Why Your Website Isn’t Converting (And What to Fix First)

Speaker A: Maybe you've invested thousands of dollars into marketing, into getting your website copy customer ready, but it's not producing the results that you invested in. On today's episode, we're going to talk about why that is, why your website is not making the money it should be, even though it's beautifully designed. And we're going to tell you exactly what to do to fix it. All right, let's jump in. So problem number one that you may be facing is that your Hero section is not clear. As soon as users land on your homepage, they need to understand how you can help them and how you're different within the first five seconds. And they need to be able to do that without even scrolling. So that Hero section, that top section of your website that they see before they even scroll down, this is the most important real estate on your entire website. This is what customers are using to decide if they want to keep scrolling, if they want to keep exploring your website. So it's so essential to make sure that this is super clear. As I have seen a copy under the Hero slice, changing that copy to be more clear and relatable to the audience increase conversions by 47%. So if that's the case for that space under the Hero section, imagine what it could do for your hero copy. Now, here's how to fix it. This is what we do for our clients. If you've invested thousands into your website, you're investing thousands into your marketing. Make sure you're taking time to invest into the copy that your users are reading here. So the quick fix is you want to start by understanding why people are coming to your website, where are they primarily coming from, and what is it they're looking for when they read that copy, they need to know immediately, this is what I need. This is what I was looking for. So whatever copy, whatever messaging is going to speak to that intent that they have, that's what needs to go in your Hero slice. And you can do some testing with this. You can talk to your customers, you can test out different versions, right? And making sure that you get that right, you definitely want to be spending some time making sure that that is optimized for conversions. Now, the second problem you might be having is that your call to actions aren't compelling. So what I mean by call to action is what is it that you're telling your customers to do next? When people go to your website, what is it that you are asking them to do, right? And so that includes the buttons that are on your website. Those buttons have copy on them. And those buttons should meet their intent. It should say more than just click here. It should not be generic, it should not be clever. It should just be straightforward and direct. Right? So how to fix this, you really need to think about where are they coming from, what are they looking for? And know that your button copy should set up expectations of what they're going to see when they click that button. Now, there's two approaches that you can take when you're fixing your button copy your call to actions. You can choose to be benefit driven. So for example, stating a benefit would be something like close more sales, convert more traffic. So they are identifying with that benefit that they're going to get by clicking that button and taking the next step. The other approach is just being very direct. Something like book a free call, apply for a consultation, buy this product. Both of these can be very effective approaches and you can test out different options to see what works best for your audience. But I have seen this work well across the board, regardless. If you're B2B B2C. If you have a retail business, if you have a real estate business, I've just seen these approaches work really, really well. One more thing I will say about this too is you don't want to make the copy too long because you don't want a super large button on your website. So you also wanna make sure that this looks good on mobile. Anytime you're making changes to your website, make sure you look at it on your phone. Look at the mobile version on your so you can see how people are experiencing your website when they're looking at it from a mobile phone. Okay? Now problem number three that you might be having is your website may be making people think too much and too hard. And here's what I mean. If you have too much copy on your website, if your pages are not scannable, it is a mental load on your customer. It takes too many brain calories for your reader to figure out what it is you're trying to say. The simpler you can say it, the easier people will understand it, receive it, the more likely they are to take that next step with you. Because remember this, that confusion causes friction. A lack of clarity causes friction. So here's how you fix that. You want to reduce the copy on your website. The guideline that we typically use for our clients is we try to make our paragraphs between one to three lines long and no longer than that. There are some exceptions, right? If you're writing a founder story, an about page, there may be room to kind, uh, of play around with that and have longer text. But on any page that is meant to be a conversion page, for example, a homepage, a services page, you really want it to be super clear, concise and scannable. You don't want long blocks of text. The last thing I'll say about this is you want to make sure that your headers are telling a story. And what I mean by that is some people are not reading your whole website. They're scanning it. And so they're going to look at the headers, the titles above that paragraph, right? That font that's in bold, and that's all they're going to read. And if they see something that catches their eye, then they may go on to read the few lines that are under it, but in many cases they're not. And so you want to make sure that those headings are very clear, that it's providing the most important information, and that you're not trying to be overly clever, but you are just giving your reader what it is that they need to know to be able to trust you, see that you solve their problem, and want to continue to work with you. Okay, the last problem that I'm going to talk about, problem number four, is that users may not be able to find what they're looking for on your website. Now, I have seen websites, they go on and on about their story, their products, how wonderful they are, and they don't answer any of the questions that their potential customers actually have. Things like, can you solve my problem? Why should I trust you? How are you different? How can I work with you? You would be surprised at how difficult some businesses make it to actually find the information that their customers are looking for or even purchase from. So to fix this, we always recommend easy, clear navigation. Find out what your customers care about most, what they want to know, what are the top one, two, max, three things that you want them to be able to do on your website. And keep your navigation super clear, super concise and clean so that they can more easily find it. If you give them too many options, it's going to confuse them, it's going to make them think too hard, and you don't want to lose that person from your website. You don't want them to bounce off your website. So it's so important to limit the number of pages that you have and make it super easy to find. Make sure you have very clear labels for your navigation. Don't try to be clever. And remember that more options in your navigation means more friction so only keep it to what you absolutely need. Now if you're in a retail industry or you have an E commerce store or something like that, there's going to be some exceptions to this. But you still want to make things really easy to navigate, super clear and try to reduce the number of options that you give your customer. Okay, so now let's go and recap the four different problems you may need to fix in order to start making more money from your website. The first one, hero section being unclear. The second one, your call to actions not being compelling enough. The third one, your website is making people think too much and too hard. You have too much copy on there. And number four, users can't find what they're looking for. Remember, friend, great design is helpful, but it only works when it's complimenting copy that speaks clearly and directly to your ideal customers. And listen, if you need support fixing your website so that it's clear, compelling and conversion optimized, we can help. Just head over to HoneyAndIgital Co contact. I'll link it in the show notes for you and you can apply for a free consultation to see if we're the right fit to serve your business.