E-commerce

The three biggest business website time-wasters and what to do instead

How many times a month do you jump on your website, tweak some fonts and text, change some colours, add a fancy moving blob, hoping it will magically have people flocking to your website and sending an enquiry?

But they aren’t. The problem is that you are working on the wrong things.

Your time is getting wasted on unnecessary features, design changes, and guessing what works instead of using the data to back it up. Instead of making websites more effective, these things slow them down, frustrate users, and add more work in the long run. If you want your website to work for you, we need to focus on what actually improves user experience, conversions and website efficiency.

Here are the biggest time-wasters to avoid:

1. Overloading your website with features

A lot of business owners think the more features a website has the better it will perform, but that isn’t true. Here are some common website features that can actually do more harm than good if not used correctly:

• Too many popups that drive visitors away before they even get to read your content.
• Autoplaying videos that haven’t been optimised can slow your website down and annoy users
• Excessive animations that make it hard to focus on important information.
• Chatbots that are super generic and don’t answer the right questions.
• Overcomplicated menus that make users work too hard to find what they need.
• Instead, be sure to only include features that add value. It’s always best to prioritise website loading speed over complicated features.

2. Spending more time on your website than your customers do

I see so many business owners constantly tweaking their websites and obsessing over tiny details. Not only is this bad for your brand, but most users also don’t notice these things.

What do they really care about? Getting the information they need quickly and easily.

If someone lands on your site and doesn’t immediately know what you do, who you do it for, and where they need to go next, you are losing leads and sales.

Try this:

• Stick to your brand guidelines! Your brand should have specific fonts and colours that are unique to your business and made to engage your target audience.
• Keep it simple and don’t waste your time obsessing over flashy animations and aesthetics.
• Make changes based on what your customers like and need, not personal preference.

3. Not tracking website performance

If you’re making website updates without tracking results and customer behaviour, you’re just winging it. So many business owners guess what’s working instead of looking at the data.

Be sure to do the following:

• Check your load speed – Slow load times lead to high bounce rates which means people leave before even looking around.
• Look at your conversion rate – if your visitors aren’t taking action on your website, your call-to-actions may need some work.
• Check your “time on page” data – if people stick around, your content is engaging. If they don’t, you may need to fix your layout and work on your content.

Stop wasting time on insignificant features and minor design changes that nobody sees and concentrate on user experience improvements that lead to higher conversion rates. Focus on simplicity and use the data to guide you when making changes to your website.

Spend less time tinkering and more time getting results.

This story was originally published on Inside Small Business