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Is poor website usability killing your profits?

You have a website. It’s optimized for search engines, and you’re happy with the traffic your website gets. Your site boasts a sleek design and professional copy you are proud to say represents you. Still, after all the money and time you’ve spent on optimization, design and copy, your site fails to bring in profits. You can’t put your finger on what’s wrong.

Your visitors might not be getting the best experience when they visit your website. If they don’t get the best experience, they won’t learn more, click here, download now or buy now – no matter how big, bold and colorful you make the links. Web usability is a very important factor in your web conversions.

Website usability refers to how easy your site is to use. If your website is not easy to use, visitors will click away. Thus, poor usability could be the culprit that’s killing your conversions and profits.

So, what can you do?

First, take a really good look at your website. Ask yourself these questions:

Is my website easy to use? Is my navigation simple? Are there too many links? Do the link titles make sense? Are link names relevant to the information on the corresponding pages?
Is my site efficient? Can visitors move quickly and logically around my website? Can they complete tasks quickly? Are forms too long? Is the purchasing process too complicated?
Is the web experience memorable to my visitors? If they come back, will they instinctively know where to go to find what they need or make a purchase immediately?
Are there errors on my site? Do forms time-out? Are there errors on forms that prevent visitors from completing the process? Are links broken? Does my error page work?
Does my website satisfy visitors? Is the overall experience frustrating? Does my website deliver the information promised? Is it a headache to navigate my website? Do visitors leave confused?

Next, take these questions to you current customers and web visitors. Collect data from your visitors. Implement a survey that pops up when a visit attempts to leave your website. Ask your visitors if the experience was satisfying. Ask them why they chose not to buy from you.

Finally, hire a web usability consultant to perform a review of your website. The web usability consultant will provide you with a report that explains where your usability fails. If something is making your visitors leave without learning more, buying now, registering here or downloading now, your web usability consultant will tell you what it is. You can take this report back to your designer or developer and get those things fixed. Once you do, your conversions will most likely improve.

Remember you can’t convert visits to profits if you can’t keep visitors interested long enough to take the next step.

Do you want to know if poor web usability is turning away website visitors and killing your profits? Contact me today to request a web usability audit.

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Ayana Glaze is an award-winning freelance website copywriter and web marketing consultant located in Atlanta, GA. She provides seo copywriting, content development and content management services to businesses of all types and sizes. Ayana authors two blogs – Content Ranks and Websites in Focus. Content Ranks discusses copywriting, content development and content management. Websites in Focus discuss website usability, testing, design and information architecture as they relate the web marketing. Visit Ayana online at www.AyanaGlaze.com.