The common website mistakes that affect conversion | Booth Book

The common website mistakes that affect conversion

So you’ve done it, you’ve gone and built what you believe to be a beautiful website, put it out there for all of the world to see and with the hope that leads will come flocking to you and then….nothing. Have you ever wondered why you’re not getting conversions off your website? What causes you to have people click on your web page but then never hear from them (you are using google tag manager or google analytics right?!)? Chances are it’s one of these common mistakes that are keeping your customers away. I’ll cover six major issues that will help you bring in more business with quick and easy fixes.

But first:

Before continuing, ask yourself a few fundamental questions:

  • What are the goals of my website?
  • Who are the target customers or clients?
  • How will I drive traffic to the website?
  • Would I stay on my website if I were the customer?
  • How easy is it to read my site?
  • How do I convert a visitor?
     

6) You sell your photo booths like you’re selling to another boother
 

I’ll admit, I’ve been guilty of this myself. You love the booth world and all of the cool new booths, types, and products that are offered. I mean honestly, what other job can you have where you are making people happy, creating memories and trying new things. You buy something new at Photo Booth Expo and are so excited to show it off and get it on your site, but how do you sell it?

Your booth manufacturer probably has some great buzz words to catch your attention and get's you very excited since you know all of the terms and booth types, but do your customers? When your customers are looking for a photo booth, they don’t know what all the different types are, nor what they all do. If you start talking about an ipad booth by brand name, or a mirror style by brand name, they won’t know what any of that means, but your competition will. 

Sell your booth on your site in plain english and most importantly, sell the experience. Things like “our all digital booth takes amazing photos that you can text or email your clients immediately!” are a lot more appealing to a client than “Generic name iPad Brand photo booth” where they don’t know what that brand is or what it does. Think about what terms you are looking for when you’re searching for a service or item. For example, take a Mechanic, are you searching for “mechanics your city” or are you searching for “Snap-on user your city”? You’re going to look for a mechanic because unless you know about tools you wouldn’t know that they might use snap-on tools. That is the same thing your clients are going to do when searching for your services, so make it easy for them to understand and search. Think about who your target customers are.

 

5) How does your website look on Mobile?

When you build your website you’re probably building it on your computer. You love every piece of it, and the images look amazing on that 27in screen you’re using. There’s tons of information, you’ve followed the above tip and it’s all in 'easy to read' format! Yet you look at your analytics and see your bounce rate is high - what happened?!

Did you check to see what it looks like on your phone or tablet before launching? 70% of web traffic is from mobile users (1), and that doesn’t include tablet devices. That number actually increases in the younger generation of users. When you think about it, what is the most likely age range of your client looking for a photo booth and what device will they be using? If you said 20-35 and a mobile device, you would be correct.

This is why it’s very important to ensure that your website not only looks great, but is responsive on all devices. In fact 57% of users said they wouldn’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site (2). Think about it, if you can’t find something easy on a website, would you stay on it? No, you’d move on to the next business website, ie. your competitor! Make it so there is no small, hard to click buttons or links. Make the customer journey easy to follow on a mobile device and so that on a small screen it’s as readable and useful as a full screen computer. Do this and you’ll increase your customers.

 

4) How easy is it to navigate and read/ view your site?

Do you remember those sites that are nothing but flashing lights, music playing, and annoying things all over the page? No, you’re too young? Well let me tell ya, it was horrible! What’s worse is there are still websites like that out there today! You have just 7 seconds to make a first impression on your next client, don’t let those 7 seconds be your website just loading. (3)

If you’re one of those people that might like that style of website, ask 10 random people if they would like it and if they would buy from you. That should make you change your mind. If that doesn’t, then the fact that 75% of consumers admit they judge a business credibility on their website design and 94% of that is design related! (4)

So a simple, sleek website is the best option here. That doesn’t mean you can’t showcase your products, because you should, you just need to do so in a way that is elegant and straight forward for your potential customers. Look at some of the largest companies in the world and experience how easy it is to navigate their site (on desktop and mobile!), find what you're after without getting distracted by flashing lights or text that hurts your eyes because it’s bright yellow on a white background.

 

3) Do you know where you are located?

Google loves to show results based on location and location based services. Your clients, who are searching for you on their cell phones as we talked about previously, will be shown results based on their current location. Well, how do you make sure your business shows up in that result? 

If your site doesn’t list where you are located (especially on your homepage!) then how do your clients, or Google, know where you are located? There are 19,502 cities, towns, and villages in the USA and 49,021 cities, towns, villages, hamlets and suburban areas in the UK….Wow that’s a lot. So where does google know where to put you?  This falls back to simple SEO and targeting your correct audience. The simplest solution to this is ensuring your page and even title mention your city or area you cover. A map on your website also gives people a visual representation of where you are and serve.

 

2) How do we contact you?


So you’re sitting by your phone. You’re just waiting for those bookings to come in. You’ve got competitive prices, great products, and some awesome props, but no one is contacting you. Well, how does your website tell people to contact you? Is your phone number present and visible for everyone to see? Is there a contact us button or email address listed and easily found? 

These are things that once again, Google, and your customers are looking for on your site. Google will show your phone number in the search infobox for you, but they expect a number. Even with the smaller number of people wanting to actually call people, they expect a real company to have a number present if they need it. Not having a phone number will actually cause people to skip over you and go to another company; they need that reassurance your an established business. In fact 70% of mobile searchers who are looking to purchase online placed a call to a business from the search results page. (5)

If you go to a site, and can’t easily find a phone number or email address for them, what do you do? You might take an extra minute and see if there is an about us or contact us page right? But when you can’t find it you just leave the page don’t you? So why would your customers stay on your page if you’re making them work to get in touch with you? Wouldn’t they think “If I can’t get a number when I want to buy from them, I doubt it'll be easy to get in touch when I am already a client?”. The good news is this is an easy fix. For those in the US you can get a google voice number for your business. For those in other countries there are other VOIP options that work just as well. Then just a quick update of your site and you’r  e well on your way!

 

1) The biggest one, what are your calls to actions, or are there any?

So you’ve done the hardest part of it all. You’ve gotten your clients to your site. You’ve gotten them to stay on your site longer than eight seconds, the average human attention span, and they like what they see. So what do they do now? Well, you hope they book you right?!

Not so fast. How are they going to get pricing or book you? Do you have a call to action (CTA) plan on your site? Do you have buttons and text that make it easy for the customer to know what to do next? If there is not an easy to find CTA, then your site visitors will not become your customers. 

Now that they’re on your site you need to figure out how you’re going to convert them. Are you using a booking software like Boothbook where you want them to check pricing and book immediately? Then how do they know to do that? If you have a big “Check Pricing Now” button then you can convert them to a hot lead and they know what the next step is. If you have pricing listed on your site but next to each price there isn’t a “book now” button then how are they going to know what to do? 

Amazon is the best example of how this works. When you go to their site and you want to purchase something, how easy is it to? Think about any site that you shop at, how many times do you see an “add to cart” or “buy instantly button”? The easier you make it for your potential customers, the more likely they are to book there and then. People do not want to wait for you to respond back and forth with emails to get pricing and book. People want instant gratification and a call to action button that is clear and decisive gives them that instant gratification. Hubspot has some great examples at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/call-...
Personally I’ve got a CTA button and lead form in at least 2 spots on every page and it’s made a huge difference. Now you can figure out the goals of your website and how to convert more of your visitors.

 

What should I do now?

Let’s look at the things we first listed at the start of this blog:

  • What are the goals of my website?
  • Who are the target customers or clients?
  • How will I drive traffic to the website?
  • Would I stay on my website if I was a customer?
  • How easy is it to read my site?
  • How do I convert a visitor?
  • You should have a much better understanding of why these are important and how 

 

Now you’ve read through all of this, you may have some homework to do. Go to your friends and have them look over your website with you. Ask them what they honestly think and see if you have any of these mistakes. I will guarantee you have at least one of them, and that’s ok, because you now know about them. Make the changes to your site and continue to work on your SEO and you’ll start to see an increase in leads and bookings.

 

Sources:
1- https://techjury.net/blog/what-percentag...
2- https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/mobile-ma...
3- https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketin...
4- https://www.kinesisinc.com/the-truth-abo...
5- https://adwords.googleblog.com/2013/09/n...

 

 

 

About the Author: 

I’d be lost if it wasn’t for BoothBook. It has transformed the way I’m able to get my business to the next level. It has freed up my time, so I'm not stuck with the daily admin duties I was dealing with like sending invoices, getting contracts signed and collecting payments.

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