4 Major Website Missteps That Are Costing You Leads

This article was originally published in 2018 and has been lightly updated for clarity, but the core missteps still show up in website audits today.

The list of ways to make your website a conversion- or lead-generating machine is pretty much limitless, but you won’t get far without a few content-related essentials buttoned up first.

From making sure your main conversion points are as functional as possible to offering up clear “why us” language on every key page, these four major website mishaps are simple enough to correct so you can enjoy more of your site’s potential.

4 major website missteps that are costing you leads

1. Your copy is too long and/or not informative enough.

Make sure your best selling points and the most crucial information that a customer is going to need aren’t buried low on the page, hiding behind unclear language, or—worst of all—not there at all.

Oftentimes, website pages tend to read a bit like a novel when they should actually be brief and to the point. When you’re writing copy for web pages, it’s easy to get caught up in details, history, explanations, and supporting paragraphs, but the only information that really needs to be presented right away is whatever helps your visitors decide to take action—whether that’s clicking to your contact page, downloading a resource, or making a purchase.

Once you’ve gotten your essential information standing at attention (along with your best selling propositions in the form of a well-placed callout, a video, or something else that fits nicely with your page design), you can layer in more supporting material.

2. There’s no incentivizing language.

Paring down your website copy so it relays the essentials above all else can be a challenge in and of itself, but there’s another extreme that might lose your customers: a lack of good marketing messages or incentivizing language that communicates the “why.”

If your web pages are super informational but fail to explain why your products or services matter, you might fall short of reaching your customer base. Think about what the benefits of your products or services are and how they make your customers’ lives better—then weave that language into opportune places like headers, banners, videos, testimonials, and calls to action.

On one client project for an interpersonal behavior measurement tool (à la the Meyers-Briggs), we saw how much difference this makes in practice. With the essential information already presented earlier on the page, lower-level sections used bold testimonials, a credibility-building client list, and an ultra-clear contact callout to reinforce the reasons to get in touch.

A bold testimonial paired with a credibility-building clientele list are great purchase incentives on their own, but even a simple contact callout can be transformed by adding ultra-clear, actionable, benefit-laden language. In that example, the language was on point for the subject matter: reach out and you’ll get a team assessment that leads to organizational improvements.

3. Your site’s navigational paths aren’t clear.

One of the most common catalysts to lost leads on websites is a confusing design. Or confusing top-level links. Or a confusing hierarchy of pages.

You get the gist: confusing websites almost always lose customers, and the trouble almost always begins and ends with navigational choices that weren’t thought through from the visitor’s point of view.

There’s a lot that goes into crafting near-perfect navigational paths for your website, but you can start making yours better by answering a few basic questions and making changes accordingly:

• Are your naming conventions for pages objective and clear—do they communicate what the visitor will see next if they click on them?
• Do all your key pages have a clear button or link that leads visitors where you would like them to go next?
• Have you built your navigation around how your customer understands your business, not just how you understand your business internally?

Looking at your website navigation this critically will almost definitely surface a few improvements you can make before the end of the day—often without a full redesign.

4. Your main conversion points are cumbersome.

For a lot of businesses, the main point of conversion on a website is a contact form that acts as a lead-generation tool. For others, it’s an online purchase, a download, a newsletter signup, or something else entirely. Whatever yours is, it’s important that the ideal endpoint for your customers is quick and easy to use.

Let’s say your holy grail conversion point on your website is an online form that your clients can fill out to book an appointment. Even the most minute-seeming details of that form could keep new customers from completing it:

• Maybe your form says “Request an Appointment” in the introduction, which makes would-be customers think you’re more exclusive or less available than you really are.
• Maybe your form requires a phone number, which kills conversion rates because customers don’t like to hand out personal information up front.
• Maybe your form is simply too long or includes confusing fields, like asking visitors to choose a specific internal contact when they have no idea who they’re supposed to reach.
• Maybe the form is tucked away in the wrong place to begin with, making it hard to find at the exact moment someone is ready to take action.

Whatever your key conversion points are on your website (odds are at least one of them is a contact form), it’s worth taking time to research best practices for each. If you want to get more technical, you can A/B test your conversion points before and after making changes to see exactly how performance improves.

Need help identifying your missed leads?

If you’re not sure where your site is losing people—copy, navigation, or conversion points—Mostly Serious is in the business of helping out with those sorts of things.

We can review your analytics, user flows, and key pages to find the friction and recommend practical fixes that align with your goals.

When you’re ready to tighten things up, get in touch with our team.