Way, way back in 1994, no one knew what a website was. In truth, most people didn’t even know what the WWW (World Wide Web) was or how to use it.
My husband, Alvin, and his colleagues were part of the few people who knew and understood the concepts. They had an inkling that this Internet thing could be the next Big Thing for business, and they were absolutely correct.
Fast forward or rather quantum leap to 2024 and you can’t even think of launching or running a business without some type of presence on the WWW. Most notably, use of websites to promote your business is an absolute must.
However, the problem is a good number of websites are useless.
“What you talkin’ bout Carol?”
Your website has 2 functions:
- Attract the right audience to visit your website
- Convert those web visitors into subscribers or paying clients
Am I right?
In other words, if your website doesn’t or can’t function in both those ways, it is essentially useless!
Ain’t nobody, especially Purpose Driven Entrepreneurs like you, got time for that.
In this post, I’ll go through 7 areas that you need to examine on your own website to make sure your website is doing it’s job.
If you have an outdated layout, your website is useless.
Websites, like fashion, food, and technology change often. What’s “in” now, probably won’t be in a couple years.
Is your website layout and design over 5 years old?
If you answered Yes! . . . Then it’s useless.
When we first got into website design, websites looked something like the one above.
No one knew what to do with the layouts, there really weren’t any. Web design wasn’t a thing yet, as you can tell.
As more people learned about web design and how to manipulate it, things changed. Companies like Yahoo got into the game, and you began to see better designs.
Yes, they were NOT the best looking, but you’re looking at them through your sophisticated eyes of today. Back then, they were Da Bomb! These layouts allowed business owners to offer prospects the opportunity to work with them.
After a couple years, more design-oriented layouts were created, with the release of Adobe Flash in 1996. The sites looked awesome and gave viewers a treat for the senses. I remember doing freelance work for a graphic design agency who was on the cutting edge of the new, new programs.
We, at CSI, took full advantage of this new technology and passed it on to our clients. One of our first Flash-based designs was The Red Room with Tonia Grady. She was tickled pink or rather Red, to see the little extra’s we included on her site.
The thing about Flash was that since it’s mostly animations and graphics, Google couldn’t read or understand anything. SEO wasn’t what it is today, so that wasn’t a huge thing at the time, but we couldn’t get away with that today.
Another client that we utilized Flash for was Haly Landscaping. They loved the way we showcased their various offerings. Haly has come to us over and over again throughout the years to design new iterations for their various companies.
Haly was so pleased with our work that they referred us to a startup, Miller Well Drilling, who has been our Web Design and Maintenance client for almost 20 years.
Here are 3 examples of outdated website design elements.
If you using these elements on your site now, you’re dating your website. That means people will look at your site (and your business) as not keeping up with the times. They may also think that you don’t understand their present needs because you’re stuck in the past.
- Sliders: Sliders were HUGE @ 10 years ago. Use a static image or even a video instead.
- Borders: If your website looks like it’s boxed in and doesn’t fill the screen, that’s going to spell trouble for you in getting new leads.
- Too much text: Text that fills the page from top to bottom is a No. No. Break up text with bullet points, graphics, and short paragraphs. If a potential client lands on your site and only sees text, they are bouncing.
If you don’t have testimonials, your website is useless.
Testimonials are needed and necessary. Deep down you know it’s true, people don’t want to be the first to spend money with a company.
When you have testimonials, you’re signaling to potential clients that others have tested you and come out on top. In addition, you’re advertising to potential clients that you know what you’re doing, and you have proof.
It doesn’t matter the type of testimonial you use. They can be audio, video, photos, or written text.
Photos and video work best for Before and After’s because people can actually see and hear HOW you helped your client accomplish their goal. Also, don’t sleep on audios. You can pair an audio testimonial with a photo or just use the name and still achieve the same effect.
Most importantly, think of testimonials as your prospect’s conversion roadmap. If they’re unsure whether or not you can help them, a concise testimonial that shows the problem, solution, and result can be the very thing that causes them to pull the trigger and hire you.
If your website isn’t responsive, it’s useless.
Have you happened upon a website while scrolling on your phone or other mobile device and you can see the entire website . . . but it’s tiny on the screen?
That’s a non-responsive website. When most people see this, they know they must use the pinch and release method with their finger and thumb, and then scroll horizontally and vertically.
The bad part about this is that most people won’t do it, they simply bounce.
What does that mean for you?
Lost opportunities.
All that extra work of pinching, releasing, scrolling, and searching is not worth it for most. There are thousands of other sites out there that don’t require all this special attention, and they know it.
Today roughly 85% of people use their mobile device for just about every aspect of their life: business, pleasure, and finding.
If your website doesn’t instantly respond (resize) to fit full screen on their device, as if it’s made to be viewed on that device, your site is useless.
Test it for yourself. Grab your favorite mobile device and punch in your website’s URL. Does it fill the screen and show perfectly without pinching and squeezing to view the content? If so, you’re good. If not, you’re missing out on clients and money!
If your website doesn’t have a specific CTA (Call to Action) for each page, it’s useless.
CTAs are the lifeblood of your business.
Examples of CTAs: “Read more,” “Buy now,” “Enroll,” or “Get the download,” to name just a few.
When someone lands on your website for the first time, they have no idea what they’re about to encounter and what to do next.
Imagine this. A prospect sees your post on social media, reads it, and then clicks through to your website to learn more. Check
They read the blog post, watch the video, or go through the information you’ve presented, and get all the way to the end . . . Now what?
If you’re the smart and savvy Purpose Driven Entrepreneur that I know you are, you’ll have a super awesome CTA at the bottom of the post or page, or end of the video. If not, your website is useless.
Here’s why . . . when a prospect has done all that work of digesting your content, hopping on your website for more, and then getting to the end, only to find—nothing. Nothing else to do, view, digest, or be directed to, what do you think they are thinking?
Examples could be:
- “What do I do now?”
- “How do I find out more about this?”
- “I wish there was more info . . .”
- “Now what?”
Of course they may not realize they’re thinking these thoughts, but they definitely are, in their subconscious. And you know what they will most likely do next? Nothing. And then they’ll bounce off your site. #GoneForever
If your audience doesn’t have to use (https) in front of your URL, your website is useless.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer ) adds an extra layer of security to your website. Before, it was just for shopping sites and businesses who took payments, or had regular money exchanges on their website. That all changed in 2017, when Google made it mandatory for websites to have SSL encryption in order to list them.
That meant and still means today that if your website URL isn’t preceded by (HTTPS), it won’t get seen by anyone, let alone prospects.
What does having an SSL certificate really do?
According to MailChimp: An SSL certificate secures your website to protect important customer data from cybercriminals. If you collect personal information from customers, whether it’s credit card numbers or something as simple as an email address, your website needs an SSL certificate, even if you don’t sell anything.
Basically, if you’re caught on the WWW without encryption, you might as well have a BIG RED sign on your site that says, “Enter at your own risk.” When most people see that, guess what they do? Bounce. Leave. Hit the “Back” button.
Not having encryption on your site signals to web visitors that you really don’t care about their data’s security. I don’t think that makes a good first impression, do you?
If your website doesn’t have an active blog, it’s useless.
I’ve been blogging since 2006. Blogging first became a thing in 1993, when Justin Hall, a student at Swarthmore College, began documenting his life online.
Back then, no one really understood it or had much use for it, especially businesses.
But now, everyone and their brother’s Uncle’s cousin knows what a blog is. But most still don’t know how to use it for business. Don’t be like them.
Do you realize how many major companies and organizations either have blogs or ARE blogs?
- Hubspot
- Huffington Post
- Mashable
- Adobe
If those companies realized the power of blogging, you should too!
At this moment, there are 600 million blogs on the internet.
Wait, I know what you’re thinking, “Those are BIG companies, I’m a small entrepreneur. Why do I need to blog?”
That’s the million-dollar question and here’s the money-making answer. Your blog is for your audience, not you.
Your blog helps you inform your audience about the things that are important to their success.
Which is exactly what I’m doing in this blog post. See what I did there?
Not only can you express your opinion, teach your peeps about your business, and share why they need to work with you; you’ll be able to get them to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you so they will BUY from you.
That is the name of the game, right?
I mean, you’re not here to pick daisies and gossip, you’re on a mission to create a successful business. Am I right?
That’s exactly what a blog helps you to do. Also, it gives your audience the answers to their questions BEFORE they even ask. So, they come to you as an informed purchaser instead of a tire kicker looking for the next freebie.
If your website doesn’t make it clear about WHO you work with and HOW you help them, it’s useless.
Our business runs on this saying, “Clarity is Everything!”
Think about it. Wouldn’t you want to know, in the very first seconds of landing on a website, whether or not it’s for you?
Life would be so much better for everyone, if websites did that.
Well, they can, and they should.
You must make sure that your audience understands these 3 important factors immediately upon visiting your website.
- WHO you work with – your audience
- WHAT their BIGGEST problem is – what keeps them up at night
- HOW you will solve their problem – the results you provide
How do you do that?
With every word, phrase, sentence, graphic, video, and post on your site.
Every single piece of content, paragraph, or photo needs to resonate with one or all of the above 3 factors.
Why? Because #1, no one has time to waste time with a website that doesn’t solve their problem, address their situation, or cater to their needs.
Let people know up front.
Don’t think of it as excluding people, think of it as attracting the clients you really want to work with.
Make it super easy to see themselves in your content. They need to know that you and what you do are PRO-THEM.
They need to feel at home when they land on your website. They need to feel that virtual hug and HUGE welcome.
It’s not that you don’t serve everybody, it’s that you DO serve those special someones. Make it known to them that YOU know who they are and what they need. They will repay you by buying from you over and over and over again because they know that you get them.
There you have it, 7 signs that you have a useless website and what to do about it.
The main thing you can do to avoid your website being seen as useless is to create a WOW! Website.
What’s a WOW! Website? It’s the exact opposite of those 7 don’ts.
Then watch this video that talks about a new training series I’m creating on our YouTube Channel that gives you the truth, plus the ins and outs of what you need to do to create your own WOW! Website. Start reaping the benefits of having a WOW! Website that works for you 24/7/365.
What is the first thing you need to address on your website after reading this post?
Let us know in the comments.
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