8 Proven Reasons Your Website Is Losing You Money

An effective website informs your customers about the products you offer, how your products solve their problem and challenge them to make a purchase.

The problem with most websites is that they are extremely unclear, causing customers to become frustrated and click away – preventing you from making the sale.

In what ways is your website losing money?

I’ve worked with businesses to develop a custom marketing plan that will help them better communicate what problems their products solve, and how to keep potential customers motivated to make a purchase.

I often give businesses 8 reasons their website might actually be losing them money.

Avoid these website failures to increase sales, establish brand loyalty, and turn your customer’s first impression into a lasting relationship… increasing your footprint in the marketplace — and your bottom line.

#1. Your Website is Ugly

Far too often, businesses believe that the purpose of a website is just simply to exist… but, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your website is the front door to your business.

If you have a confusing or ugly front door, potential customers will not take the next step to do business with you. An unclear website can actually cause customers to mistrust or reject your brand completely.

94% of people cited poor web design as the reason they mistrusted or rejected a website.

• What is the message of your website?
• What are you asking your potential customers to do once they arrive?

Is your website design leading them toward that choice, or is it causing confusion and actually leading them away from your brand?

I work to help businesses understand the importance of a clean and professional website that leads a viewer to trust their brand and make a purchase.

The customer makes the decision to trust or reject your brand in the first few seconds of looking at your website.

#2. No one knows what your company does

Now, this might be obvious, but when a customer views your website for the first time, within the first 3 seconds they need to know exactly what your company offers.

If your copy is filled with fancy language or jargon, you are actually causing your customers to burn more mental calories and click away — which is losing you money.

If a potential customer doesn’t know what your company offers within the first 3 seconds of viewing your website they will disengage.

While the statement, “We make delectably sumptuous cuisine for your feline” might sound high-class and fancy, very few people would be able to understand what your brand actually does.

It would be far better to simply say, “We make great cat food.” That takes zero mental calories to figure out. And, if that’s the service I’m looking for, I will continue reading. The old saying is true: keep it simple, stupid.

#3. There is No Direct Call to Action

Not long ago, I was looking at a website that sold smartwatches — ones that connect with a smartphone. The website was beautiful and the design and features of the watches were first-rate.

The only problem, for me, was it was extremely difficult to figure out how to actually purchase the watch. I had to navigate through different sections and lists of features to finally arrive at an “Add to Cart” button at the bottom of the page. After all the effort I spent finding a way to buy the darn thing, I was no longer interested.

If you want to make a purchase, you have to clearly ask for the sale. As I mentioned earlier, your website must have a direct call to action. If you are not asking your customers to do anything, they won’t.

People go where you lead them, and a direct call to action does just that.

Most businesses are afraid to come across as pushy, and therefore they don’t challenge their customers to make a purchase. This is losing you money!

I understand the tension but want to encourage you to not shy away from calling your customers to action. You have an amazing product that can be used to help better people’s lives – be proud of that!

So what action should you be calling your customers to take? What do you want them to do?

#4. Your website isn’t mobile-friendly

Not only does your website need to be professional and easy to navigate, it must also be viewable on a smartphone. One of the ways a website will cause you to lose money is because you can’t access it on a phone.

According to Statista, in 2020, over 50% of the traffic to your website is done through a mobile device… which means if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, more than half of your customers can’t find you.

Over 50% of internet traffic occurs on a mobile device.

Your business won’t survive if the majority of your customers can’t find you. The good news is most website designers are trained in building websites through platforms that are viewable on mobile devices.

We guarantee every website we build will display beautifully on a smartphone.

As a business owner, you’ll become more confident in your ability to grow your business if you know you are attracting leads no matter what device they are using to find you.

Take the time now to ensure your website is not losing you money, looks gorgeous on a smartphone, and continues to turn your customer’s first impression into a lasting relationship.

#5. Your website can’t be found on Google

If it’s important to be able to view your website on a mobile device, it’s even more important that someone can actually find
your website in the first place. Whenever someone searches for something online, they typically do so through a search engine.

The problem comes with finding ways for your company’s website to show up at the top of the search results, instead of on page 100.

But how do you ensure your website is as close to the top as possible? This is achieved through a process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO can appear to be a complicated and expensive journey to dive into – and it certainly has the potential to be. But I’ve worked with many clients who have been able to improve their SEO by doing a few simple and FREE steps:

5.1. Publish amazing content.

The more engagement and visitors your web pages receive, the better your ranking will be. There is no amount of money you can spend to improve the ranking of a bad website that no one is interested in visiting Write amazing content for the readers, not for Google.

5.2. Add keywords to your website copy.

Don’t go overboard, but have a paragraph somewhere on your website that outlines what your company does using keywords people might search to find your company. Google Ads also provides a keywords tool to help you know what people are searching.

5.3. Publish content frequently.

The more often you post, the more Google will scan your website… which gives your website more authority, more keywords, more customer interaction, and a better ranking.

5.4. Make sure your website is user-friendly.

As this entire resource has stressed, if your website is confusing, ugly, and not easily accessible, people will not engage. Follow the changes mentioned in points 1-4 to make users love your website.

5.5. Improve website speed.

If your website has huge videos or photos it loads slowly, causing users to click away before they have a chance to engage. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test your website load time and make improvements, as needed.

5.6. Link to your website from other websites.

The more you are able to link to your site from other websites – commonly called backlinks – the better your ranking will be. Find other companies or partners you might be able to work with and link to each other’s website. The more you have customers share your content, the better your ranking!

If you follow these free tips, your ranking will improve… but remember, it takes time. And, the rules for SEO are always changing, so continue to read articles overtime to find ways to improve.

#6. You’re ignoring Social Media

For several years already social media is huge. There are several social media niched websites like Pinterest for images, Linkedin for Business services, Twitter for news, Instagram for pictures and instant videos, and Youtube for videos.

I’ve seen many websites that ignore social media networks by not having social media profiles, not posting content on these profiles or not linking these on their websites.

That’s a huge mistake and you should rectify it immediately if you don’t want (and I hope you don’t) want to leave a lot of money on the table.

Before starting your social media journey,  I recommend you do a social media analysis of your competitors, then do your own social media strategy and use social media automation tools that will post your content automatically on these networks.

#7. You don’t list testimonials and reviews

Here’s a counterintuitive insight. Your website isn’t about you, it’s about your customer. Your customer should always be the hero of your story. But the customer needs to trust you before handling their money so they are looking for signs that they will be happy with your product or services.

These days it’s more important than ever to offer social proof. If your customer sees someone like them enjoying the benefits of your business it gives people confidence that they are dealing with someone reputable. As you may know, people add a lot more weight to testimonials from customers than to statements from businesses.

That’s why you have to add to your website reviews left by customers. Make sure these are trustable, you can add links to independent reviews websites like TrustPilot, Google My Business, Trust Advisor, Yelp, etc.

#8. You don’t have a clear sales funnel

I’ve seen many websites that do not have in place a clear sales funnel and a conversion strategy. If a customer will purchase that’s fine if not well, it’s a lost customer.

Doing this you’re leaving tons of money on the table as cart abandonment rate is as high as 75%. That means that for one customer that added the product in the cart, 3 left the cart and stopped the purchase.

So you need to have a clear sales funnel and a clear customer journey that will make the process as smooth as possible. Also, you should focus on getting leads and convert them in customer by using inbound marketing, email, retargeting etc.

In the article below, I’ve described in detail how to convert your visitors into future buyers.

Conclusion & Poll

Here are the 8 main reasons we’ve seen in practice that makes website owners leave a ton of money on the table. You can easily check what’s yours and vote in the poll below. After the vote, you will see the stats and how it goes for others.

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