Full Transcript
[0:00]
Welcome to the 805 Web Minute. And today we're talking about why your website might be costing you customers while you sleep. Setting up a site is just the start. We're providing a quick 15 minute checkup. The exact perspective of a potential customer on the central coast takes when they land on your page for the very first time. Right, because it's so easy to forget that your website isn't just a brochure sitting there. No, not at all. It's like a 247 sales rep for your business. Exactly. And if that rep looks sloppy or is slow, well, it's making a really bad first impression for you. And it's making those decisions in a split second. That's absolutely right. We call this the initial perception phase. Yeah. This is that moment where the customer decides consciously or not, whether you're even competent enough to handle their business. We're not talking about them reading your mission statement or anything. No, no, we're talking about a judgment that is formed faster than you can blink. OK, let's get into this because the research here is frankly astonishing. Studies show visitors take just 50 milliseconds. 50 milliseconds. It's almost nothing. 0.05 seconds to form an opinion about your website. And by extension, your business. Yeah, and that's barely enough time for the brain to even register the colors and the layout. But in that tiny fraction of a second, the customer has already done their first credibility test. So if it looks cluttered or maybe a bit dated, they are already halfway out the door. And the impact of that snap judgment is huge. I saw some Stanford research that found 75% of people judge a business's credibility based only on its website design. 75%. Think about that. They are literally judging the book by its cover. Before they've read a single word. Right. Before your glowing testimonials or your list of services even matter, there's this psychological thing at play called cognitive fluency. OK. Basically, if your site is easy to process, it loads fast, design is clean. The brain equates that ease with trustworthiness.
[2:01]
It's a clunky, slow experience. Frigures distrust. The brain just sees it as unnecessary work. That perfectly sets up our first two checks then. The first one is all about pure performance. It has to be. The speed test. Speed is the ultimate friction killer. It doesn't matter how great your site looks if it never shows up. So what should people do right now? OK. Grab your phone. And this is important. Clear your browser history. So you get a true first time load. Then open your website. And we have to be ruthless here, right? We're measuring how long it takes for the page to be not just loaded but clickable. Yes. The data here is it's terrifying for slow sites. Google research shows that 53% of mobile visitors will leave if a page takes more than three seconds. More than half your audience is just a scone. Poof. Gone. And it isn't just about the little loading bar finishing. It's about the site being stable and interactive. What do you mean by that? Well, our images still jumping around is the text shifting. Can you actually click the button? You want to click? If any of that's still happening after three seconds, it's a fail. That's a great point. And the focus of mobile is because that's where everyone is. The world lives on their phones. Over 62% of all website traffic is from mobile devices now. So if you're failing the speed test on your phone, you're failing for the vast majority of your audience. A slow site is a giant leak in your sales pipeline. OK, so let's say we pass the speed check, the site loaded quickly, what's next? The next step is usability. We call it the mobile test, or maybe more informally, the thumb test. The thumb test, I like it. The idea is simple. Most people are browsing with one hand, right? They're holding a coffee. They're waiting in line. Sure. So can you navigate your entire site using just your thumb? If you can't, you failed the test. Enforcing people to use two hands. That's a bigger deal than it sounds. Oh, it's huge. Visitors are five times more likely to leave a website that isn't really mobile friendly. And that's more than just having the text shrink down. Way more. You need to check for specific failures.
[4:02]
Can you read the text without pinching and zooming? That's a big one. It's a cardinal sin. And are the buttons big enough to tap easily with your thumb? Or are they all crammed together? Causing you to misclick and get frustrated. Exactly. And this is where so much business is lost. The forms. Try filling out your own contact form on your phone. Does it make it easy? Did the right keyboard pop up for the phone number? Right. If you have to zoom in or scroll all over the place, that customer who is ready to contact you is now gone. OK, so let's move on. Let's say the site loaded fast. It looks good on mobile. The customer's initial impression is positive. Right. Now they're in the investigation phase. They have one question. How do I reach them right now? This brings us to the contact info test. And the goal here is just simplicity and speed. If a customer wants to call you, how many taps does it take? From any page on your site. The expectation is pretty much instant, isn't it? Totally. If they have to hunt for it, click a menu, scroll to the footer, find the contact page. You've just lowered the chances they'll ever call. The research on this is really compelling. It is. Studies show 44% of visitors will leave a website if they can't find contact info or a phone number. Almost half. They just assume you don't want their business. Or that you're trying to be hard to reach. But here's where it gets even worse. OK. Bright local found that 66% of consumers would immediately lose trust if the phone number listed is wrong. Wow. So it's not just about having it. It's about it being accurate. Accuracy is everything. A wrong number screams neglect. It tells the customer, hey, if they can't even get their own phone number right, how are they going to handle my project? That's a really powerful point. So what's the checklist here? First, phone number visible on every single page. Header and footer, ideally. And it has to be clickable. Tap to call. OK. Second, check your address and your hours. Are they current? Did you forget to take down your old holiday hours? That creates instant doubt.
[6:02]
And finally, make sure there's an email option for people who prefer to write. So can you find how to contact you in five seconds? That's the real test here. That's the pass-fail line, which leads us to write into section three, trust and maintenance. Right. So the customer knows they can contact you. Now they're asking that final question. Do I trust this business with my money? And this is where those visual and technical signals are so important. This starts with what we call the trust test. We already know 75% of people judge you on design, but let's dig into what a poor design really costs you. Because you could be the best at what you do. But if your website looks amateur, you're just torpedoing your own business before you even start. Adobe found that 38% of visitors will leave a website just because of poor design and content. They don't give you a second chance. Nope. One look and they're gone. If it looks like a generic template from five years ago, they assume your services are just as dated. So what are the key trust signals people should be looking for on their own site? Well, the design needs to be modern and clean, but the content has to be authentic. Meaning no generic stock photos. Please no generic stock photos. We want to see real pictures of you, your team, your actual work, that smiling person with a headset. Everyone knows they're not real. Real images build a connection. They do. You also need real testimonials and a genuine about us page. People want to hire people, not a faceless company. And what about the technical side of trust? There's one big one. The little padlock. The SSL certificate. HTTPS. Yes. If that padlock is missing, modern browsers will literally scream a warning at the user. And the research shows a staggering 82% of people will abandon a site that doesn't have it. 82%. That is almost everyone. It's basically universal abandonment. You're telling four out of five customers that you're either unprofessional or maybe even dangerous. It is not optional. OK, so we've got the design.
[8:02]
We've got the security. Now what about just upkeep? That brings us to the broken stuff test. Nothing. And I mean nothing destroys trust faster than a broken experience. When you click a link and get that 404 or not found page. It's more than an annoyance. Research shows 71% of visitors say broken links reduce their trust in a business. And the frustration level is just through the roof. Absolutely. 88% of users get frustrated by broken links. And sites with them have a 38% higher bounce rate. So 38% more people are leaving without doing anything. Yes. So the checkup is simple. Go click on every single one of your menu links. Do they get where they're supposed to? Right. And submit your contact form again. Did you get the email? Did the user see a thank you message? What about social media icons? Check those too. Do they go to your active profiles or some account you abandoned in 2018? And finally, just scan for outdated info. Anything that says 2023 or mentions an old promotion. That stuff creates doubt. If the promotions are old, a customer starts to wonder if your prices or your hours are old too. It all just makes them stop and think. And that's when they leave. Exactly. It drives them straight to a competitor. Which brings us to our final and maybe most important checkup. This is the hard truth section. We call it the what I call test. This is where you have to be brutally honest with yourself. Yes. We want you, the listener, to pretend you're a brand new customer. You know nothing about your business. You're comparing your site to a sharp, fast, secure competitor site. So you open your own website, you look at everything we just talked about. And you ask yourself, honestly, based only on what I see on the screen, what I feel confident calling this business right now. And you have to avoid making excuses. You know, oh, but my work is really good. Strangers don't know that yet. Your website is your only representative in this moment. And if the competitor site is cleaner and faster, they win. And the data backs this up. Yeah. There was a bright local study that found 63% of consumers said finding
[10:03]
incorrect information would stop them from choosing a business. It would stop them. That's not a maybe. That's a definitive loss of business. So if you hesitate, if you find yourself making an excuse for how something looks, you failed the test. Yeah. A pass means you would honestly call no hesitation, feeling confident just from looking at the screen. Okay, let's tell you the scorecard. We had six checkups, speed, mobile contact, trust, broken stuff, and what I call. Right. You've got six passes. You're in solid shape. Just make sure to check again in a few months. What if you only got say four or five passes? Then you have some significant issues that are definitely costing you customers right now. You need to pay attention to this. And two to three passes. That means your website needs serious intervention. Every day it stays like that. You are actively losing business. And for those who scored zero or one, that's a tough spot. That's the hard truth. Your website might be actively damaging your business's reputation. At that point, sometimes no website is better than a bad one. So if you failed, what are the options? Well, you really have three paths. First, you can try to fix it yourself, but you have to be honest about the time and the technical skill that takes. And how long it's been broken already? Good point. Option two is to hire someone for a one-time fix. That solves the immediate problem. But you risk being right back here in a year when things break again. And then option three. Hand it off completely to a managed service. This is for business owners who just want it to work forever without having to think about it. It really comes down to where you want to spend your time. Exactly. Do you want to be a part-time website manager or do you want to focus on your customers? Because at the end of the day, every day your site fails these tests. You're just handing customers over to your competitors. That's the quick tip for today. If you want a professional website without the agency price tag or the DIY headache, here is the better way. At Ugrow.Pro, we build it, we manage it. And we handle every update forever for just $79 a month.
[12:04]
There is zero setup fee, no contract, and it is strictly month to month. So there is zero risk. We're local here in AG and we can have you live in days, not months. Want to see what your site could look like? Go to Ugrow.Pro right now and we'll design three custom mock-ups for your business, completely free, no strings attached. Thanks for listening and keep growing.