mobile Browsing

Performing a website redesign is crucial in optimising a static business site for mobile. Consider opting for a flexible and responsive HTML layout that automatically scales down to whatever screen it is viewed.

Additionally, if you’re running your site on a content management service (CMS) like WordPress or an eCommerce platform such as Shopify, most of these platforms already offer great modern responsive functionalities.

However, if you’re looking for a more professional and strategic approach, reaching out to a reliable web design agency will be the ideal choice. If you want to put matters on your own hands with little-to-no knowledge, then you still need to run miles. That puts us to the second factor.

Poor branding & web design

Aside from cross-compatibility, another reason why business websites fail is poor web page design. Regardless of what platform you’re using, you cannot win your customers’ hearts if you cannot express your brand.

Besides, if your graphics are too over the top and don’t match your brand message, customers will have less trust in your company and will likely favour a competitor. If not, then it might be because of an obstructed or missing call-to-action. The chances are that visitors simply couldn’t find your contact button or fill-out form to place an order and leave an inquiry.

How to Improve Website Design

You don’t need to apply every design trend and fully animate your site just to attract more visitors and earn revenue. 

What counts is that you connect with your target audience by utilising sufficient white space, appropriate typography, strategic placement of call-to-actions, as well as avoiding massive blocks of text.

Additionally, keep an eye on your competitors’ designs and see how you can make it better.

Not optimised for Google & social

Even websites with the best web design won’t do any better if search engines can’t find it. Most of the time, new customers will start the buying process on Google and social media sites like Facebook by typing in their search query or checking out social ads. 

And if you haven’t secured the top spot across search engines, there is a decent chance that it will never reach a steady stream of customers. Aside from that, without making a social media page and regularly posting new content, you’re ignoring the potential to leverage social media users.

Furthermore. if you haven’t optimised it for mobile and have a clear call to action, your business website will stay below the competition and will fail from getting better ranking in Google. That is — until you fix it.

How to Get Better Google Rankings and Social Following

If you want to outplay your competitors on Google, then you have to optimise your site by adding it first to Google Search Console. Moreover, you can achieve a better search engine ranking by investing time and effort on search engine optimisation or SEO.

In optimising your website for search, you need to check out the best SEO practices and make sure to apply even the basic elements that impact your search visibility among short and long-tail keywords.

Additionally, you can leverage social channels by developing a social media strategy. Choosing the right platform where your target audience is most active will help you determine an efficient yet practical approach to drive traffic to your page and launch your business website forward.

Slow page loading speed

Undoubtedly, a website that takes minutes to load up will most likely fail — especially under a tight competition. Mobile users are also known to shop online for leisure and during their free time. Hence, it only takes around 2 to 4 seconds before they abandon your page and check out the competitor.

In addition, the following factors can cause a website to load slowly:

• Unoptimised for mobile devices

• Not configured browser cache

• Unoptimised images and media

• Files are not compressed

• Slow and underperforming hosting server, among others

How to Improve Site Speed

Firstly, we recommend that you run your website on Google PageSpeed Insights to benchmark your current speed and to determine specific issues to work with.

Usually, these issues will circulate around uncompressed files and other media, configuring your browser cache, eliminating unnecessary animations and plugins, and others. PageSpeed will also suggest additional ways to optimise your site speed, which you can then implement yourself or have a web design agency look into.

This puts us to our next fundamental issue of why business websites fail — hiring an agency that doesn’t understand your business.

Hiring an agency that doesn’t understand your business

It is crucial that you choose to partner with a web design and development agency that understands your business. This will provide your website with the best fighting chance at launching competitively into the market and instantly appeal to your target audience.

Many brands often overlook this process and are quick to make a decision based on price alone. For this reason, they may receive a sub-par web design that does not engage with their user and will have to be redesigned – which will ultimately lead to additional project costs.

How to Look for a Qualified Agency

Before you venture in eCommerce and digital marketing, think about your business goals first. This will help give your web design agency an idea about your brand so that they can craft a design that matches your goals, engages with your target audience, and emphasises clear call to actions.

Then, look for a web design agency that has relevant experience in your industry, reputable testimonials and a highly experienced team. By partnering with the right agency, you don’t have to worry about the previous reasons as they will immediately know what to do and make sure every element is designed and built to match your brand.

Summary

A business website may fail right from the start or along the way due to several factors surrounding user experience, search engine optimisation, and web design. If left unchecked, not only will you receive significantly lower page engagement, but it will cost you more to fix.

Knowing the most common reasons why business websites fail is the first step in turning tides back to your favour. Now that you understand what factors affect website traffic and sales, it’s time to turn them around. 

For new and existing online businesses, G Squared is the only partner you’ll need for your web design and eCommerce solutions. Our team of digital experts provide results-focused and data-driven web solutions tailored for all of your website and eCommerce business needs. Call us today at (02) 9339 4500.