Your website is a reflection of you and your business, so you want it to look and feel amazing to users, right? Let’s jump into the seven ways your website might be missing the mark, so you can give your users the best experience possible.

1.) Not Enough White Space

What do we mean when we say “white space”? Simply put, it is the room your website has to breathe. Have you ever seen a page that is so loaded with paragraphs and paragraphs of tiny text, and some pictures jammed in at the sides and you don’t even know where to look? Yeah, they didn’t consider white space. It is easy to get overwhelmed by too much information in the form of pictures, text, buttons, etc. Make sure there is a balance at play so users don’t run away too quickly.

2.) Your Website isn’t Cohesive

Your branding should be solid enough that it flows throughout the entire website. If you have photos that are generic and don’t fit your boho branding, and your color palette is more ocean than free-spirited, users will likely feel confused as to who you are. Users want to feel like they can trust who you are. If you haven’t really even figured that out yet, or it at least appears that way, it won’t make people want to work with you.

3.) No clear Call-to-Action

When users visit your website, you likely want them to do something very specific, like book a consultation call with you, or download your free workbook. Do they know that, though? Using buttons that are intentionally placed throughout your website is vital. Great spots for your most important CTA’s are in the header, and right in the intro section of your website.

*The CTA button gives users a clear path to take*

4.) No Clear Way to Contact You

Picture this. Someone excitedly is scrolling your website, they love what they see. They cannot wait to talk to you. They go to fill out a form or email you, call you, and they can’t. Make sure you have not only a Contact page with a form and whatever vital info they need to contact you, but put your info in your footer as well. Never make it difficult for someone to contact you. People will give up quickly if anything on a website it too challenging to figure out. Remember, you want to cultivate trust and credibility with users, not leave them scratching their heads.

5.) You Haven’t Considered Your Target Audience

Are you super clear on who your customers actually are? Do you have a specific niche? Are you just trying to appeal to anybody to attract in clients? Yes, it may seem counter-intuitive to narrow down your audience, but in reality, it makes you super attractive to be expertly skilled in one area, as opposed to a jack-of-all trades. Your audience also helps inform the overall look and feel of your website. If your audience is women in the therapy and wellness space, you aren’t going to design it for the boss babes. That is a very different tone.

6.) You Haven’t Considered Responsive Design

What is responsive design, you ask? It is how your website looks on every device size, big and small. Users today are mostly looking stuff up on their phones, so did you happen to check what your pages look like on mobile-view? If you are using a platform like Squarespace, it is easy to check and toggle between desktop and mobile view. The last thing you want is a beautifully designed desktop site, only for someone to take their phone out and see a messy layout with photos overlapping each other in totally unappealing way, and scattered misalign text. You get the idea. Check all your screen sizes and thank us later!

7.) Your Website Hasn’t Been Optimized for SEO

Imagine working so hard to build your amazing website. It’s stunning layout, colors, clear CTA’s. And yet, you have no visitors. What’s the fun in launching your brilliant website when no one knows it exists? That is where SEO, or Search Engine Optimization comes into play. Search Engines kind of have a mind of their own, and they get finicky when deciding which pages to bump up to the top, and which to shove down to the pages no one touches. So how exactly do you ensure your website is optimized for SEO? That could be a whole other blog post (coming soon!) as there are so many points to consider, but we will give you a brief scoop here.

Did you know the images on your site are a great way to utilize SEO? You can use the “alt text” to fill in keywords that search engines will see and make sure your website is bumped up. Speaking of keywords, they play a huge part in SEO. Make a list of all the words associated with your business. For example, here at Salt87 Creative, some of our keywords would be Squarespace, Website, Templates, small business. You get the idea. Make sure these words are strewn throughout your website and alt text. In Squarespace specifically, there are easy ways to input your keywords to ensure your site gets the recognition by search engines.

You also want to make sure all of your pages have titles, as this plays a big part in SEO, too. And yes, there is a difference between navigation titles and page titles. And lastly, make sure your images are as small as they can be. Compressing them greatly helps here. If you website takes too long to load, that will definitely bump it down in rankings.

We hope this list helps you make the most of your website! And stay tunes for our next post which will highlight more in depth, the importance of SEO optimization and best practices.

See ya next time :)

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