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Common Website Mistakes That Kill Conversions

Your website could be reliable, eye-catching, and seemingly polished. But if it contains any of a number of seemingly benign errors, you could be letting countless potential customers and clients slip through your fingers. These mistakes will kill your conversions. They include ineffectual ad copy, unnecessary features, and off-putting security.

Ineffectual Ad Copy

At the birth of modern advertising, most advertisements merely informed the audience of the product’s existence. At best, they would explain the product’s benefits in a verbose or generic manner. Your ad copy needs to do more. Consumers have long been resistant to these ancient tactics; a visitor won’t turn into a customer unless they are inspired to. Bland, overly long, or unexciting ad copy is a conversion killer. Ad copy should grab the audience on an emotional level and quickly spur them toward a specific action. Of course, ad copy should not sound bossy or overtly manipulative. Certain products or services demand more subtlety than others. However, strengthening your ad copy with more appealing calls to action can turn this conversion killer into a conversion winner.

Unnecessary Features

The more options a website offers, the better, right? Not always. Studies show that when potential customers are given too many options to consciously compare, they feel overwhelmed and are less likely to buy anything. Having too many options, and presenting those options poorly, is a conversion killer. Only give users the options they need when they need them. Don’t drag them away from a shopping cart checkout page with distracting advertisements. Don’t give them a butt
on to reset a modestly sized registration form. Don’t make them jump through hoops to get what you both want. Decrease the customer’s cognitive load and give them the options that matter in an intuitive format. The conversion rate will show it.

Off-Putting Security

What if your grocery store cart vanished whenever you took more than two steps away from it? Don’t put your website customers through a similarly frustrating ordeal with unnecessarily expiring sessions. In many cases there is never any need to forcibly log users out. Where money or highly personal information is involved, it may make sense to log users out after a period of time. In these cases, however, the website should save all form information the user has entered so far for their next visit. If users see your website pour their efforts down the drain, they will become irritated and mistrustful. Nothing could kill a conversion faster.

Written By

Eric Wyatt writes on internet marketing and social media. He particularly focuses on conversion rate optimization and landing page design.

27 Comments

27 Comments

  1. Nawaz

    July 14, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    I think less and quality options are the best for the customers.With less option probability of selection increases.

  2. Darin Cunningham

    July 14, 2011 at 7:41 pm

    True Carrie, more features which we feel is good may look confusing to our potential customers. Presenting our customers too many options can draw them away instead, so we have to be thorough on this feature.

  3. jaust231

    July 15, 2011 at 5:33 am

    I never thought those activities are affecting so much with the conversions.. thanks for the insight..

  4. Ellen

    July 17, 2011 at 11:13 am

    I dont agree completely with Carrie, since it really depends what type of site you are running. If you are running your own webshop you will be right, but if you make money on a CPM or CPS basis I wouldnt agree with you.

  5. reeha

    July 17, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    All these points are true. mostly people add useless features for their readers or customers just to attract them but i makes your design more complicated. so its better to add those features which are for your use and your customers use only.

  6. jandelaria

    July 18, 2011 at 5:53 am

    Hmm.. I think ellen is on to something.. but nonetheless.. this post was pretty helpful for me..

  7. Nick

    July 18, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    I’ve found i’m always most eager to buy when there are just 3 options (eg. begginner plan / normal plan / advanced plan).

    Easy to compare and understand.

  8. jesty

    July 19, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    Very nice post! thanks so much man! you’ve really help me a lot..

  9. Raymund

    July 22, 2011 at 2:56 am

    As a shopper, I am overwhelmed when may products are presented in a single webpage especially when they are almost similar to each other. Each webpage should only present at least one product and its features so that buyers like me will not be overwhelmed or confused on what to buy.

  10. Josh

    July 26, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Like and appreciate your work, really that was very interesting and informative post, thanks for sharing the above post.

  11. Naked Crook

    July 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    I disagree with the security aspect.

    In today’s day and age, there is no such thing as “too much security”

    If I saw a website flushes my private information away, into a void, never to be seen again…assuming that information was, I dunno, CREDIT CARD INFORMATION…I would be happy, knowing that nobody else can get that. information.

    Considering the fact that if there was a malicious cyber attack on a website, the security certificates would change. When the certificate changes, the end user is informed by most decent web browsers, like Firefox.

    With super-uptight security that never saves information, and makes “a shopping cart vanish”, this could make the difference between identity theft, and walking away unscathed.

  12. Mia Foster

    August 9, 2011 at 4:12 am

    It’s continuously cool to arrive along a site like yours that has this kind of topics to scan about. Totally enjoyed and can undoubtedly be returning often.

  13. Katrina

    August 12, 2011 at 10:02 am

    Hey the tips seem really very useful Will keep in mind for my website.

  14. Sherlyn Chopra

    August 18, 2011 at 6:47 am

    This is a very helpful post.

  15. Rahul

    August 18, 2011 at 9:37 am

    These tips is useful for all the newbies in online business. Great work!

  16. Amar Ujala Epaper

    August 19, 2011 at 7:10 am

    Good one!

  17. robber

    August 19, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    I like this senetence” the fact that if there was a malicious cyber attack on a website, the security certificates would change;”

    Thanks for sharing!!

  18. Virat Kohli

    August 22, 2011 at 9:34 am

    This is an interesting article worth sharing with my friends.
    Thanks.

  19. Sandra

    September 4, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    3 good points. But the list could’ve been longer.
    But the 3 points that you wrote about are very good to know.

  20. Kareena Kapoor

    September 6, 2011 at 9:51 am

    The tips provided by you have proved really very useful.

  21. mamtam

    September 9, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    this tips provided by you have proved really very useful.

  22. Namitha

    September 14, 2011 at 8:09 am

    Thanks for these helpful tips.

  23. kevin

    September 22, 2011 at 6:14 am

    Okay.. These are all new to me.. thanks a lot for sharing this!

  24. Jerryl

    October 4, 2011 at 6:43 am

    Seems basic but effective tips in preserving visitors to one’s site.

  25. Rahul

    November 3, 2011 at 5:25 am

    Excellent article. Very helpful.

  26. Merry Christmas

    December 7, 2011 at 11:03 am

    Very nice article. Thanks for sharing this helpful resource.

  27. Rahul

    December 7, 2011 at 11:05 am

    Thank God! I read this article else I would have continued committing such mistakes. Excellent post!

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