Is Your Website Working for You or Against You?


Every time I do online research, I find broken things. I'm curious; I like to see how things work. And it's quite amazing how many times I find things that don't work, or don't work well. I'm not just talking about small business websites - even big brands fail sometimes. The thing is, big brands usually have a reputation which leads people to forgive or ignore more easily.

I've written before about how important it is to audit your website at least quarterly. (I pay someone to do it for me and it's well worth it.) If you haven't done a website audit recently, now is a great time.

Here are a handful of specific things to check. Is your website doing these things well?

  • Be really clear about the benefits to potential customers and put that front and centre. More money and more time are great - but how much?
  • Read and test everything yourself. Don't rely on what others tell you. I've seen a lot of non-functional website forms and such that business owners assumed worked as promised.
  • When setting up a log-in is part of your intake process, include rules about the new password about to be set up. For example, a minimum of 8 characters is required.
  • If you're relying on a demo of some sort to show off the effectiveness of your offer, make sure it actually does that, and not the opposite.
  • Click on every link, let it load and make sure it goes where's it's supposed to.
After you have all the kinks worked out, here's one more important thing to consider: lead visitors to the action you want them to take on your website... and carefully figure out exactly what that action is.

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