Hopefully, you already had yourself a chuckle at my expense when you read that headline. Because first impressions really do matter – whether you’re writing a headline or designing a website. If you’ve ever interviewed for a job – looking the part was probably the very first idea you had once it was determined you were worth taking a look at.
Same goes for website design.
As quickly as Google returns the results of your search query – you begin making decisions based on content. One particular listing jumps off the page at you and you’ve decided it’s worthy of your time to investigate. You click the link and you’re transported to a website and you again – begin to make a series of judgements based on what you see.
“Ugh” – you think to yourself. “It’s so hard to read white copy on a black background” – and in less than a second, you’ve already clicked on the back button.
You scanned the page without reading a single word, or perhaps you didn’t even wait for the images to load – it was enough to send a signal to the brain, that responded with a series of electrical pulses to your nerves that flexed the muscles in your hand to click the the back button.
That’s it. That’s all it takes for a potential sale to be lost. There are no ‘back buttons’ in a job interview. The interviewee continues to give you the benefit of the doubt for as long as he or she has allocated time to your meeting. There is no benefit of the doubt with website design. It’s either worthy of your time or it isn’t and that ‘back button’ is just an impulse away.
First impression matter. But, if you’re the type to misspell the name of your employer and think it’s no big deal, or show up to the job interview wearing flip-flops and a 5 o’clock shadow – there are several designers, working from their parents basement just dying to work with you. Many of which are advertising on Craig’s List. Just make sure they’re not a serial killer first.
Here’s a list of ‘click-through killers’ that will bury your conversion rate in the order that they most likely appear.
- Bad Domain Names
This actually happens more than you think. With the mad rush to snatch up domains people have had to get creative – most times its at their peril. Take kidsexchange.com for example. I’m guessing about half their customers see this domain in the Google results and get a little freaked out. - Slow Loading Pages
That clever animation might have been pretty cool ten years ago but if it takes more than 7 seconds to load you’ve just lost a customer. How’s that ‘cool’ technology paying off now? Besides, let’s be honest – Flash is dead. Adobe doesn’t even support it anymore and neither should you. Here’s another dead technology – Internet Explorer. From a programming standpoint – it requires twice as much code than browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Safari. The more code we have to write – the slower the site runs. - Bad Design
At first glance I’m confused. My Google query was ‘medical billing’ but this website I’m looking at looks more like a second-hand kids clothing store. The bright blues, blinking orange links and use of ‘Comic Sans’ typeface suggests that this is not a business to be trusted with such an important, sensitive matter such as ‘medical billing’. How could such a business – that can’t seem to understand something as important as first impressions – be trusted with my medical bills? - Confusing Content
Congratulations – our website example has finally loaded and I’m a little confused when I read the content. It uses words I’m not familiar with, lots of acronyms, and I kind of feel a little bad about myself after reading it. Like I should have studied harder in college, or done more crossword puzzles with my grandmother. Once the guilt passes – I’ve hit the back button. - An Unclear Call-to-Action
For the most part, 80% of website design gets to number five on our list. There are literally millions of beautiful websites out there doing a great job but failing in one critical area. The conversion. This is the point of our process that confirms some very important aspects of website design. Have we established trust? Have we answered critical questions and objections? If the answer is yes to both those questions – are audience is now willing to ‘sign-up’ or ‘register’ or even make a purchase. Ask any salesperson and they’ll agree – that once you’ve done your due diligence and handled the tough questions – go ahead and ask for the sale.